Help with cloning HDD

[xVigor]

Hi, what is going on?

So I have a bit of a problem. The hard drive that I have in my system now is very loud and makes a very scary buzzing/grinding sound really often. It the hard drive that came in the original computer I purchased about 2 years ago. It is 2tb and I want to step up to a Western Digital Black 3tb HDD. I want to get a 100% clone from the 2tb to the 3tb hard drive.
I guess I have a few questions. Can I do this? Will I have to pay for a program to do this? If any of you guys have done this, did it work well, or did you have any problems?
And just to clarify, I don't want to just get a new hard drive and re-install all of my things. I would like to get all the data bit-for-bit to the new drive.

Thanks again for all the help, have an amazing night! 😀

 

[Dogsnake]

I would suggest buying (http://www.acronis.com/en-us/) as it has been the most reliable and easy to use software to clone with that I have used over the years. The "True Image" is the version I suggest.

 

[spooky2th]

That might not work like you want. For a drive over 2TB it needs to be formatted in GPT type and I'd bet that your current 2TB drive is formatted in MBR type. Cloning a drive will format in whatever the original drive is formatted as. You will also need to have a UEFI bios to be able to boot with a GPT formatted drive. get another 2TB drive and it should work. There are plenty of free cloning apps you can download. Here's a few:

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/five-apps/five-free-and-reliable-cloning-tools/

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there xVigor,
I want to start with that the best option when changing your HDD would be to make a clean install. If your current HDD corrupted some data(as it is most probably in bad condition), the cloning process will transfer exactly the same data on your new drive. Also, as your current HDD is making some weird noises, you may want to back up the most important data that is stored on it as soon as possible.
Apart from that, as you intend to clone your current HDD on WD Black, you could use Acronis True Image WD edition: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=uw4PaC

Regarding what spooky2th mentioned about MBR and GPT, check these out:
http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATIH2012/#13043.html
https://forum.acronis.com/forum/31236

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD