Best Free Clone Software for Windows 8/8.1/10/11

Why We Need Free Clone Software for Windows 8/8.1/10/11?

Whether you are currently using Windows 8/8.1 or the later operating system Windows 10/11, you will face a lot of hard drive problems. For example, with the usage of the hard drive, it will become old, and the storage space will run out. What should you do if this happens? What if the hard drive gets broken because of some reason?

There is no doubt that you need to get a new hard drive for the computer so that it gains more capacity and can perform in a good state. However, if you install a new drive directly, you have to install a Windows 8/8.1 system again, and we know it will take a lot of time. What’s worse, the old data will be gone.

The good news is that you can upgrade hard drive in Windows 8/8.1/10/11 by cloning, then use the old system and keep the old data on the new hard drive. And it's considered as a copy of backup. 

Windows 8/8.1/10/11 Free Clone Software - AOMEI Backupper

Considering the functions and price, here we highly recommend AOMEI Backupper Standard as the best free clone software for Windows 8/8.1. As a matter of fact, you can still use it as free disk cloning software for Windows 10 and previous systems, such as Windows 7/Vista/XP. Let’s have a look at its main features:

• It offers the Disk Clone and Partition Clone features. You are able to clone a whole disk or a particular partition.

• It enables you to clone a larger drive to a smaller drive by copying only used sectors.

• It also allows you to perform sector-by-sector clone to make an exact copy of a disk. This feature requires the destination disk is equal to or larger than the source disk.

• It allows you to accelerate the reading and writing speed of SSD disk as well as prolong its lifespan.

• It has a user-friendly interface, so even a non-technician can operate it alone.

Actually, AOMEI Backupper is more than free hard drive cloning software for Windows 7/8/8.1/10/11. You can use it to create backups for your Windows and restore your computer to a previous state as necessary. You can also create bootable media to boot computer when it fails. 

Back to the topic, cloning Windows 8/8.1/10/11 with this free software is very simple and easy. With only a few steps, you can finish the task. Wanna know detailed steps? Download AOMEI Backupper now and keep reading.

How to Clone a Hard Drive in Windows 8 Easily

Here are the specific steps to perform disk clone in Windows 8. It also applies to clone hard drive in Windows 7/8.1/10/11 and previous system, such as Windows XP/Vista. Before you start, please connect the target drive to your computer and backup files on it if you don’t want to lose them.

First, install and launch this cloning software for Windows 8 free. You can see the deep blue interface of this software. Click the "Clone" tab and select "Disk Clone".

Tips:
* The Standard edition only supports cloning non-system disks. If you want to clone a disk containing OS, please upgrade to higher editions such as AOMEI Backupper Professional.
* To clone OS only, you can use the “System Clone” feature in advanced editions.

Second, you are moving to the Source Disk interface, and you can select the Windows 8 hard drive by clicking it. Then, click “Next” to move on.

Third, here you can select the destination disk on which you want to save the cloned data and click “Next”.

Then, you will move to the interface of Operation Summary. You can set the following settings based on your needs. After all the settings, click "Start Clone" to start the task.

- Edit partitions (advanced version): you can resize partitions on the destination disk by Add unused space to all partitions or Manually adjust partition size. 
- SSD Alignment: if you are cloning hard drive to an SSD, you can select it so as to optimize the performance of the SSD.
- Sector by sector clone: if you tick this option, every bit will be cloned whether it is used or not. It will cost more time and occupy more space.

Finally, click "Finish" when the process reaches 100%. Then, you can check if the cloned hard drive is bootable by setting it as the first boot option in BIOS and restarting your computer.

Various disk types and brands are supported by AOMEI Backupper. You can use the same steps to clone HDD to Samsung SSD, clone large HDD to smaller SSD, clone NVMe to another NVMe, etc.

Summary

AOMEI Backupper Standard is one of the best free clone software for Windows 7/8/8.1/10/11, which can help you copy data from one hard drive to another simply with its easy-to-use interface. In addition, you can enable some useful features in this software according to your situation, such as Sector by sector clone, SSD Alignment, and Edit Partitions.

What's more pleasing, AOMEI Backupper is the best Windows backup software. It enables you to create automatic USB backup, system backup and file backup, etc. Why not give it a try now?