Free Cloning Software for Windows 11: Top 5 Choices

User case: Best free clone software for Windows 11

Is there free cloning software for Windows 11?

“Hi, I want to clone my hard drive, a Toshiba SATA, 1 gig, to a new WD 1 gig (blue) SATA. I tried using the Macrium Reflect program, free, but right near the beginning at the 7 or 8% point, it said clone failed. It wasn't allowed to 'read' the source drive. What's the easiest, simplest free cloning software for SATA? Thanks!”

- Question from Tom’s Hardware 

Why need free Windows 11 cloning software?

Since the release of Windows11, many users have been looking for a free cloning software. Some of them try to move the hard drive to a new computer and back up their disks on the computer. Others want to transfer data from one hard drive to another for different reasons, including replacing the old HDD with an SSD, upgrading the hard drive to obtain more storage space, and so on.

What's more, with cloning, all files and data on your hard drive can be effectively stored as copies. For example, information related to your operating system, system files, and other data such as passwords, etc. Thus, you can easily keep all your custom settings and not worry about boot problems.

5 Best free Windows 11 cloning software

1. AOMEI Backupper Standard

AOMEI Backupper Standard is the best free disk cloning software for Windows 11/10/8/7. Why does AOMEI Backupper stand out from much software?

✿ Clone your data disk (HDD or SSD) with just a few clicks. You can also upgrade to the Pro version to clone the system disk. It eliminates the trouble of reinstalling the operating system, saves time and effort, and you don't need to manually reconfigure the system to its original settings.
✿ Clone all brands and modes of SSDs. You can use it to transfer data to Western Digital SSD, Kingston SSD, Samsung SSD, SATA SSD, NVMe M.2 SSD, etc.
✿ Clone hard drive of different size (large to small and vice versa). The "Intelligent Clone" function provided by this software will only clone the used part to another drive.
✿ Clone to SSD by checking its SSD Alignment option to improve SSD performance and prolong its lifespan.

AOMEI Backupper Standard is free for Windows PC users with no bundled adware, and it offers a quicker speed of cloning. Download and try its powerful features now.

2. Macrium Reflect Free

Macrium Reflect Free is a free disk backup and cloning software from Macrium. It allows users to create exact copies of entire hard disks or individual partitions. The software's cloning feature is particularly useful for transferring all data, programs and settings from one computer to another. It also enables users to create a bootable USB or CD/DVD to run disk clone without loading Windows.

Note: Macrium Reflect is no longer free since January 1st, 2024.

3.DiskGenius

DiskGenius is a powerful data recovery and disk management tool for creating, resizing, cloning, backing up and recovering partitions and files on Windows-based computers. It offers a user-friendly interface and has a range of features that make it a popular choice among users.

4. DriveImage XML

DriveImage XML is a powerful but free to use Windows disk cloning solution. It is very lightweight and can be configured for direct disk-to-disk cloning as well as for creating image-based hard disk backups to files. Using DriveImage XML, you can create "hot" images from used hard drives. The images are stored in XML files, so you can access them from any supported third-party software.

5. Clonezilla

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. You can run it in various systems, including Linux, Mac OS, Windows, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and more.

How to clone HDD to SSD on Windows 11 via free AOMEI Backupper

In this part, you can learn how to clone Windows 11 data drive to an SSD using AOMEI Backupper. Before starting the cloning process, we need to do some preparatory work.

Install/connect the SSD in Windows 11

If you are using a desktop:

1. Shut down your computer and cut off the power. Open the side of the computer tower case to expose the internal hardware and wiring.

2. Connect a power cable to the SSD and attach a SATA connector. Then close your computer case and restart it.

If you are using a laptop:

In the laptop computer, you’ll need to buy something like a SATA-to-USB cable, which will let you connect a hard drive to your laptop via USB.

Note✍: If the SSD is used and there are important things on it, please back up files in advance. Because all the data in the destination will be overwritten in the cloning process. If this SSD is new, you should go to Disk Management to initialize it.

Run free disk clone in Windows 11

You can refer to the following steps to clone Windows 11 hard drive to SSD.

Step 1. Navigate to the Disk Clone option

Install and start free cloning software on Windows 11. Then you will see a dark blue interface. Click Clone in the left panel and select Disk Clone.

Note: To clone OS to SSD, please upgrade to higher editions and use the System Clone feature.

Step 2. Choose the disk to copy data from

Select the HDD as the source disk and click Next. Due to Standard edition restriction, the HDD should be a data disk which has no OS installed.

Step 3. Choose the disk to store cloned data

Select the SSD as the destination disk and click on Next.

Step 4. Begin cloning hard drive to SSD

In the Operation Summary page, check SSD Alignment option to improve the writing & reading speed of SSD disk. Confirm all other settings and click Start Clone.

Tip:
◉ Sector By Sector Clone: By default, AOMEI Backupper just clones the existing data (used sectors) on the disk. If you want to clone all sectors on the source disk, regardless of whether it is used or not, please try this option.
◉ Edit Partitions: When you click it, you'll see these options: Copy without resizing partitions, Add unused space to all partitions, and Manually adjust partition size. The last two options allow you to resize and expand hard drive varying. You can also use this software to Convert the destination disk from MBR to GPT here, which is available in Pro edition.

How to clone Windows 11 to SSD for free

AOMEI Backupper Standard can also help you migrate Windows 11 to SSD. The process is relatively complicated, because it involves two main steps: create a system image and restore system image to new SSD. Let's take a closer look.

Step 1. Prepare a destination path to store the system image. It can be a USB flash drive, external hard drive or network location.

Step 2. Run AOMEI Backupper. Click Backup > System Backup, and follow the wizard to create a system image backup.

Step 3. After the backup process is completed, click Restore > Select Image File. Then, restore system image to new SSD as prompted.

Secure boot from the cloned hard drive

If you cloned the system disk, you can follow the steps below to safely boot from the cloned drive.

1. Install your cloned hard drive to the computer.
2. Press the specific key (usually F2, F8, F12, Del) to enter BIOS, and change the boot order to boot from the cloned SSD.

Note✍: If you clone system between MBR disk and GPT disk, you also need to change the boot mode. MBR disk works with Legacy BIOS while GPT disk works with UEFI. To change the boot mode, you need to enter BIOS during startup as well, then select the boot mode (usually under Boot tab) as Legacy or UEFI.

Summary

This page offers you the 5 best free cloning software for Windows 11. Considering the simplicity of operation and rich functions, I recommend AOMEI Backupper.

This software can provide you with much more than cloning. You can use it to create a WinPE bootable USB to help you deploy Windows 11 image. When your computer has some startup problems, this bootable media can also help you start the computer.

With its Backup function, you can backup your User Profile to restore it to a new computer or system, thus avoiding spending a long time to re-customize your new Windows 11. Why hesitate? Try this free Windows 11 cloning software now!