A Detailed Guide to Clone Disk with MiniTool ShadowMaker [MiniTool Wiki]

Clone Disk is another useful feature of MiniTool ShadowMaker, which is significant for hard drive upgrading. A big difference between disk clone and disk image is that when you clone a disk, you can directly use it after the operation, while you will have to restore a disk image before you can use it directly.

MiniTool ShadowMaker even can help you to clone the dynamic disk.

Note :

Is it better to make a clone? This depends on the actual situation. If you need to upgrade the disk to a larger one without reinstalling OS, cloning is recommended. If you want to back up disk data to an image file, cloning cannot realize it but the backup feature can.

How to Clone Basic Disk?

Step 1: Open MiniTool ShadowMaker and choose Tools and then Clone Disk .

Step 2: Choose the disk you want to clone and click Next to choose where to store the copy. Then click Start to begin the process.

Step 3: Confirm that you want to start the task and wait for the process to finish.

Note : You can check the box next to Shut down the computer when the operation is completed so that the computer will shut down automatically and you can take either the source disk or the target disk out of the computer after the cloning.

The message you should pay attention to:

When disk cloning is finished successfully, you will see the following message:

This means both the source disk and the target disk have the same signature, thus one disk is marked as offline by Windows. Just remove one that you don't need.

How to Clone Dynamic Disk?

MiniTool ShadowMaker also enables you to clone the dynamic disk. Now, you can refer to the following instructions.

Note : It can only clone dynamic disks which only contain Simple Volumes to basic disks.

Step 1: Open MiniTool ShadowMaker first. Go to Tools and choose Clone Disk .

Step 2: Choose the dynamic disk you want to clone and click Next to choose the target to store the copy. Then click Start to begin the process.

Step 3: Confirm that you want to start the task.

Tip : All data on the target disk will be destroyed, so please back up them in advance.

Step 4: Wait for the process to be finished.

Step 5: When the process is finished, you will receive the following message.

This means both the source disk and the target disk have the same signature, thus you need to disconnect or remove either of them. In addition, to boot your computer from the target disk, you need to change the BIOS settings .