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How to Make a Byte-for-Byte Copy of a Drive?

I want to make a byte for byte copy of my drive. Can someone tell me what is the easiest and most reliable way of making an exact copy of a hard drive? Or is there any software that can do this without risks?

Best Answered by

Melissa Lee· Answered on Dec 20, 2023

To make a byte-for-byte copy of a drive, DD does an excellent job for the most part. All you need to do is specify the input and output:

DD if=/dev/hdb of=/image.img

However, there are a few drawbacks to using DD.

DD will copy your entire disk, even empty space. Therefore, it may result in an extremely large image file, even larger than the original disk.
The copy takes a long time but DD provides no progress indication.

Therefore, you may want to try some new ways to copy your drive. You may use EaseUS Disk Copy to make a byte-for-byte copy of a drive.

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Use EaseUS Disk Copy to upgrade small HDD, replace old/failed hard drive, migrate OS, clone HDD to SSD without reinstalling data.

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