Bit-by-bit copy means to copy all areas of a computer hard drive or other storage devices. It replicates all sectors including blank sectors and logically bad sectors, so it is also called sector-by-sector clone. The data stored on the cloned drive is identical to the data on the original drive.
Through bit-by-bit copy, you can:
▪ Upgrade your old hard drive to a new drive without reinstalling the operating system and all your applications.
▪ Get a replica of your computer’s main drive which can be put into use directly in case of hard drive failure.
Since bit-by-bit copy is useful, how can you complete the task?
As Microsoft hasn’t ever included a tool for making an exact copy of a hard drive in Windows, what you need is reliable bit copy software to achieve the goal of bit-by-bit copy. Qiling Disk Master Standard, the best free disk cloning software for Windows, comes to help.
In this part, I will show you how to use this bit by bit copy software on Windows 10. Before you start, you need to do some prep work.
Step 1. Download, install and run Qiling Disk Master.
Step 2. Click “Clone” on the left pane and select “Disk Clone”.
Notes:
✿ The Standard version only supports cloning a data disk. If you want to clone a system disk, please upgrade to Qiling Disk Master Professional.
✿ If you want to clone only OS, you can select “System Clone” (advanced feature).
Step 3. Select the source disk that you want to clone and click “Next”.
Step 4. Select the destination disk to store the cloned data and click “Next”.
Step 5. Tick “Sector by sector clone” to enable bit-by-bit copy. Tick "SSD Alignment" to improve the performance of SSD disk if the target disk is an SSD. Confirm the operation and click “Proceed”.
Step 6. To boot from the cloned system disk, you need to change boot order in BIOS or just replace the source drive with the target one.
With the right bit copy software, you will save much time and efforts when performing bit copy for a hard drive. In addition to the clone feature, Qiling Disk Master owns the backup, restore and sync functions. It can help you sync files from PC to WD My Cloud when you encounter WD Sync not working. Go for this tool at once!