How to Make a Clone of your Hard Disk Drive

Need to Make a Clone of your Hard Disk Drive?

If you need to make a fully bootable Hard Disk Drive (HDD) for your computer then please read on.

Why Hard Disk Drives Fail?

It often happens that as a computer gets old one of the first things to start failing is the mechanical HDD. This is because it has a hard life being bounced about in laptops and suffering from thumps and vibration in desktops. Also, the mechanical HDD is a very finely manufactured device with no tolerance for misuse and the electrical power inputs, especially when starting from cold every time the computer is turned on.

Over time, hard drives gradually slow down, errors become more frequent – which is a clear sign that failure is imminent – and then one day, it dies.

When do Hard Disk Drives Fail?

How long this takes is different in every computer but the laptops being a 2.5” device are more finely made than the 3.5” in desktops and are therefore more likely to fail quicker than a desktop.

So, after 3 to 4 years, you will have probably noticed that the computer is not as fast as it was. One way to correct this is to replace the old hard drive – and one way to make the task of moving your operating system, programs and data are to “clone” (ie. make an exact copy) of the HDD. This can be done in several ways and there are several programs which are free or paid for which will do this for you.

How to Clone your Hard Disk Drive

Now, I have always used Norton’s Ghost or Acronis to “clone” my HDD’s and most of the time they work (around 95%). But recently, I came across a problem with an iMac mechanical HDD that worked fine but I needed to “clone” it to an SSD (Solid State Drive) unit. I tried Ghost and then Acronis but neither produced a bootable MacOS High Sierra drive for my customer’s iMac.

After much research, I came across SuperDuper! From Shirt Pocket.com. Incredibly, this worked the first time, so I now use this product when I can. Also incredibly, this software is a free trial version available but the author (software developer) does ask for a donation which I think is fair enough considering how good his software is.

As the author says, “SuperDuper! – Heroic System Recovery For Mere Mortals” which is a great statement and one he is entitled to make…

SuperDuper

The current version of SuperDuper! is 3.2.4 and it includes full HFS+ and APFS support for MacOS X Mojave (10.14.x), allowing the creation of the fully bootable backup. It features a clear, user-friendly interface which is easy to use and to understand, a built-in scheduler to allow the user to back up automatically. It can complement Time Machine, allowing you to store a bootable backup alongside your Time Machine volume.

This new version lets you ignore “missing drive” errors during scheduled copies, and also improves Smart Wake function, which ensures that backups happen whether your Mac is awake or asleep…and won’t turn on your screen if your Mac is already awake. It also includes Smart Delete which is an outstanding new capability that minimizes the possibility of disk full errors while maintaining a no speed penalty, native Notification Centre support, along with a Finder extension to quickly run copies along with other improvements.

SuperDuper! can even create and copy from snapshots, which means that with an APFS backup drive, you can restore a system using a current or previous Smart Update backup.

You can read more about SuperDuper! on the product’s website and for the price of US$27.95 (this is as of June 2019) and it offers arguably excellent value which I think is worth recommending.

Affordable Computer Repairs and Service

As always, here at Affordable Computer Repairs and Service, we can assist you with this drive “cloning” if you think this is beyond your level of experience or capabilities.

I thoroughly recommend that you call us on 3397 1215 or 0409 974 707 and we can assist you in rejuvenating your Windows PC or Apple Mac computer. Installing a new mechanical HDD does make a big difference or maybe the best solution is a solid-state drive (SSD). It could be the answer you need.

In my experience, changing from a mechanical HDD to a SSD makes the computer boot and run approximately 5 times as fast as it did before. The wait time for the SSD to provide information to the CPU (Central Processing Unit) is minimal, whereas with a mechanical HDD it needs to find the information on the disk and then transfer that to the CPU.

Whichever route you choose to take, here at Affordable Computer Repairs we are here to help so please call us and see what we can do for you.

Author, David from Affordable Computer Repairs and Service

Hugely happy with the service and attention provided to me over a broken laptop issue I had. Kept me up-to-date and was knowledgeable about the possible problems and fixes. Would recommend to anyone in the area or from further afield.

Bryn Jenkins

16/04/2024

Could not recommend any higher! Were more than happy to take time and talk out the issue with me at length, as well as being super affordable. I'd give more stars if i could! Thanks Mark!

Bryce Aird

20/01/2024

Fast, friendly and informative. Fixed a very tricky hard drive issue for me that saved me hours of time. Kept me informed of progress the whole time. Highly recommend Mark's services

Anthony Williams

24/11/2023

Great service and follow up support. Definitely recommend this business

Matt Cobby

07/09/2023

David was very helpful in getting my 2x printers working. I'll definitely ask for David's services in the future. Thanks David!

cleo moloney

27/06/2023

Thank you Mark for your honest appraisal and the time you took to advise me - much appreciated

Sonia “SDESIGN”

10/05/2023

My mother's computer froze & she could not use it at all. A possible virus? After a few potentially exorbitant "quotes" from nerdy geeky guys, I called Mark at Affordable Computer Repairs. He explained the possible problem and sent David out that afternoon. 1hr later my mothers computer was up and running again. Wow, that's service. I later received a follow up call from Mark explaining what David had done & reassuring us that her computer was free from virus & how to stop them in the future. Again fantastic service. Thanks to Mark & David, will definitely recommend your service to others.

Chicken Dave

18/02/2023

I have an old (2008) Acer with Vista that I never had any problems with till it recently suddenly shut down, & on reboot I couldn’t get back into Windows. Nor could I get past a black screen with an installation disk. I had a couple of reasons I was using it, one being to run a you beaut printer (that craps all over the new ones) that won’t run on Win 10, but I did expect I’d have to bite the bullet & ditch both. I had already copied everything I wanted off the laptop but had some new current files from an attached microscope I’d not yet copied over. I spoke with a couple of places that said bring it in & I’ll take a look for $110 per hour but after reading the reviews for Affordable Computer Repairs I thought I’d ring them for advice. Having had considerable experience with computers in my time I had a pretty good idea of what was what. Yep, both laptop & printer are candidates for the bin (⚰️RIP my old faithfuls ????) but Mark gave me options to possibly access the laptop through an external monitor or copy the files I want off the hard drive. It was really nice to get the kind of ‘altruistic’ service of days gone by rather than the ‘bring it in & spend money’ mentality of today. Thanks, Mark. If I have any problems with my current devices I know who I’ll call. ????

Sae Wott

10/02/2023

Mark is totally reliable and upfront. He was quick to respond and answer all my questions. He was very clear and honest about my computer. He was so reasonable in dealing with me and my dud of a computer. I highly recommend him.

Colleen Light

11/11/2022

Affordable Computer Repairs and Service Brisbane