I down loaded the HDDRawCopyTool1.10Setup.exe, installed it on laptop, connected new hard drive to laptop with USB to hard drive adapter. I selected the laptop hard drive as the source and the USB connected hard drive as the target. I got two error messages as follows:
1. "Unable to lock source device"
2. NOTE: This tool will not copy your boot (OS system) hard drive. The boot hard drive would need to be attached to another PC to perform that task.

How is item 2. physically accomplished?

If I connected a source hard drive to one USB and the target hard drive to another USB on same computer using USB to hard drive adapter cables, would that set up allow the HDDRAWCOPYTOOL1.10 to create a fully functional clone of the source hard drive?

I thought this would be an easy question. I guess I thought wrong. Where should I go for answer?

Simply put, in most cases you would need:

a) bootable device with software for cloning/copying
b) source device
c) target device

Boot from device a) cd/dvd or usb or hard drive
then point copy programme to source device b)
then point to destination target device c)

Thank you.

How does one create an OS on a thumb drive to boot the laptop so it’s hard drive can be cloned?

Since no one else has replied (we all figure you should be able to search for this on Google), here is something simple. Go to the following link for Hiren’s Boot CD.

https://www.hirensbootcd.org

Go to the Download section, scroll down to where the filename is and download the iso.

Then go to the USB Booting section and download the ISO2USB meant for creating a USB from the iso. Follow the instructions on that page for how to create the bootable USB.

Boot the created USB to a nice Windows PE environment that has many free tools. Be very patient as it takes a few minutes to boot up. Then use one of the hard disk imaging tools that are installed on it to clone your laptop drive to the external drive. Forget about using hdd raw copy.

I am assuming that the laptop drive is in good condition since you are currently booting from it. If not and it is failing and has bad sectors, and those tools fail to clone it, then look into hddsuperclone (see my signature). A live CD is available. You would then need to look for a tool to make a bootable USB from it, I prefer YUMI myself.

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