Yes, this ability to copy applications which are already installed upon an existing system is one of the main reasons disk cloning software has become so useful, but let’s consider a common example to get more details on how this might actually work. Overall, there are many varied scenarios which might require the use of disk cloning software, these include the upgrading of hard disks, the migrating of an existing PC system to a new (faster) SSD drive, the re-provisioning of a PC with a clean install of Windows within a business environment and the returning of a PC back to its default (clean) state ready for resale or recycling. NB – Whilst disk cloning software will work fine when migrating from an old hard drive to a new drive or SSD on an existing system, more involved work might be required when migrating an existing system on to new or simply different hardware! In such cases, the use of disk cloning technology with support for restoring to dissimilar hardware might be required (and will be discussed further down on this page)! This means that the existing system will continue to work exactly as it did before whilst using the old hard disk (but with more disk space available or a faster SSD drive now in-use to improve system performance). For example, when adding a new larger or faster hard disk or SSD drive to an existing PC, the existing drive’s contents can be copied over to this new disk and kept exactly as they were beforehand. Such disk cloning software is especially useful when adding new or upgraded hard disks or SSD drives to an existing PC. Making an exact copy of a disk means that all existing data on the original (source) hard drive including the operating system, any installed applications, system settings plus all existing user data is also copied across to the new hard disk during the process. Disk Cloning software is specialist software which can be used to create an exact (1:1) copy of a computer’s hard drive which is then replicated to a secondary (often bigger or faster) hard drive.

Windows hard drive manager