Harddisk cloning

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Harddisk clone
Computer or laptop hard disk drive with only C split in C and D

Secure data and solve rights management issues

Setting up another computer quickly
After fully setting up a computer, a hard disk can be cloned to set up another computer.
You can do this with a dock station.
That's meant to read data from a hard disk, but you can also use a cloning function, recognizable by the round button on the front.
The original is put on the front side and the newly designed disc behind it.
Press the button for a few seconds. The first drive, sector by sector, will be copied to the 2nd.
That 2nd drive must be as big (GB) or larger than the original.
If the 2nd disk is even a fraction smaller, it will not succeed.

Here a 80 gb (74.5) disk is cloned to a 160 gb disk. (149)
Because only 80 gb is cloned, a lot will be released.
Below you can see 37 gb for the C and 37.4 for the D and 74.5 gb Unallocated.
The fact that you see H and I has to do with the fact that the dock is hanging on a computer with its own hard disk.
With (free) partitioning software such as Minitool and Easeus, that Unallocated part can be added to the latter partition.
80 gb gekloond naar 160gb

Unallocated gedeelte toegevoegd

Stay ready with the C partioning software with a working operating system (OS).
Read more about why.

Hard disk drive split into C and D

Many computers and laptops often only have 1 C partition.
To split them into C and D, you need to do that in disk management.
Click on this computer with your right mouse button
Manage/disk management.

Stand on that C with your right mouse button and choose to decrease the volume.
If all is well, the disc can be split into almost 2 equal parts.

Half then falls free as unallocated.
Stand on it with your right mouse button and choose Extend volume, simple volume, and click through.
If you get less than half of your free time, then the disc is either too full or the sleep mode is activated.
For example, if you have a drive of 500 gb or larger, you would prefer to have that C smaller than 250 gb in order to have as much storage space on D as possible.

Switch off sleep mode
Simply reducing the C partition in a dock station with Easeus or other partitioning software is not without risk.
The risk is that the system will no longer start up.
If you prefer to reduce the size of that C, you should only do so with disk management.
You can do that with Minitool or Easeus, but you must first have created an image on D or on an external hard disk.
It sounds almost incredible but PCs behave like annoying children.
Reducing the C with partitioning software causes the PC to restart and then the C is reduced outside Windows.
If you haven't created an image, you can be sure that that PC seems to see it and the OS sees its chance to crash clean.
If an image has been created, the PC has something like that:
Oh, an image. Tsja then there is no point in crashing. And then that C is reduced and continues to work.

1) Delete dates (temporarily)
Place as much data as possible (temporarily) on another disk.
Empty the C as much as possible.
If the C is quite full and you can't find large files, you can use the program Treesize to search for them.

(2) Reduce C
Right-click your computer with your right mouse button and choose Manage, Disk management.
Choose full screen to see what you are doing.
Stand on C with your right mouse button and choose to decrease volume.
Then you see how much smaller the C becomes.
Choose the maximum reduction
If you still find that too much, first run 3 and 4
After that, you will have an empty space left over.
You can make a D of it or if you already had a D, you can enlarge it, but then you have to do that with Easeus. The D can be done with Easeus. Make sure that after using Easeus, D does still have a partition letter or add it to disk management if it should no longer be available.

3) Defragmentation

If you don't like that C small enough, it has to do with the fact that there are files at the end of C that stop it from shrinking further.
Defragment that C with the free program Vopt, which is a trial version that you can download, but it works 30 days completely.

4) Switch off hibernate
If you have a laptop, you also need to turn off the sleep mode (hibernate).
Hibernate often also works on desktops.
With Vopt you can see if that hibernate. sys is still there.
A thick yellow stripe means that hibernate is still on.
Switching off hibernate can be done via energy management, but sometimes that doesn't really work out.
Simply type in the command to deactivate that sleep mode.
Type CMD, as administrator execute and type;

powercfg.exe /hibernate off

Now you can delete the hybersys file file now
To turn it on again later, you do the same thing but then;
powercfg -h on

5) Reduce C after defragmentation
After deframentation you can try to make that C even smaller.
Do not forget to turn the sleep mode back on when it is already on.

If hybernate is turned on, then it is not possible to make that C half smaller.
Then you will have to switch it off first.

Securing Data
If you want to secure the data from a (crashed) hard disk you can put it in a dock station.
You search for users (users) and then for the active account (s)
If you click on such an active account, access is denied.
It has to do with the fact that if you have a PC, with that dock station, which is higher than XP, so W7,8 0f 10, then the privacy of that account is respected and you have to draw the user's rights to you in order to be able to read the account.
Do you do that with an XP machine then you don't have that problem.
It is therefore advisable to still have an XP machine with this work.

Take over management Rights