A disk image is a copy of a disk volume or an entire storage device, such as a hard disk drive, an SSD, or a USB drive. It contains the contents and structure of the source medium. There are two ways in which a disk image can be created: backup a hard drive or clone a hard drive. You will get a compressed image file if you choose “backup” and an exact, uncompressed replica if you pick “clone”.
A disk image will help you a lot in following situations:
Then, how to create a disk image in Windows? It would be like a piece of cake if you choose the right disk imaging software.
Qiling Disk Master Standard, the best free disk imaging software for Windows 7/8/10/11, can help you create a disk image without effort. It offers you all-around backup solutions as well as the clone feature.
Just get free hard drive cloning software download and follow the instructions below to image a hard drive in Windows 7. Apply to Windows 11/10/8.1/8/Vista/XP as well.
I’ll show you two efficient solutions as follows:
>> Options: you can enable email notification, choose the compression level for the backup image file and select intelligent sector backup or sector-by-sector backup, etc
>> Schedule Backup: you can set the backup task to run automatically at fixed intervals.
>> Backup Scheme: you can choose backup methods here - full backup, incremental and differential backup. It can also delete old image files automatically to save disk space for you. You need to upgrade to a higher edition to enjoy this feature.
✎ Note: After creating a disk backup image, you can use this software to create a recovery environment (paid feature) to add the "Enter into Qiling Disk Master" option to the system boot menu page. Then you can easily perform system backup restore or other backup restore operations when the system crashes.
First, connect another disk to your computer and make sure it is detected. Then, backup files on the destination disk because it will be overwritten during the cloning process. Now you can follow the steps below:
✎ Note: The Standard edition only supports cloning non-system disks. If you want to clone a disk containing OS, please upgrade to higher editions such as Qiling Disk Master Professional.
>> Edit Partitions: you can resize partitions on the destination disk as per your need. "Add unused space to all partitions" and "Manually adjust partition size" are advanced features.
>> SSD Alignment: use this option to improve the reading and writing speed of the destination disk if it is an SSD.
>> Sector by sector clone: it enables you to clone every sector on the source disk whether it is used or not. It requires the destination disk to be equal to or larger than the source disk.
If you want to image a hard drive, you can turn to the best free disk imaging software for Windows 7/8/10/11—Qiling Disk Master. It offers you two efficient solutions to image a hard disk: Disk Backup and Disk Clone. In addition to these features, it owns the sync feature that enables you to sync a laptop and a desktop. Try it now to discover more!