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If I clone a hard drive, will I have to install an OS on it and all the programs?

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  • 5
    Wow, this is the most specific question I've ever seen asked on Superuser. I love how you go in depth on how exactly you're planning on cloning the hard drive.
    – Breakthrough
    Sep 11, 2009 at 1:04
  • Would be better to ask without any irony. Pros has to guide novices, isn't it?
    – Quidam
    Apr 24, 2020 at 21:37

6 Answers 6

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Nope. By definition, cloning is making an exact copy. So if you're really cloning, reinstallation of the OS and programs should not be necessary.

See Wikipedia on disk cloning.

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  • Thanks I will just need a couple more answers from people to confirm.
    – ctzdev
    Sep 11, 2009 at 1:00
  • Instead of more answers, go by upvotes.
    – Svend
    Sep 11, 2009 at 1:23
  • Upvotes are better :)
    – alex
    Sep 11, 2009 at 6:11
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In general, yes, cloning a hard-drive will just work (like all other people already said).

On Linux, it will work. No doubt about that.

However, I'm not sure about how Windows will behave, because Windows might detect that the hard-drive has changed (by looking at the serial number - which CAN'T be changed by software) and thus might give some trouble. I guess it is unlikely to happen, but I've never done that on Windows, so I can't answer for sure. Give it a try, and report back!

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    +1 Good point about Windows detecting the hard drive change. It might consider it significant hardware change and force a reactivation. Assuming the target hard disk isn't radically different (e.g., SCSI, running of 3rd party controller card) then you should boot ok.
    – hyperslug
    Sep 11, 2009 at 3:12
  • I've done it, and Windows never said anything.
    – alex
    Sep 11, 2009 at 6:11
  • @alex, great!
    – hyperslug
    Sep 11, 2009 at 17:24
  • Yeah, I think it should work as long as it doesn't require some sort of new driver (for SATA HDD, maybe) to boot up. Otherwise Windows will probably take minor hardware changes in stride.
    – Nathaniel
    Sep 11, 2009 at 17:25
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In general, disk cloning creates an exact copy of the hard drive, so reinstallation of the OS and applications is not neccessary.

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If you clone the hard drive containing all of the system files, then no you won't have to reinstall the OS and all of the programs that you have (at least not the programs that had been installed in your system at the time of the cloning. I'm not sure if Norton Ghost is free-to-use, nonetheless there are several really good, free-to-use utilities out there. I have been using Macrium Reflect free edition for System Backups. It has a very user friendly gui for those of us who are not too comfortable plugging away on the command line. One recently released free-to-use utility that has gotten some rave reviews is EASEUS ToDo Backup.

If on the other hand the hard disk you cloned does not contain the partition where your OS is residing in, nor any of the programs that you want to backup, the resulting cloned image will consequently also not have an OS nor any installed programs.

Essentially you're seeking to make an exact copy when you clone/ghost (or almost an exact copy).

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Depends on the software if it relies on different security features it will need to be reinstalled.

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I can tell you from experience (just did this yesterday) that not all programs will work and may need a fresh install and reactivation.

I used Acronis to clone one HDD to another HDD. The cloning process went well. After the cloning I removed the original HDD and replaced it with the new HDD. The system booted up fine (using Win 7) and most programs worked fine. (All Microsoft programs worked) but some other (but not all) programs did not work and required that I reinstall and re-activate.

I contacted Acronis about this and their tech support people said that it is a native Windows function to detect a new drive and modify the registry. Depending on how the target program is written, this may require a re-install and re-activation.

So far I have found three programs that required this process. I did not lose any data in the process (all data files were saved) and everything went well.

So the direct answer is "yes" a clone makes an exact copy but "no" because the OS detects the change and modifies the registry. If the target program looks at the registry it can require a re-install.

  • Bill
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  • Not sure why this answer got downvoted, as it is much more specific than other (upvoted) answers which simply say "in general" and "it depends".
    – Dmitry Grigoryev
    Apr 13, 2017 at 12:31

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