How to Clone Windows 10/11 via Clonezilla or an Easier Tool

About Clonezilla for Windows 10/11 

Clonezilla is a free and open source partition and disk imaging/cloning program similar to Norton Ghost. It supports system deployment, bare metal backup and recovery, clone a single drive or even a single partition in various system including Linux, Mac OS, Windows, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and more.

This imaging and cloning software has three versions: Clonezilla live, Clonezilla lite server and Clonezilla SE(server edition). Clonezilla live supports single machine backup and restore, while Clonezilla lite server or SE(server edition) is for massive deployment, it allows you to clone 40 plus computers simultaneously over the network and only saves and restores only used blocks in the hard disk.

When you want to upgrade hard drive to make Windows 10/11 computer perform better, you can clone everything to the new SSD or HDD using Clonezilla disk to disk clone feature. Just see the following words to get more details on how to use Clonezilla to clone Windows 10/11 to SSD/HDD.

How to use Clonezilla to clone Windows 10/11 to a smaller drive

Here in this part, we will guide you to download and use Clonezilla to clone Windows 10/11. All the steps you need are included.

Step 1. Shrink partition

If you want to use Clonezilla to clone Windows 10/11 to smaller SSD or HDD, you need to shrink the source partition to fit the destination partition. Just skip this operation if the destination drive is the same size or larger than the source drive.

1. Go to the search box and type Disk Management and click the top result to open it.

2. Right-click the main volume (C:) > choose Shrink Volume option.

3. Click the Shrink button to reduce the size of the volume as much as possible.

When it gets done, move on to the next steps and learn how to use Clonezilla in Windows 10/11.

Step 2. Download Clonezilla and prepare boot media

Go to the official download page to download Clonezilla for Windows 10/11. You need to select the CPU architecture, file type and repository to download the right version for Clonezilla Windows 10/11 cloning. 

For example, the file type of “zip” could be used to create bootable USB stick (learn more here), and “iso” could be burnt to a DVD.

Step 3. Connect the target drive

Now connect your new hard drive to the computer. Connect the new drive via a USB adapter if there is a single room for disk in your laptop.

Step 4. Clone Windows 10/11 via Clonezilla

1. Boot Clonezilla in Windows 10/11.

Start your computer via bootable media. When Clonezilla first loads, press Enter to accept the default settings.

2. Start the wizard.

Select your language from the list. Then, select Don't touch keymap and Start Clonezilla.

3. Select mode.

Select the device_device option > choose Beginner mode to accept the default options. Then select the disk_to_local_disk local_disk_to_local_disk_clone option and press Enter.

4. Choose the source drive.

5. Choose the destination drive.

You can choose to check the source file system, or you can just choose to “Skip checking/repairing source file system”.

6. Select what to do after cloning Windows 10/11 with Clonezilla.

Choose the action to perform after the cloning. The default option is Choose reboot/shutdown/etc when everything is finished.

7. Confirm the operation.

Type Y and press Enter to confirm the cloning process.

Type Y and press Enter again to re-confirm that the data will be erased on the target drive.

Type Y and press Enter to close the boot loader. It will make the Windows 10/11 drive bootable.

8. Start cloning Windows 10/11 with Clonezilla.

This software will proceed to clone the data from the source disk to the target disk.

9. Disk is cloned.

This software will either prompt you to shut down or restart or do it automatically depending on the settings you choose in the previous step.

✍ Note:

If you are cloning Windows 10/11 to a larger drive, you may meet the issue “cloned hard drive unallocated space left”. In this case, you can expand volume as follows:

1. Go to the search box and type Disk Management and click the top result to open it.

2. Right-click the volume next to unallocated space > choose Extend Volume option.

3. Click the Next button > Select the disk with space that you want to allocate (usually the default settings) > click Next > click Finish.

Limitations of cloning Windows 10/11 with Clonezilla

However, there are some limitations you should know about Clonezilla clone Windows 10/11.

• As you can see, the whole Clonezilla disk to disk clone process needs lots of steps, which is complicated and time-consuming. And you may be confused about the operation. 

• If you want to use Clonezilla to clone Windows 10/11 to smaller SSD, shrinking the source partition is required to fit the destination partition.

• There is a chance that Clonezilla failed to clone when there is a bad sector on the drive.

• Windows not booting after clone due to different reasons, such as missing system reserved partition or EFI system partition, BIOS or UEFI boot mode dismatch, etc.

• Unable to mount Clonezilla image to restore a single file.

• It does not have a user-friendly GUI.

If you prefer an easier way to clone Windows 10/11 to SSD/HDD instead of using Clonezilla, you have to turn to other cloning software for help. Fortunately, there’s one easy-to-use Clonezilla alternative that can help you clone Windows 10/11 to new hard drive in simple steps, even to a smaller SSD.

Clone Windows 10/11 to SSD/HDD via easier alternative 

As the best Clonezilla alternative, AOMEI Backupper Professional is not only powerful disk cloning software but also remarkable backup and restore software for Windows users. Works for all Windows OS including Windows 11/10/8/7. It can help you clone Windows 10/11 hard drive to another one directly. And it can provide you with a more wonderful performance.

Check the following steps to see how to clone Windows 10/11 hard disk with Clonezilla Windows alternative - AOMEI Backupper. You may download it right now.

Steps to clone Windows 10/11 to new hard drive:

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Backupper. Click Clone and then select Disk Clone.

Step 2. Select the Windows 10/11 hard drive as the source disk.

Step 3. Select your new SSD/HDD as the destination disk.

Step 4. Check the operation summary and click Start Clone.

Tips:

• If there are bad sectors on the source disk, it is advised to uncheck Sector by sector clone box since it will clone every sector including bad sectors to the target disk.

• If the target disk is an SSD, check SSD Alignment to improve the speed of reading and writing as well as prolong the service life of SSD.

• If you want to make your computer run faster, cloning Windows 10/11 to NVMe SSD will be a great option.

Another way to transfer Windows 10/11 to new hard drive

As mentioned above, AOMEI Backup is also specialized backup and restore software. Therefore, you can transfer OS to a new drive by creating system image backup and then restoring system image to the new drive.

💛 Extra tip:

If you want to mount system/disk/partition backup image to restore individual files, you can go to Tools > Explore Image.

FAQs about Clonezilla Windows 10/11

1. Does Clonezilla work on Windows 10/11?

Clonezilla works on Windows 10/11, and you can use Clonezilla to clone Windows 10/11 and other systems to new hard drive or SSD, including the current installation, settings, apps, and personal data, etc.

2. Does Clonezilla copy the operating system?

As mentioned earlier, Clonezilla is free and open source software, which supports both disk imaging and cloning. For cloning a disk, it will clone everything and requires the target disk is larger than or equal to the source disk.

3. Does Clonezilla work with UEFI?

All Clonezilla live versions only support computers with legacy BIOS. If you want to use Clonezilla on Windows 10/11 UEFI, you could use Debian-based or Ubuntu-based AMD64 (X86-64) version of Clonezilla live.

Conclusion

Now you know how to clone Windows 10/11 via Clonezilla and AOMEI Backupper. Obviously, AOMEI Backupper is much easier and it’s the best Clonezilla alternative because it supports you to clone disk or partition in Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista/XP as you want.

Besides, it can do more than what you think to safeguard your data. For example, it enables you to create system/diskimage, restore computer to an earlier date when you need, create bootable disc in case of boot failure, etc.

For IT maintenanceandsupport engineers, they can create portable version with AOMEI Backupper Technician or Technician Plus edition to directly run this software on the target computer without installing first. It's convenient to clone Windows 10/11 on different computers.