Hard Drive Cloner for Windows 8.1

[wulf109]

xxclone doesn't work with W8.1,it does not preserve all settings. Can someone recommend a software cloner for W8.1?

[redwudz]

Unless you are really locked into freeware applications, I would recommend looking into Acronis True Image. It comes on sale at times for a decent price and it's very easy to use. Acronis says it works with W8.1.

Freeware programs can also work, but they may be a bit behind. If you are locked into freeware, wait a bit and look around for alternatives.

[fritzi93]

There are two free versions of Acronis that I know of, one offered by Western Digital, the other by Seagate. If you have either a WD or Seagate drive in your computer you'd be in business. Dunno if the Seagate tech over-ride still works for new versions (hold Alt, type t and o, then click okay). The tech over-ride allows you to use Seagate's DiscWizard even if you don't have a Seagate drive.

Either one can clone a drive and AFAIK do pretty much everything the regular Acronis can do except incremental backups.

[turk690]

Macrium Reflect 32bit and 64bit for personal use is free. After installation, a bootable rescue CD can be created which can replicate all of the original cloning and imaging functions of the original installation.

[ranchhand]

I can testify to Macrium Reflect/64 free version also. Attempting the 8.1 upgrade some months ago, the W8 system crashed and totally corrupted the partition. I used my MR rescue disk and it restored 100%, and I was back up & running in a few minutes.

[jman98]

I also recommend Macrium Reflect. You will absolutely need to make a rescue CD when it asks you to do so or your restores may not work. For a free product, having to burn a rescue CD is not unreasonable in my opinion.

[racer-x]

I use a bootable USB thumbdrive that contains Win7-pe. I have SnapShot installed on it. I have created and restored partion images on my wife and son's Win 8 laptops. It works fine, you just need to store the images off-line. I store them on an external HDD.

Clonezilla also works, it's linux based and is free.