Cloning disks with the possibility of excluding individual data by the program

Many users often need to create copies of hard drives with the information stored on them in case of system recovery or lost information. A process defined as "disk cloning" can be performed in several ways, depending on what information is to be stored and what actions are to be taken in the future. Creating copies of optical media below will not be considered, and the main focus will be on creating copies of hard disks.

General principles of making copies

Before you start to consider what cloning of disks is, you need to initially define for yourself a few basic concepts. Creation of copies can be made by two main methods: full copying and partial. Since at the moment we are interested in questions of exceptions, we will dwell directly on the second option.

What is cloning of disks with the possibility of setting exceptions? In simple terms, this process involves creating a copy in which only part of the information stored on the original medium will be present and which is necessary for the user to save.

Preliminary concepts of terms

When creating copies, you should consider two more concepts: the source and destination drive. Proceeding from the generally accepted interpretations of these terms, it is not difficult to guess that the source disk is a HDD or a partition from which all information will be copied, including a complete file structure. The target disk is the hard drive to which the created copy will be recorded. However, it should be noted that the target disk can have its own file structure (or data) different from the original disk (unless it's a new hard drive without any information on it), and in the process of creating the clone it will be destroyed and replaced with a file The source disk system.

Disk cloning with Windows tools

In Windows-systems, a backup and restore partition is located in the Control Panel to create copies of hard drives. However, in most cases with this built-in tool you can create only a full copy of the contents of the source disk or partition.

The only exception is that the copy does not have to include the system files of the working system, which later could be used to restore its working capacity. Therefore, cloning of discs with partial copying of their contents is better done with the help of third-party utilities, which have much wider possibilities. Some of them are paid, others can be downloaded for free.

Cloning a hard disk on an SSD or in another partition: the best programs

We will not be able to see absolutely all the applications created for such operations, so we will limit ourselves to a few popular utilities, among which we can single out the following separately:

• True Image from Acronis.
• EASEUS Disk Copy.
• Drive Backup Personal from Paragon.
• Macrium Reflect.

For the basis of the actions performed and the description of the process, let's take the Acronis utility disk cloning. The remaining programs work on similar principles. Therefore, after understanding this application, you can easily perform similar actions that any other program for cloning disks offers. On the other utilities, we will briefly discuss.

True Image from Acronis

This utility is the most famous and popular program for cloning a hard disk. It has, perhaps, the widest range of features and is used not only to create copies, but also to restore the system, create boot images and much more.

Cloning Acronis disk-utility after the start of the latest version of the application starts with the fact that the program offers to enter the "cloud" storage of Acronis Cloud under its account. This procedure is not mandatory, so you can skip it.

After selecting the cloning section, a special "Master" is launched during the creation of copies. At the first stage it is proposed to use either an automatic method or setting parameters in a manual mode. It is better to choose the first option, because the second one is used mainly only in those cases when you need to change the partition structure. It will not be considered due to the fact that it is more complicated, and in this situation, by and large, the ordinary user simply is not needed.

Choose automatic cloning, after which you will need to install the source disk or partition and the target disk. Here you can use disk cloning to SSD-drive, if it is installed in the system. At the next stage, if the target disk is not new, and some information is present on it, a corresponding warning will be issued, which you just need to agree with. In the case when cloning a hard disk to an SSD with a similar file system, on which there is nothing, the notification will not be displayed.

Then, the copying of partitions is selected without changes, and the program starts calculating the location on the target disk. If it is missing, you can start the process. But if there is not enough space or just some components or partitions to include in the copy, use the file exclusion button located at the bottom right.

Excluding the files of the system partition is not recommended in any case, and the rest of the unnecessary objects should be simply selected in the window to the right by setting the check box in the tree of the file structure on the corresponding files and folders (you can exclude even the whole section). After that, the necessary disk space will be recounted. With its sufficient volume, it only remains to press the start button ("Proceed"), after which a reboot will be requested (the clone is created in this mode).

If you now boot from the target disk (and it is just the boot disk), the partition structure will change somewhat, and the partitions for which some objects are not copied, in comparison with the original ones, will have a smaller volume. In this case, the letters of all the disks will change.

EASEUS Disk Copy

This program for cloning a hard disk is quite an interesting free utility. In addition to the fact that it can produce partial cloning, it has a number of advantages.

In addition to the basic operations in it, you can easily create copies of deleted partitions, but only if they have not been overwritten. The application itself can start from any optical or USB-media, supports all known interfaces of hard disks or dynamic partitions and HDD with volumes up to 1 Tb. The only downside is the lack of Russification and installation of unnecessary programs when installing on Windows-based systems.

Drive Backup Personal from Paragon

Cloning disks with this program looks very simple due to the use of special "Wizards" for any copy mode, including the creation of clones with partial content.

The application can run both in the OS environment, and with removable media, has a simple Russian-language interface, but, alas, costs about $ 40.

Macrium Reflect

This free package for most untrained users, as well as the previous program, is one of the easiest to use.

The main advantages of this application are the creation of images "on the fly" without the need to restart the system (as in the case of Acronis), the availability of verification tools for copies and multi-level data encryption. In the interface, however, there is no Russian language, and during installation, you install unnecessary advertising garbage.

What to use?

If we summarize the results of all that was said about the creation of clones of hard drives with partial transfer of their contents to other partitions or to other HDDs or SSDs, we can say that the method proposed by Acronis application seems to be the most appropriate in application, to that Is one of the simplest. But this does not mean that you can not use other utilities like the Paragon program, which have no less interesting features and tools (if, of course, omit the issue of cost). But in general, the techniques used by any application of this type are quite simple, if only because in any program, as a rule, there is a "Master", so that it will not be possible to do something wrong.