Can I use Macrium to clone my internal drive to an external drive?

The title pretty much lists my question.
I'm using UEFI win10, v1909, and the external drive will be in an iDsonic external drive enclosure. If I have a serious problem, I can use this drive while deciding what to do.

Another question - maybe stretching the topic. Can I use Macrium to clone a bootable USB drive to another USB drive?

Jim

Hi there @Jim8080

You can always CLONE to an external HDD but to boot it as a working full Windows installation the HDD / SSD has to be mounted internally in the computer. That's a Windows restriction --other OS's such as LINUX have no problem booting from any external device -- even an old punched paper tape reader if you still have one !!!!

You CAN create bootable Windows installation media of course.

Now there ARE methods to create bootable portable Windows systems based on the (now deprecated) Windows to Go idea by Ms.

HASLEO Windows to go can do this (not Free though) and I think some versions of RUFUS can create a portable Windows to go installation -- not sure if it can CLONE an existing Windows installation to a portable version. Of course once you've got a portable Windows version you can install on it whatever further programs you like !!

Remember though if you attach a Windows to Go disk to different hardware you might need to re-activate it.

Otherwise as Dalchina says - for backing up Windows just IMAGE it rather than clone it. Even if moving to a bigger HDD I'd still restore from the image and then with a partition manager re-arrange the partitions.

Create the stand alone bootable recovery so if you do get HDD problems you can restore your image from an external device.

Having 2 Windows systems on two HDD's at the same time on the same macine can cause no end of confusion --especially if you forget which one of them is actually the booted up one !!!! - Some people dual boot with different versions -- if you do that it's best to HIDE the non booted version.

Cheers
jimbo

Jim8080 said:

Another question - maybe stretching the topic. Can I use Macrium to clone a bootable USB drive to another USB drive?

For cloning a USB memory stick I use Alexander Beug's USB Image Tool: alex's coding playground

Thanks for answers to my questions. I was not clear in my question. After creating the clone, I would store it in a safe place. If I had a serious problem, I could replace the internal drive with the internal drive with the cloned drive, and have the computer in operating condition, though not up to date. It would not replace periodic disk images.

Bree: I checked

Alexander Beug's USB Image Tool, and it says nothing about cloning a bootable drive. I used Aoemei's backup standard, but the "cloned" drive was not bootable. I contacted their support, and was told it would not make a bootable USB drive. I should have made a separate post for this question.

Jim

RolandJS said:

Jim8080, I recommend making full images instead of cloning. Macrium forums also, like tenforums, has threads that walk folks throuh making full image backups.

That's the way to go! Note cloning copies the disk ID and you might have problems if two drives having the same disk Id are installed on the same PC.

Greets,

1.

Bree: I checked Alexander Beug's USB Image Tool, and it says nothing about cloning a bootable drive.

Did it allow Imaging the pen drive & restoring that image to another pen drive ?

2. Google talks about various options. I would definitely like to try Rufus .

3. There are also posts about making a bootable ISO out of a bootable pen drive. You can try ImgBurn Portable for that.

( It will be always experimental! )

Thanks. ...