10 Quick Steps to Mirror a Hard Drive in Windows

A step-by-step guide to mirroring a hard drive

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Last Updated: September 22, 2024 Tested

From music libraries and family photos to important documents and operating files, losing a hard drive can be a logistical and emotional nightmare. In a few simple steps, however, you can mirror a hard drive -- creating a back up copy identical to your main drive. Mirroring a hard drive will protect your important files in the event of a computer virus or hardware failure.

Steps

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There are many inexpensive software solutions that will streamline the process down to just a few clicks. Choose a software program that provides a reliable backup and disaster recovery of systems, applications, settings and personal files.

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Right click the ‘computer’ icon on desktop and Choose "Manage".
It will display all disks. Click appropriate disk to create partition and follow the prompts.
This will enable the partition for copying data. (Usually when you partition with Disk management" option, It gives you an option to format created partition automatically or to leave partition without formatting.
The software provides a user-friendly interface that will guide you through the installation and set-up process.
In most cases, you will want to select the C drive.
This location will either be your newly-partitioned hard drive or an external drive.
Depending on the size of your files and the write speed of your hard drive, the mirroring process may take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours.
If you mirrored your entire drive, you can test the new drive by removing the old drive. Your computer should successfully boot up from the new drive.

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Which software is best for disk mirroring?

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Handy Backup is a great software. The free version will do most basic tasks, and you can upgrade to the pay version for more advanced tasks.

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Some software companies also allow back up to a remote, secure FTP site and secure online data access. If you have a lot of sensitive files or are considered about theft or physical loss of your mirror drive, you may want to consider this option when purchasing mirroring software.

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Chose a mirroring software program that allows for incremental backups. This will ensure you can roll back system, files, and folders to any point in time.

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There are several good disk mirroring programs available from Acronis, Paragon and Norton. Check online reviews to see which program best suit your needs and to research software options.

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Warnings

A mirrored hard drive is only as useful as the last time you backed it up; any new data will not be included. Many software mirroring programs include a feature that automatically backs up new data on a weekly or monthly basis (known as “Set and Forget” scheduling). When selecting a software package, this is an important feature to consider.

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