Create a Drive Backup: Clone One Hard Drive to Another with Drive Snapshot

Create a Drive Backup: Clone One Hard Drive to Another with Drive Snapshot
Page content

What is Drive Snapshot?

Drive Snapshot is a hard drive recovery program. Unlike many types of backup software, Drive Snapshot allows you to create an exact copy of your hard drive, including system files, applications and documents. When you try to backup information from your computer with other types of software, you can’t clone a hard drive, only backup specific folders or applications.

One benefit of Drive Snapshot is the ability to continue using your system while the backup is in process. Another benefit is the ability to create high quality backups at any point in time, including backups of personal computers and servers. Drive Snapshot is also incredibly easy to use with a simple, yet straightforward user interface.

You can buy or try out Drive Snapshot here.

Image Credit: Snapshot / C.D. Crowder

Preparation

Before you can clone one hard drive to another with Drive Snapshot, you need a second hard drive to place the information on. You can also use a DVD or set of DVDs to backup your information. If you want to clone a hard drive, the easiest method is to use an external hard drive that is larger than the drive you want to clone. Connect your external hard drive or insert the first DVD before starting Drive Snapshot.

For more information on choosing an external hard drive, see Best Western Digital vs. Seagate External Hard Drives and ioSafe Solo Review: The Best External Hard Drive on the Market Today. To keep your backups secure, check out Free Password Protection for External Hard Drives.

Clone a Hard Drive

Install Drive Snapshot to the computer you want to backup. Once downloaded, double click the installation file and follow the prompts to install.

Open Drive Snapshot. Press the Backup Disk to File button. Choose the volume or disk you want to backup. Press Next. Choose where you want to save the backup. Press the Browse button to select your drive or disk. Press Start Copy. If you want, you can create a backup password by entering a password in the password boxes and choosing Store Password before starting to clone a hard drive.

Clone one hard drive to another with Drive Snapshot by restoring the saved image to a new hard drive or the existing hard drive (if the drive crashed due to a virus or other problem). Press Restore Disk From File. Press Browse to choose the location and restore file. Press Next. All data on the hard drive you are restoring to will be lost. Basically, the destination hard drive will be formatted. Select the drive you want to restore. For instance, if you are restoring your main hard drive, you will most likely choose C:.

If you need to choose additional options before restoring, right click the drive you are restoring to or the name of the hard drive itself. You can choose options such as partitioning the drive, cleaning the disk and assigning a new drive letter.

Press Next and confirm that you want to continue with the restore process. If the drive you are wanting to restore is currently in use, press Unmount drive and continue. Do not stop Drive Snapshot, disconnect the external hard drive or turn off your computer until the restoration is complete. Otherwise you may corrupt your backup and current drive.

Select Volumes

Image Credits: Snapshot