Sometimes, you may need to clone hard drive with bootable USB. This post from Partition Magic recommends the best bootable disk cloning software to you. Then, you can use it to create a bootable USB and use the USB to clone the hard drive.

When Do You Need to Clone Hard Drive with Bootable USB?

Disk cloning is the process of duplicating all data on a digital storage drive, such as a hard disk or solid state drive, using hardware or software techniques. Unlike file copying, disk cloning also duplicates the filesystems, partitions, drive metadata, and slack space on the drive.

For individual users, common reasons for cloning a drive include data backup and recovery, and migrating the system. However, sometimes, you may want to clone hard drive with bootable USB for the following reasons:

  • Your computer cannot boot.
  • You want to clone a hard drive without Windows.

Further Reading:

Some people may also want to clone hard drive from boot when the computer has only one hard drive slot. However, in this case, you don’t need bootable disk cloning software as you can connect the new hard drive to the PC via a USB adapter and then clone the old hard drive to the new one in Windows.

Of course, if you don’t like this way, you can also create bootable USB to clone hard drive from boot.

Also Read:Step-by-Step Guide: How to Clone M.2 SSD with Only One Slot

How to Clone Hard Drive with Bootable USB

To clone hard drive from boot, you need to use bootable disk cloning software. Then, MiniTool Partition Wizard is recommended to you.

This software allows you to create a bootable USB and then you can use this USB drive to clone a hard drive to SSD, clone Windows 10 to SSD, partition hard drives, convert MBR to GPT, recover hard drive data, etc.

MiniTool Partition Wizard DemoClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

How to use this bootable disk cloning software to clone hard drive from boot? You can refer to the following guide.

Stage 1. Create a Bootable USB

MiniTool Partition Wizard has a bootable media feature allowing you to create a bootable USB. Here is the guide:

Step 1: Connect a USB drive to a well-running computer. Download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard on this computer. Launch this software and click Bootable Media in the top right corner.

MiniTool Partition Wizard Bootable Media

Step 2: On the pop-up window, click WinPE-based media with MiniTool plug-in and then select the USB drive as the media destination. A note window will pop up. Read it and click Yes. The bootable USB will be created and you just need to wait until the process is completed.

create a bootable USB MiniTool Partition Wizard

Stage 2. Clone Hard Drive with Bootable USB

After the bootable USB is created, you can use it to clone the hard drive. Here is the guide:

Step 1: Connect the bootable USB to the computer whose hard drive you want to clone.

Step 2: Where do you want to clone the hard drive to? An internal hard drive, an external hard drive, or a USB drive? Anyway, you need to connect the destination drive to the computer.

Step 3: Make sure you have shut down the computer completely. Then, power on your computer and press the boot menu key (Esc, F2, F10, or F12). Select the USB drive to boot your computer.

Tips:
If the boot menu key doesn’t work, you can try the BIOS key. By using the BIOS key, you can enter the firmware. Change the boot device to the USB drive or place it at the top of the boot order. Then, save the changes and the computer will also boot from the bootable USB.
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2 Ways to Help You Boot PC From a USB Drive Easily

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Step 4: After the computer booting from the bootable USB, click the OK button twice. Then, wait until the MiniTool Partition Wizard’s main interface opens automatically.

Step 5: Right-click the hard drive that you want to clone and then select Copy from the context menu.

select Copy MiniTool Partition Wizard

Step 6: On the pop-up window, select the destination drive and then click Next. A warning window will pop up and you need to read it. Click Yes if you agree that the data on the destination drive will be destroyed.

Tips:
If the space of the destination drive is not larger than the used space of the cloned hard drive, the Next button will grey out.
select the destination drive MiniTool Partition Wizard

Step 7: Review the changes. If all is OK, you can click Next.

review the copy changes MiniTool Partition Wizard

Step 8: Read the NOTE and click Finish. Click the Apply button to execute the pending operation. Then, wait until the cloning process is completed.

click the Apply button MiniTool Partition Wizard

Bonus Tip

This post shows you how to clone hard drive from boot, but you may be also interested in other cloning cases. For example:

Besides, you may also encounter some issues when or after cloning a hard drive. For example:

These articles may answer your questions.

Do you want to clone hard drive from boot? This post offers you a step-by-step guide. You can try it.Click to Tweet

Bottom Line

When do you need to clone hard drive with bootable USB? How to do that? This post offers you a detailed guide and recommends the best bootable disk cloning software to you. If you encounter issues when using this software, contact us via [email protected]. We will get back to you as soon as possible.

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About The Author

Linda
Linda

Position: Columnist

Linda has been working as an editor at MiniTool for 5 years. She is always curious about computer knowledge and learns it crazily. Her articles are simple and easy to understand. Even people who do not understand computer can gain something. By the way, her special focuses are disk management, data recovery and PDF editing.