Question Cloning my WIN 11 "C" drive

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Doug662

Jan 11, 2025
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I Have never cloned a drive before and I have a question. It took a little more than an hour to do. I used Ease Us Disk Copy to do this.
i used a USB 1TB external drive. When I go into "My PC" it looks exactly like my "C" drive and I can open files on it run a program etc. Should I try to boot from it? Or, just un hook the drive and store it? I went in to the BIOS, but it must be the settings I have with my TV/monitor because the BIOS will not fit the page and I was not sure what to do. I did see in the BIOS A bootable drive (something like that). I have allot of expensive software that I can't loose and this was my reasoning behind this. How would you go about resizing the BIOS so all can be seen?

All help would be helpful.








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Doug662 said:
I Have never cloned a drive before and I have a question. It took a little more than an hour to do. I used Ease Us Disk Copy to do this.
i used a USB 1TB external drive. When I go into "My PC" it looks exactly like my "C" drive and I can open files on it run a program etc. Should I try to boot from it? Or, just un hook the drive and store it? I went in to the BIOS, but it must be the settings I have with my TV/monitor because the BIOS will not fit the page and I was not sure what to do. I did see in the BIOS A bootable drive (something like that). I have allot of expensive software that I can't loose and this was my reasoning behind this. How would you go about resizing the BIOS so all can be seen?

All help would be helpful.








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You're doing it wrong.

A "clone" is for moving to a new internal drive, replacing the original.
You can't 'clone'; to an external and hope to boot from it.

What you really wanted to do was an Image. Your clone thing is OK, but there are better ways of storing things away for potential future use.
 
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USAFRet said:
You're doing it wrong.

A "clone" is for moving to a new internal drive, replacing the original.
You can't 'clone'; to an external and hope to boot from it.

What you really wanted to do was an Image. Your clone thing is OK, but there are better ways of storing things away for potential future use.
Click to expand...
Ok maybe clone was my word. What I had in mind was moving to a new hard drive if something happened. Is this drive good for anything the way i did? I saw in the BIOS when looked there being a bootable drive. Also do you have any insight as to how to get the BIOS to fit the screen?
 
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Ok maybe clone was my word. What I had in mind was moving to a new hard drive if something happened. Is this drive good for anything the way i did? I saw in the BIOS when looked there being a bootable drive. Also do you have any insight as to how to get the BIOS to fit the screen?
 
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Doug662 said:
Ok maybe clone was my word. What I had in mind was moving to a new hard drive if something happened. Is this drive good for anything the way i did? I saw in the BIOS when looked there being a bootable drive. Also do you have any insight as to how to get the BIOS to fit the screen?
Click to expand...
What is the original configuration?
What do you want the end state to be?
What drives are you working with, and what motherboard?
 
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When you say original I guess you mean my drive set up. It is a a Western Digital I believe 1TB. I just want to if I loose my "C" drive, I could buy another new one and move these files over and OS over. My back up drive is a Western Digital also. This a PC is an Acer machine. I am not sure about the mother board.

I read last night that what I was doing would work. And, I even bought the software they suggested. I really can't see all of the BIOS screen because of the resolution .

thank you for helping
 
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Doug662 said:
When you say original I guess you mean my drive set up. It is a a Western Digital I believe 1TB. I just want to if I loose my "C" drive, I could buy another new one and move these files over and OS over. My back up drive is a Western Digital also. This a PC is an Acer machine. I am not sure about the mother board.

I read last night that what I was doing would work. And, I even bought the software they suggested. I really can't see all of the BIOS screen because of the resolution .

thank you for helping
Click to expand...
For cloning, you don't clone to an external and then hope to boot from that while it is still external.

You clone to the new drive, then replace the old one internally, and boot from the new one.

HDD, SSD, size, etc, etc?

Again, cloning is for moving to a new drive right now.
For full drive backups, Images are the desired thing.
 
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You won't know if your clone was successful until you attempt to boot from it.

Maybe it was; maybe not.

If it was successful, you could then put the cloned drive into your closet and at some later date put it back in the PC and boot from it.

Is that what you are trying to do?

Depending on the details of your motive, imaging may be a better idea than cloning.

Imaging is best for "disaster recovery".

Cloning best used for immediate move from one drive to another...simple drive replacement. NOT disaster recovery.
 
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So, this drive , is it good for saving data on? And once again what do I do about the resolution in the BIOS. I googled this last night and trusted what I was reading was correct. All My BIAB and iZotope files and VSX and other audio programs I want to be safe.
 
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Lafong said:
You won't know if your clone was successful until you attempt to boot from it.

Maybe it was; maybe not.

If it was successful, you could then put the cloned drive into your closet and at some later date put it back in the PC and boot from it.

Is that what you are trying to do?

Depending on the details of your motive, imaging may be a better idea than cloning.

Imaging is best for "disaster recovery".

Cloning best used for immediate move from one drive to another...simple drive replacement. NOT disaster recovery.
Click to expand...
Yes. When I went in to the BIOS last night it stated a boot drive that was not in the 1 order. But like I am saying I cannot read everything.
 
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A back up for safe keeping. Sorry to be so green and things have changed since I last built a PC and I was not up on software to begin with. I want this as a crash happens I can buy a new drive and load these files on to it
 
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Doug662 said:
A back up for safe keeping. Sorry to be so green and things have changed since I last built a PC and I was not up on software to begin with. I want this as a crash happens I can buy a new drive and load these files on to it
Click to expand...
Then this is what an Image is for.

You can do this with a 'clone', but there are better options.

But with this external as it is, you can't just boot from it.
 
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