How Do I Clone a Disk For Free? Three Ways
How do I clone a disk for free? The answer is pretty simple - it's not that difficult. In fact, it can save you thousands of dollars on computer repair bills and will keep your computer running at a premium.
Disk cloning refers to the process of creating one physical copy of a drive, including all files needed to boot up the operating system from that drive. In plain English, you can consider it as a duplicate copy of the hard drive, making it very safe and effective. Of course, you cannot prevent computer failure from occurring due to mechanical failure or even accidental damage. However, by making a copy of the disk, you can prevent loss of precious data without losing the original hard disk completely.
Since it is much cheaper than buying a new hard disk and other computer components, creating one is a wise investment. Even if you do not use your computer very often, keeping your disk backup is worth the cost. If you ever experience accidental damage or data loss, having a backup will enable you to restore your data in a few clicks.
There are a number of ways to clone a disk, depending on the needs of the owner. The following are three of the most popular methods:
You can choose to backup your data to an external device or CD/DVD disk. If you plan to keep your backup information on a portable media device such as a portable hard disk (or PSP) or USB flash drive, then you will need to purchase this separately. External media is available in the form of USB drives, thumb drives, SD cards, and other such portable devices. If you intend to store your backup data on a regular CD/DVD, then you will only need to make one backup disc. However, if you intend to store your data on more than one device, then you should opt for the latter method.
The last way to clone your disk is to use an application that creates a bootable disk from your backup data. This requires disk cloning software on your computer, which you can download online. After burning the data to your selected media, then the program copies the files from your original hard drive to the bootable disk. You can then insert the bootable disc into your computer and boot up using your installed operating system. The files on the bootable disc are then overwritten with the contents from your backup. As such, if you lose the original disk, then the bootable disk can be used to restore your data.