Yes, since I made this video, I did one of those clones as well. I had a very similar experience to what I discuss in the video: I had to use partition software to open up the new space, but eventually figured it out.
@@ReadyMack-g Both times that I made clones using this Wavlink device, the Windows tool to open the partition was grayed-out and not available. I could only open the partition using 3rd-party software.
@@ReadyMack-g I've seen fix mbr, sfc scannow, and dism online health, but none of the use cases I've seen relate to the particular volume partitioning for the disk that is needed that's referenced by bob. I'm not saying the relevant use cases don't exist, but would you kindly provide a relevant youtube search term or youtube link that provides the relevant commands using the resources you mentioned? I did find the diskpart utility which is not one of the things you listed. I'm just a bit confused and figure a concise answer could help others as well as myself. Appreciate your response.
Thanks, Bob! I tried desperately searching for the manual PDF but came across your video and instantly solved how to do it. I didn't realize you had to press the button once more after holding it down.
Thanks Bob - a very well presented video and set of instructions. Thank you very much for making and sharing the video. :-) The cloning process is just that, it clones 1:1, regardless if the target drive is larger. That's what pretty much ALL hardware cloning devices do. They don't actually "understand" the data they are cloning (eg: FAT32, UFS, HFS+ etc partitions) - they clone using a very low-level access method, reading data bits one by one. So Wavlink had no false advertising there. The extra step of resizing the target drive's partition will always be required, if the target drive was larger than the source drive. I can also confirm that it clones SSD and traditional Spinning hard drives equally well.
Thanks for the nice comment! I realized that a clone meant a clone once I ran through the process. But when I started the process, I held out a hope that somehow all the extra space on the bigger drive would be available. I wanted to make sure that viewers understood that would not be the case -- that will help with how they plan this task. And thanks for confirming that about spinning hard drives... that is really good to know!
@@BobKovacs It could have done this easily with a Windows APP doing the cloning, so your expectation was not far off, but they seemed to want it offline capable, which also could be useful. I just cannot think of how, considering we're using these on PCs. ;D)
Good video Bob. I've owned a Wavlink dock for about 2 years but never needed to clone drives. Instead, I was using it to transfer data from multiple smaller drive to larger drives. So when I needed to clone a drive (in the past I've used Symantic and Norton Ghost) I no longer had the instruction booklet. As I write this, I'm waiting from my clone to complete (a 1:1 of a 1 TB mechanical to a 1 TB SSD). I'll let you know the results when it's finished. Again, thanks for the good video. UPDATE: Everything went well. It took longer than expected; about 2.5 hours. Popped the SSD in the desktop and after loading drivers, it logged in to Windows just fine. I’m a happy camper. Thanks again for easy and detailed information.
I have had a wavlink for almost a year, just looking at it. Your video was clear and precise. I now have the confidence I need to copy my Hard drive in my desktop to an SSD. Thank you!
Thanks for the great video Bob. Really helped me out. Cloned a 8tb HHD full of movies and TV shows in about 6 hours whilst stuck in doors in rainy London.
One crucial, no pun intended, thing you left out is that you need to disconnect the USB cable from the computer before performing the cloning procedure or it will not work. Found this out through another video.
As I said in the video, I used the Wavlink disconnected from a computer. I have not tried to use it connected to a computer -- I bought it to be a standalone cloning device, and thought I made that clear in the video. Thanks for the comment!
It's not so much unclear, but if you are like a lot of people you use this as a docking station too. So, if it's connected to the computer it will not clone a device. I found this out after about 20 minutes and watching the same part of your video 5 or 6 times. It is just worth noting that in order to clone it cannot be connected to a PC. The instructions don't tell you this either.
I didn't see the cable connected in the video - that was my big clue, even if I did not hear the actual instruction. Thus a monkey see monkey do approach would have worked.
You don’t need to download additional software to extend the partition. After putting the clone disk in the PC and booted it. Open Disk Manager, select the drive and then the partition. Then select extend partition and adjust setting to use all the available space. Alternatively, you can create a new partition and use it for data, leaving the original partition for the OS. You may want to shrink the OS partition and add the space to the data partition.
Yes, thank you. A few others have pointed out the same thing in the comments below. I was not aware that Windows had that capability when I made this video. I Googled how to extend a partition, and found the software I mentioned in the review. I sure wish I had known that Windows could do it, though... would have saved some heartburn.
Came here because I just acquired one of these and couldn't get the standalone clone process to kick off; your "press the OTG button whilst the lights are flashing" tip was the missing piece of the puzzle. Writing this as I watch a 300GB WD3000GLFS (yes, an electromechanical VelociRaptor no less) clone to a 1TB Samsung 860EVO SSD. Cheers, Bob!
Thanks for the review, it helped me decipher the lights and buttons and understand how to use it with out googling the manual. 1) I think the product works as it should. The process of cloning a smaller drive to a larger drive with a piece of hardware, it cannot know how you want the destination to look. Like one of the commenters (Nick Henson) said, Windows's Disk Management is a easy tool to EXPAND a partition with. Free and simple. And maybe you don't want it to be full 100% but some other percent, you can do that too. 2) Yes this can do mechanical spinning disks, notice the flap on the source/destination that can go down, this is where the 3.5inch drive slides in.
I've made multiple clones for Win 10 computers, and I can not get Window's Disk Management tool to work. In every case, I had to use a 3rd party application -- it was free, but it took some puzzling to figure it out. Windows' tools were just grayed out and would not let me change anything.
As I say in the video (at 6:50), I used Aomei Partition Assistant. And it was not intuitive... I struggled with it for a couple of hours before I figured out what to do. That was 5 years ago, so I don't remember exactly what needed to be done.
Thanks for keeping this video posted Bob, just cloned my PS4 hard drive. This makes an excellent one-to-one copy. When cloning smaller SSD or hard drive to a bigger SSD or hard drive use AOMEO partition magic to extend a the partition on the ssd or hard drive. Excellent work thanks
Thank you for the video. I have one of these that I've been using as an external docking port to read data off a bunch of old hard drives I had in a box. Now, I'm getting ready to get rid of the old drives, but want to wipe them first. So, I wiped one drive and am using that for the source. I was having problems getting the cloning to start because the manual says you just hold the button until all the lights turn on. Well, they started flashing for a few seconds, then went off. It didn't mention that you had to let go and press it again to actually start the process. That step was important. Anyway, now that it's actually cloning, it seems to be a much faster way to wipe a bunch of drives since the data doesn't have to go through USB. Plus, it frees up my computer and I can put it into sleep mode while the drive clones. Overall, I'm happy with this device. It was a VERY easy way to go through all the old drives to find any data I may have missed. Just shut it off, drop the drive in, turn it on, and it shows up as an external drive. No need to make sure the SATA connectors are lined up properly. It works great for 3.5 or 2.5 drives, SSD or spinning media.
You didn't have to use the downloaded software. You could have used the Disk Management took to make the HDD bigger. It's already installed in windows.
Many other people have said the same thing. However, I have used the Wavlink to clone drives for two different computers, and both times the Windows partitioning apps were grayed out... couldn't use them. I had to use a third-party app.
Great video Bob can you please by any chance make n followup video on how to make the other space available plz and what software to use That was also exactly what i got the wavlink for and yes now im stil back to square one😢
Yes, a couple others have pointed that out in the comments. But thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. Hope the video was otherwise useful to you.
I just cloned another boot drive for a different computer and attempted to use Windows Disk Management feature. However, the "Extend Partition" line was grayed out and could not be selected. The advice I found online says that if "Extend Partition" is grayed out, use the AOMEI partition management software that I used previously. So apparently Win10 Disk Management does not work every time.
You would think that they would have included instructions on their product. Regardless, thanks for taking the time to create the video. Your instructions worked perfectly on my unit. Thanks again : )
You are welcome! There were instructions with mine, but they were a bit confusing and contradictory in places. Always glad to hear that I helped someone, however.
Thanks for the helpful video. I was able to clone a 1TB HDD (with Linux Mint) to another 1TB HDD without having to partition or extend a partition on the target drive. Just thought it would be helpful for your viewers to know this device did this seamlessly. I didn't format the new WD drive or anything else before cloning.
Thanks Bob - Question, did you have to first format your new Crucial SSD before inserting it into the Target bay connector, or did you just connected it in Target connector as is from the factory?
I did not format the target disk. Whatever format your source disk has will be copied onto the target disk. Just insert the two disks (as I show in the video), push the button, and the magic happens.
You can extend the partition of the cloned hard drive in Windows usings the Disk Management tool. No need to "download" an additional tool if the partition that you want to extend is the partition adjacent to the empty space to the right of the partition that you want to extend.
If you read the comments below, there are a few others who said the same thing. And as I told them, I have now cloned drives twice using this device, and both times the Windows Disk Management tool was "grayed-out" and unavailable. Only third-party software would work for me. And that was on two different computers.
I've tried using Win10's disk management -- twice -- and could not get it to work either time. My choices were grayed out. Annoying, but I'm glad there were alternatives. Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.
That was the first thing I tried and it was grayed-out.... unavailable. Only 3rd-party software worked for me. That was true both times I've used the Wavlink to clone a drive -- both times, Windows disk management was grayed out. And that was on different computers.
Do you know what is the down point? It won't clone if the target size is smaller than the source, even if the contains of the source is 10GB out of 1tb and the Target is 512GB
Yes, the target has to be at least as big as the source. That's because the Wavlink has no intelligence... as far as it is concerned, a byte with no information is exactly the same as a byte with information. It would be excellent (and probably a lot more expensive) if there was a smart version of Wavlink that could analyze the data and do a "smart clone."
Thanks, Bob. It's a good video about the unit. I don't agree with you regarding the partition, since the system is cloning block by block what's in the source drive. Depending on the OS, there are srveral utilities to deal with that. Cheers.
Well done. You answered my one question which is what do the lights do when the cloning is done. I used my Wavlink to clon a 1TB HD to another 1TB HD. The source drive is from my WD Book World NAS system running RAID 1, which has a hardware problem, so I need to get the data off of one of the drives, using Linux. For reasons of safety I will be taking the data from the cloned drive and not one of the original drives. After that I will see if I can repair the system board on the NAS. Hopefully it's just a capacitor.
Wish my Wavlink was that fast. .It took all day and night for the lights to become solid on mine and the cloning to finish. Source drive was a 800 MB spin hard drive. Target was a solid state one TB drive. After cloning, I hooked the USB cable to another windows 7 machine and it read both drives fine, but it would only read one drive in the toaster at a time. When I installed the cloned SSD drive in another machine that the source drive came from, that's when all heck broke loose. A lot of blue screens of death sprang into action and Windows started running scan disk and automatically putting in fixes, etc. After it finished, everything worked again, including the dual boot for the other side of the drive containing a Linux installation. Don't know why mine took all night when others said theirs only took less than an hour. I was happy that a solid state drive didn't have issues in an old win7 machine and Microsoft didn't ask for a license key usually triggered by a new drive.
after pressing and holding the clone button the blue 'Source' and 'Target' lights are flashing and I see 1 solid blue light spinning between each %. When I try pressing the clone button again nothing happens. I am trying to clone a 2TB SSHD to a 4TB SSD. Any ideas?
It's been a while since I used the Wavlink, but I did show the steps in the video. I don't think it is a problem to go from a 2TB SSHD to a 4TB SSD as far as the Wavlink is concerned, but you will have to open access to the new space afterward. Again, that is not something the Wavlink does.. My only suggestion is to follow the steps I show in the video. That's worked for me twice now.
Bob, will you please confirm that the target hard drive was bootable immediately? A couple of things.. I am certain that it would work the same for any form of SATA drive, and Windows Disk Management would have worked to resize the main partition after cloning, or you could have hooked up the USB cable and used software to do the whole thing that way on the fly. Thanks for the video.
You are welcome. Yes, the cloned hard drive was bootable immediately. I put it in my computer and it booted right up, with everything where I expected it to be. The only problem was that my new 960GB SSD drive thought it was a 128GB drive. But the cloned drive booted right up, just like the computer did before the cloning.
The problem with this is that you can't clone your hard drive as a backup to the same size target, eg from a 1tb to another 1tb (needs to be double the size they say) so it is no good if you want to keep your hard drive backed up regularly to a spare hard drive like I do. I believe it needs to be twice the size to work.
I'm not sure I agree with you. My understanding is that you can run the cloning feature from drive A to drive B, as long as B is the same size or larger than drive A. If you have a 500GB drive, you should be able to clone it to another 500GB drive. It is possible that Samsung's 500GB drive is larger than Toshiba's 500GB drive (just to offer a couple of manufacturer names). They both might be called "500GB," but the cloning process won't run if drive B is even a few bytes smaller than drive A. That's why it's a good idea that drive A should be larger than drive B. However, equal size drives should clone properly.
@@BobKovacs Yes I think you are right because I have now seen other UA-cams that say they do clone the same size discs. I got told that from the Wavlink UA-cam channel but I think they might be wrong.I hope so because I am wanting to buy one of these because I have three 1tb hard drives in my PC and I have another three as backups that I clone every week or so to keep them up to date incase of a hard drive fails I don't loose anything. Lets hope and thanks for your reply.
No, you do not need to have Windows installed on the new drive or prepare the new drive in any way. Whatever the original drive has will be copied onto the new drive.
Great video thank you! My Source Light and Target Light are blinking together and it seems I can't get them to clone for some reason. Is there a way to troubleshoot these WaaveLink Dual Bay devices?
Did you do the button press sequence that I show at about 3:55? If you did that and do not get the response that I show in the video, it's possible your Wavlink device is defective. It's also possible that there is a problem with one of your hard drives... I can't diagnose it at a distance. Good luck!
I’m using this to offline cloning old 1tb to new 2tb SSD. It’s been blinking at 25% for three hours. What happens if the process is stopped/interrupted? Will source data be lost? Or new SSD damaged? Or, can I have a redo without any issues?
I have not tested it to see what will happen if it is interrupted. My guess is that your source drive will be fine. You might want to let it do its thing overnight. If it isn't done by then, there is obviously a problem. Test the drives for bad sectors. I'm not enough of an IT pro to know what else could be wrong.
making a copy/clone 500GB to 500GB, same size, both are SSD drives, running 12 hours and continues to do so. Should I stop, and try again, since the LED's continue to blink ? How long should it take ?
It should be done in 12 hours, I think. If it hasn't ended by now, turn the Wavlink off, remove your source drive and confirm that your computer still boots up with it. If the computer boots up and runs fine, then try running the clone process again. Good luck!
I have never had the problem with repartitioning after cloning with this drive cloner. I don't know why you did. It may be due to the NAND style of your new drive, if you are cloning from a 3D NAND to a 2D like you did to that 960gb drive, this could be the cause. It does work with platter drives as well. You can even clone from a HDD to an SSD!
I've now done two drive clones and had to struggle to open the extra space using third-party partition software with both. Once you learn how to use the software, it's a piece of cake. However, I had to use two different applications, and had to climb a learning curve with each. Still, I'd rather have my new drives with their extra space... it was worth it.
Hi, when I hold the button to start the cloning the source and target indicator blinks and the progress indicator just moves round in a quick circle.. any idea on why this is happening? Thanks
What are the sizes of your source and target drives? Have you checked the target drive to see if there is anything on it? Are you sure the source drive functions properly? Will it boot a computer? If the source drive is working properly and the target drive is at least as big as the source drive (and it is a working drive as well), then the Wavlink may be bad. But you have a lot of checking to do first to confirm everything else.
By the way, thank you for the video. I saw two Wavelinks, one blue and one green. The green one is cheaper and came out almost a month earlier. I find this strange.
You're very welcome. I'm glad that I made this video, as it has become one of my most popular -- it's my #9 most-viewed video, and I have more than 400 videos posted. You never really know what is going to attract an audience!
Yes, I just used it to clone a spinning drive onto an SSD. I had a hard time opening up the partition on the much bigger SSD, but got it after a few tries.
Tried cloning my original 1TB Seagate SATA HD to a new fresh out of the wrapper 2 TB Seagate Barracuda SATA HD using the new Wavlink Duplicator. The red power light comes on, I hear the drives startup and spin, and both blue lights come on for source and target slots. However, when I press and hold the center button, it does not do what your video did with the whole circle flashing. It does nothing, just sits there with the power, source and target buttons lit. Any thoughts?
It does not matter what formatting or partitions the target drive has. Whatever is on that drive will be over-written by the source drive. If the source drive has bitlocker and partitions on it, then bitlocker and partitions will be written to the target drive.
The software I used was called something like Aomei, and I have an on-screen graphic for it in the video. It was a free download. People have repeatedly said that the partitioning app that comes with Windows can do the job, but I could not get it to work.
@@BobKovacs Thanks for the reply. Yes, I also found some videos talking about the windows disk system can do the job. The thing is I am using OS Mojave from Apple... I tried the Apple's disk utility and it failed to do the work... will keep trying other venues...
Bob, I have used the wavlink to clone both Sata and SSD. No issues cloning a Sata but like you mentioned in your video it will clone what ever the source size is to the target so if its not 1:1 then you have to go in and readjust the partition.
Thanks for that info. I have an old laptop with a spinning hard drive that I'd really like to update to an SSD. It sounds like that will be no problem.
The way I understand it they both are SATA drives. The difference is that one is a HD or HHD the other is SSD. HD means Hard Drive. HHD means Hybrid Hard Drive. SSD means Solid State Drive. The first two are mechanical. The Third one is not.
Windows Disk Management may work for some, but it did not work for me. I had to use 3rd-party disk management software. Definitely a pain, but I got it eventually.
For a non SSD drive it takes a lot longer for cloning. I cloned a 1TB to another 1TB and it took almost three hours. Also, on the solid lights indicating it's done, I noticed that first the lights go solid blue, and then after a few minutes they turn off and only the red light at the top remains on.
Hi again....my source hard drive is legacy mode I checked, so MBR. Can I duplicate this onto the ssd but have the ssd hard drive formatted to GPT? Then change in bios to UEFI? Does my target drive have to be formatted to MBR like the source?
Can you duplicate your source drive onto an SSD of at least equivalent size? Yes. Can you then change the formatting of the SSD? I do not know. Does your target drive have to be formatted to MBR like the source? No, the target drive requires no formatting. Whatever format your source drive has will be cloned onto the target drive. You will waste time if you first format the target drive before the cloning process.
Good video / well presented Bob - thanks! Do you know if it's possible to clone a drive without putting the source in the Docking Station? I need to keep working, and thus Source in my Lappy, but want to create a Clone at the same time...
There is software that you can run on the computer to create a clone of it. One such application is Norton Ghost. I have never used it, and there are alternatives to Norton Ghost that I have no experience with as well. So what you want to do probably can be done, but I have no experience going that way. FWIW, it takes only 5 minutes or so to pop a hard drive out of a laptop. At least it does for the laptops I have.
@@BobKovacs Thanks Bob, I have discovered a Software Product called Ease US... I refuse to use any Norton Products anymore due to the complexity of trying to remove them after needed...
I just bought them one but some I put the source and target into 2 correct slot and pushed and hold release and one more push but the source keep blinking at 25% and not moving on. Can you help me with that?
Depending on the size of the drives, it can take an hour or more to get past the 25% mark. Your comment is from a few hours ago, now... did the Wavlink complete the clone?
Thanks Bob! Mac guy here, I had the same hope as you when I got mine and of course found out what you found out... the extra space wasn't available... so reading many of the comments everyone finds out that Windows 10 can "extend the partition'... nice to know LOL but what about us Mac guys? as many years as I've been "Mac" i've never even thought to "extend a partition"??.... hmmm anybody out there know if it can be done on a Mac formatted drive?? I guess I'll do some searching and see if it's doable... I'll come back and let folks know if I'm successful
You should try and clone a IDE Drive to an SSD drive using an IDE to Sata adapter just as an experiment and see if it would work.Nothing to do with what you needed to clone
You could have used windows 10 Disk manager to resize your partition!Great Video, I haven't used mine in a while and looked up your video to find the cloning start sequence!
Windows 10 Disk Manager works sometimes and for some computers. However, it definitely does not work all the time for everyone. The last time I cloned a disk, I tried Win 10 Disk Manager, and it could not do the re-partitioning. I had to use something else.
Good video. FYI, You can clone 2 drives of the same size. You can clone when the target is 2TB and the source is 1TB. You can't clone when the Source is larger than the target. Works on 3.5" drives, 2.5" drives, solid state, spinning... High power drives may need a bigger power supply for the Wavlink.
FREE = Windows has drive management where you can 'extend' the '128gb' disk to it's full size. In short, when cloning, make sure your target is equal or larger in size. If you're rolling out an image to lots of disks, make sure it's a small disk (32gb) or enough to hold all data, then it can roll out to equal or larger disks...which if larger, you use Windows built in disk management to extend the small disk to the disks actual size. If you have small partitions between the imaged disk and the unallocated space, then you can't extend...the unallocated needs to be next to the 'disk' (partition) you need to extend. Very simple stuff.
Yes, others have said the same in the comments below. However, I have cloned drives two times, and both times Win 10's disk management feature was "grayed out" and not available. I had to use a 3rd party application to get the job done.
Thanks Bob. The video helped. Cloning right now. Looks like it's working. Not thrilled about having to re-partition after the clone. I guess you get what you pay for.
You are welcome. If you look down a couple of comments, someone said that Windows 10 has the ability to repartition, so give that a look before you try something else.
@@BobKovacs Yes. I used disk manager and just extended the copied partition into the unallocated one. Was easy and looks like it worked out. Thanks again.
@@BobKovacs I had the same issue as you Bob. I just grabbed the AOMEI software, merged the partitions and called it a day. Took all of 5 minutes to do so no biggie there. I recommend using the AOMEI software if your windows is showing the "extend" option as grayed out.
This is what it is supposed to do. I believe that all dual docks with cloning ability do the same thing no matter what you paid for it. I'm glad you got yours sorted out.
Yes! It works very well for that. In fact, that's what I do in the video. Once you finish cloning onto the bigger drive, you will have to use Windows disc management tools to expand the partition. If Windows own built-in tools won't work (they were grayed-out and unavailable for me), you will have to use a third-party app to expand the partition and get access to the new space. That is what I discuss in the video.
My C drive is cloned from 128 GB to 1TB but I can't allocate the free space on my 1TB SSD. Its grayed out when I try to use extend volume on disk management. Please Help me what I should do and what software you used to extend your C Drive after cloning. Any Help guys? Thank you!
I discuss the software I used to open up the partition -- it's near the end of the video where I discuss exactly this. Also, read some of the comments below, where this point has come up a few times. Lots of good information there.
I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned but that is very normal to have that extra space unreadable. You are cloning. This means that you are making a 1 to 1 copy basically. It has no way to know what to do with the rest of the space so once you add it to your computer, you can go into computer management and finish making the rest of the drive readable. I see on the video that you downloaded a program to help you out with that which is great but when you said you had bad news, I thought uh-oh... something bad is to be expected... Turns out that it really wasn't bad news. Your expectations just weren't set properly. Anyone getting this should know that whatever cloning device you use, if the target is bigger than the source then you will always have that leftover space that you have to manage yourself.
Yes, it was my expectation that was wrong. Still, I've done this twice now, and the second time I knew I would have to manage the partitions. The second time, it took me all afternoon to find partition software that could do what I needed it to do, then for me to figure out how to do it. Windows Disk Management could not open the space, because the space was "grayed out." So it is wonderful that the Wavlink makes it so easy to create a clone, and if it is a 1:1 clone then everything is good. However, if it is a small-to-large clone, you can easily have a couple more hours of disk finagling to achieve the desired result. Maybe an IT pro would know what to do immediately, but a wannabe like me will struggle. That's something that people using the Wavlink dock for cloning should know.
@@BobKovacs Well, It's a good thing I'm an IT Pro... at your service. I'm going to post my email today and delete it after I get a response that you've seen it. If you ever need help I will be willing to help you. I don't do Linux, but I am a Mac/PC guy. Anything on those two platforms I'm willing to help out with. Just shoot me an email and I'll do my best to respond at no cost to you. I just like to help when I can.
iam working in a company with limited resources can i use this to colon company ssd to my new ssd to use the system as well as activated windows and Microsoft office?
Yes, you can do that, and Windows and all the apps on the original SSD will work fine on the new SSD. The only caveat is that the new SSD has to be at least as big as the old SSD. It is really easy if you clone a 500GB drive to a new 500GB drive (for example). You can copy it to a bigger drive and the bigger drive will work fine even if you do nothing else. However, if you want to get at the extra space on the bigger drive, you will have to do some work to get at it. This will not work to copy a 500GB drive to a 320GB drive... the destination drive has to be at least the same size as the source drive.
You're welcome. I do not know if this will clone a damaged disk. Obviously, it will not clone sectors that are unreadable. I have cloned only two disks with it, and both those source drives were good.
@@dmitriyvoskoboynikov9877 I was able to clone a bad hard drive and it worked perfect!, The original hard drive I cloned wouldn't boot and I tried to get the info off of it with an external to USB connector and still couldn't see the files. Cloned it with the wavelink and it the clone booted up fine! Of course the source drive can't be completely dead for this to work!
I'm not sure what you are asking. Whatever partitions are on your source drive, they will be duplicated on the target drive. The cloning process does not add or create anything -- it makes an exact copy of the original.
@@BobKovacs I read that on Amazon video it partions the source drive and the destination drive into 3 partitions? Just the destination drive? You have to expand the volume of the destination drive after cloned?
Some of that information is wrong, and some is confusing. First, understand that this Wavlink device makes an exact clone -- whatever was on the source drive will be exactly duplicated on the destination drive. If the source drive has X partitions, then X partitions will be duplicated on the destination drive. The destination drive is an exact clone. If the source drive is smaller than the destination drive -- for example, the source drive is 500GB and the destination drive is 1TB -- then the Wavlink will create a 500GB clone on the 1TB destination drive. If you put the cloned 1TB drive in your computer, your computer will report that it is a 500GB drive. If you want to access the extra space on the 1TB drive, you will need to use software (as I discuss in the video) to open up the space for your computer to see it. Some people can use the disk management tools in Windows, but others (like me) had to use 3rd-party software to manage the disk space. I hope that answers your questions.
I may use it to clone drives in the future but I would like to use it just as an external hard drive bay and remove the 3.5” drives from my PC auto clean things up. Can this unit, once connected to PC from USB, be used just as external storage? I’d like to remove my 3HDDs and put games and files on my 2 largest of the drives and have it all as external storage.
@@BobKovacs thank you sooo much that’s great information! I wasn’t too worried for the price of $25 but I’m glad it will do exactly as I intend I may buy a second one then. Thank you!
That will work if the SSD is at least as big as the 1TB HDD. SSDs occasionally have capacities that are just a little less than HDDs of the same size, so check carefully. If your HDD is 1,012GB and your SSD is 1,000GB, you will not be able to clone onto the SSD.
How long for a 2tb sshd to a 2tb ssd? Been stuck at 100% for a LONG time. Still waiting. Been cloning for over 9-10 hours. We did this on three other drives we cloned and it did not take this long.
I would think 2-3 hours. Maybe someone will come along who has done drives that size and knows the answer. After that time, I would switch the unit off and confirm that your original drive still works properly. Then try the cloned drive and see if it works. If it works, you're set. If it doesn't work, see if you can run a disk check utility to see if it has bad sectors. If it has bad sectors, see if the utility can repair them and format the drive. Once it is formatted, check it again with a disk utility program and confirm it is good. Then try re-cloning on the Wavlink. Good luck!
@@BobKovacs I was cloning this for my nephew. His Firecuda sshd was failing. It wound up taking 11 hrs! We had another one take a long time too but not that long. Lol. I was just about to give up and it finally stopped blinking at 100% and then all blue lights went off. It is funny we had one hang with the blue lights still on and the cloned drive worked fine. My nephew will be happy his pc boots to desktop in a few seconds now. Everything, folders, apps, pictures all opening up REAL snappy like they should. Thanks for the tips. The instructions are confusing. It is not very clear about the “double tap” you have to do to make the clone operation work. Thanks!
I forgot to mention he had it PACKED with games. I mean like the drive barely had any room to breath. I told him you got to thin it out a little if you are not playing some of them. I've seen systems get bricked by this.
@@sacul7694 I'm glad to hear that it all worked out. The Wavlink is a handy tool, but it gives you almost no information about how the process is going. 11 hours is a long time to clone a drive!
Hi May you make a tutorial to show us how was the way you did to fix this problem with the aomei partition assistant, please? And any similar app for Mac, play?
Not exactly sure what you are asking. If you clone your computer's hard drive using the Wavlink I show in this video, you do not have to format anything. The new cloned drive will work exactly the way your original drive worked. As far as your computer is concerned, the cloned drive *is* the original drive.
@@BobKovacs Hi Bob thank you for your answer. You know for using a new disk it has to be formatted. MY question was if that dock does it byself or you have to format the new disk before putting it on the cloner. I think We do not do anything to use. Thank you again
The Wavlink makes a clone of your existing hard drive, including the formatting that is on your existing hard drive. You do not have to format the cloned drive. In fact, whatever formatting is on the target drive will be obliterated by the data cloned onto it from the source drive.
I'd rather the extra step of opening the partition than the couple extra steps that it would take to preformat the drive. Especially if the preformatting turns out to not make a difference during cloning, as I suspect would be the case. But thank you for the suggestion.
@@BobKovacs well here is the story i rencenty did upgrade to ssd on my mac so i formated the ssd which. is smaller then my stock hdd then installed everything fresh and clean then i took a second SSD and Cloned my new SSD but made surfe to format first works perfect .. it takes only a few seconds to preformat your drive out before hand and it is best to do so this way ... how ever do as you like .. i have the upgraded wavlink from yours mine has charge ports extra usb SD reader and micro sd reader and it hot swap as well and has 1 touch cloning to.. its really cool machine for the 45.00 cnd i paid for it .. works like a charm for everything i need to do .. we have several computers in the house and more of them are going to go SSD you cant beat an SSD other then then nvme drives they really kick . i might ad the nvme into my imac eventually but for now the SSD i put in is great
awesome video. i recently purchase one, however the lights just keep blinking after i hold the button and nothing happens. what should i do? i am trying to clone two ssd drive like yours. Thanks.
If you follow the steps that I show in the video and are getting a different indication on the LEDs, I don't know what might be wrong. Make sure your disks are fully pressed into their slots. It shouldn't be hard to press them in, just check to be sure they are actually pressed in. Make sure your target disk is at least as big as your source disk. If you do those things and the LEDs are not blinking correctly, then you may have a defective unit. Good luck!
@@BobKovacs thanks. Yeah could be faulty. Didn't work. I've manage to clone it with free software btw, I used Marcrium Reflect. Best software out there period. !!!!.
It's Like bob showed in the video, (it is kind of confusing in the manual) you have to hold the button down til it starts blinking then press it again quickly to get it started!
I don't think that will make a difference, as the cloning process clones the source drive's format onto the destination drive. That's how I understand it, anyway. The destination drive could be formatted in Linux and overwritten with the Magna Carta, but it will be a clone of the source drive when it's finished. It can't hurt to format the destination drive... but I don't think it will help, either.
@@BobKovacs if you go into disk manager you can extend the partition to get the true size of the new disk back, found that while looking for cloning software. so if you made a partition to re claim the lost drive space, delete the new partition and select extend and bam, all the space you wanted.
@@trashpanda2312 The two times I have cloned a drive using the Wavlink, Windows Disk Manager was grayed-out and no selections were available. My only choice was a 3rd-party application.
Bought one on sale but see no reason to use it for cloning, I use only for file transfer between two 3.5" drives. For cloning it makes far more sense, in my little mind, to just buy a single $8 drive enclosure and the free Macrium Reflect Fuse. Dead simple interface, faster with on screen progress bar, able go to smaller target drive as long as data fits and no need to resize partition as it's done automatically. The drive case you bought is now for your old drive to be formatted or locked away to re image in the future.
Intriguing... thanks for the info. I had gone to the local computer store (Micro Center) and asked there what it would cost for them to clone my drive if I bought the new drive there. The answer was $140 (plus tax, of course). I looked around for an alternative that I felt I could handle as a guy with only modest IT skills, and the Wavlink is what I found. I certainly don't think it's the only way to do this, but I'm a video guy, so this gave me an opportunity to make a video about something. And it's done well in that regard. Thanks for stopping by!
@@BobKovacs Just to let all know, using the Fuse software will work using the Wavelink if connected to computer. You get the choice of your C: drive to either slot or source to target as offline cloning. BTW, nice video, your camera brings out detail!
It's a but unfair to expect a dock to magically figure out what filesystems are on the drive and how to determine what does or doesn't need expanding. Because expanding may also require moving partitions.
You're probably right. Still, some reasonably intelligent people might try something like this thinking that the cloning process *would* leave an easily accessible space on the target disk. I know I did (if you can forgive me for thinking of myself as "reasonably intelligent"). I just want to warn them up front that accessing the new space may take some work. If I didn't tell them, I'd have lots of comments from people asking me where the space is that they should have. They'd then curse and tell me I should have warned them. I've been on both sides of this situation.
Thanks bob great video I've got a cheap 240gb SSD installed in my pc. I'm going to clone to an SSD crucial 240 GB. IT SEAMS THIS WAVE LINK will help me do that. quite easily. Thanks for the help bob. tony uk
Hi, Tony. Yes, if you have an existing 240GB SSD and you want to clone to a new 240GB SSD, the Wavlink is perfect for that. I would use the Wavlink to do that in a heartbeat.
You don't need to download software to extend your partition, most operating systems natively support extending a partition. A quick google should be sufficient.
Yes, others have pointed out the same thing. At the time I made this video, I did do a Google search, as that is where I found the software I used. But it's always good to remind people that there is an easier way, in this case using the tools that come with Windows.
I'm actually interested in knowing that, too. I'm getting a 2TB SSD to replace a 1 TB spinning hard drive in a computer, and will need to figure out how to extend the partition. I'll let you know once I figure it out. If I can't figure it out, I will use the AOMEI software that I mention in the video.
I just cloned another boot drive for a different computer and attempted to use Windows Disk Management feature. However, the "Extend Partition" line was grayed out and could not be selected. The advice I found online says that if "Extend Partition" is grayed out, use the AOMEI partition management software that I used previously. So apparently Win10 Disk Management does not work every time, but I would try it first. Go to the Start button and search on "disk management." There are good instructions online.
I'm continuing to struggle with getting the unallocated space on the new SSD to increase the size of the main C: partition. What I may have learned is that you can only increase the size of one partition (the main C: partition) if the unallocated space is directly adjacent to it using Win 10 Disk Management. To facilitate that, I am now formatting the unallocated space using NTFS format. More if/when I complete this task.
I got the unallocated space on the SSD formatted (NTFS) using Windows Disk Management. Then I used another disk partitioning software called NIUBI Partition Editor -- it was free, but weirdly difficult to figure out which version to download. Using NIUBI, I was able to move the unallocated disk space next to the C: drive space and create one partition. So my main C: drive space is now 1.8TB and the computer works fine. All through this, the Wavlink dock device worked fine... no problems with that at all.
I have a 1tb hdd in my computer but the computer says 43gb used and 106 free. that is only 149gb..the question is can I clone this to a 250gb ssd? please anyone.
This Wavlink device will make an exact copy of the source drive onto the destination drive. Therefore, if your source drive is 1TB, it will not copy onto a 250GB drive. Even if there is nothing on 750GB of the source drive, the Wavlink is a "dumb" product that does not care if the bit is 1 or 0. What ever it is, it gets copied. And you can't make a "dumb" copy of a 1TB drive onto a 250GB drive.
Hi there, I have the Wavlink 3.0 and just plugged in my MacBook pros 500gb HDD and a Samsung 250 SSD. The light keeps flashing and will not go solid to start the cloning process - any ideas? Thank you
To do cloning, do not plug the Wavlink into a computer. It does its clone thing without a computer. I believe that the clone process will not work if it is plugged into a computer. So unplug it from your Mac and follow the steps I give in the video. That should work. Edit: It's possible I misunderstood what you are trying to do. Are you trying to clone the Mac's 500GB hard drive onto the Samsung 250GB SSD? If that is the case, it won't work. The destination drive has to be at least as big as the source drive. You can't clone a 500GB drive onto a 250GB drive, no matter how little data you have on the source drive.
Ah... okay. Are you trying to clone a 500GB drive onto a 250GB SSD? If so, that won't work -- The destination drive has to be at least as big as the source drive.
It works fine with HDD drives and HDD to SSD. The only problem I have encountered is cloning from a SSD back to a HDD. The SSD has a little bit more space on the drive and it won't clone to it due to the difference.
No, I don't. It was a lot of trial-and-error to figure out the right settings, and it is probably going to be different for most other users. I have not looked to see if there are any videos on UA-cam that show how to use the re-partitioning software.
@@BobKovacs thanks for quick reply , i have same problem you had when cloning my drive , I cloned 2 tb into 4 tb drive but it's saying my 4tb drive is on 2 tb so i'll check UA-cam to see how it's done , again thanks
I hope you find a video that provides some help. I simply downloaded the software I mention in the video and fumbled with it for a couple hours until I figured it out. I recently cloned another drive, and it required that I use different software to access the missing partition. That took all afternoon to figure out, but it was completely logical once I figured it out. Good luck!
Just to confirm that I've used it for an old school HDD cloned to a brand new SSD. Worked perfectly.
Yes, since I made this video, I did one of those clones as well. I had a very similar experience to what I discuss in the video: I had to use partition software to open up the new space, but eventually figured it out.
@@BobKovacs windows disk manager can give you your full drive no need for extra software :)
@@ReadyMack-g Both times that I made clones using this Wavlink device, the Windows tool to open the partition was grayed-out and not available. I could only open the partition using 3rd-party software.
@@BobKovacs Yeah you need to FIX/ScanNow/Dism Your Windows 10 not hard most youtube tutorials are exhaustive Best luck mate
@@ReadyMack-g I've seen fix mbr, sfc scannow, and dism online health, but none of the use cases I've seen relate to the particular volume partitioning for the disk that is needed that's referenced by bob. I'm not saying the relevant use cases don't exist, but would you kindly provide a relevant youtube search term or youtube link that provides the relevant commands using the resources you mentioned?
I did find the diskpart utility which is not one of the things you listed. I'm just a bit confused and figure a concise answer could help others as well as myself. Appreciate your response.
Thanks, Bob! I tried desperately searching for the manual PDF but came across your video and instantly solved how to do it. I didn't realize you had to press the button once more after holding it down.
You're welcome... glad to hear I helped!
Thanks Bob - a very well presented video and set of instructions. Thank you very much for making and sharing the video. :-) The cloning process is just that, it clones 1:1, regardless if the target drive is larger. That's what pretty much ALL hardware cloning devices do. They don't actually "understand" the data they are cloning (eg: FAT32, UFS, HFS+ etc partitions) - they clone using a very low-level access method, reading data bits one by one. So Wavlink had no false advertising there. The extra step of resizing the target drive's partition will always be required, if the target drive was larger than the source drive. I can also confirm that it clones SSD and traditional Spinning hard drives equally well.
Thanks for the nice comment! I realized that a clone meant a clone once I ran through the process. But when I started the process, I held out a hope that somehow all the extra space on the bigger drive would be available. I wanted to make sure that viewers understood that would not be the case -- that will help with how they plan this task.
And thanks for confirming that about spinning hard drives... that is really good to know!
@@BobKovacs It could have done this easily with a Windows APP doing the cloning, so your expectation was not far off, but they seemed to want it offline capable, which also could be useful.
I just cannot think of how, considering we're using these on PCs. ;D)
If I'm right though, isn't it a requirement to make sure your target drive is larger then the source drive for it to initiate?
Yeah, works as advertised. 1 to 1 clone.
Good video Bob. I've owned a Wavlink dock for about 2 years but never needed to clone drives. Instead, I was using it to transfer data from multiple smaller drive to larger drives. So when I needed to clone a drive (in the past I've used Symantic and Norton Ghost) I no longer had the instruction booklet. As I write this, I'm waiting from my clone to complete (a 1:1 of a 1 TB mechanical to a 1 TB SSD). I'll let you know the results when it's finished. Again, thanks for the good video.
UPDATE: Everything went well. It took longer than expected; about 2.5 hours. Popped the SSD in the desktop and after loading drivers, it logged in to Windows just fine. I’m a happy camper. Thanks again for easy and detailed information.
You are welcome! Always great to hear that I helped someone out.
I have had a wavlink for almost a year, just looking at it. Your video was clear and precise. I now have the confidence I need to copy my Hard drive in my desktop to an SSD. Thank you!
You're welcome... glad it was helpful!
Makes me happy I bought this Wavlink dock.
Thanks for the great video Bob. Really helped me out. Cloned a 8tb HHD full of movies and TV shows in about 6 hours whilst stuck in doors in rainy London.
You're welcome... glad to hear the video helped.
One crucial, no pun intended, thing you left out is that you need to disconnect the USB cable from the computer before performing the cloning procedure or it will not work. Found this out through another video.
As I said in the video, I used the Wavlink disconnected from a computer. I have not tried to use it connected to a computer -- I bought it to be a standalone cloning device, and thought I made that clear in the video. Thanks for the comment!
It's not so much unclear, but if you are like a lot of people you use this as a docking station too. So, if it's connected to the computer it will not clone a device. I found this out after about 20 minutes and watching the same part of your video 5 or 6 times. It is just worth noting that in order to clone it cannot be connected to a PC. The instructions don't tell you this either.
I didn't see the cable connected in the video - that was my big clue, even if I did not hear the actual instruction. Thus a monkey see monkey do approach would have worked.
You don’t need to download additional software to extend the partition. After putting the clone disk in the PC and booted it. Open Disk Manager, select the drive and then the partition. Then select extend partition and adjust setting to use all the available space. Alternatively, you can create a new partition and use it for data, leaving the original partition for the OS. You may want to shrink the OS partition and add the space to the data partition.
Yes, thank you. A few others have pointed out the same thing in the comments below. I was not aware that Windows had that capability when I made this video. I Googled how to extend a partition, and found the software I mentioned in the review. I sure wish I had known that Windows could do it, though... would have saved some heartburn.
Came here because I just acquired one of these and couldn't get the standalone clone process to kick off; your "press the OTG button whilst the lights are flashing" tip was the missing piece of the puzzle. Writing this as I watch a 300GB WD3000GLFS (yes, an electromechanical VelociRaptor no less) clone to a 1TB Samsung 860EVO SSD. Cheers, Bob!
Glad I could help... thanks for leaving a note!
Best and most concise video I've found. Thanks for this!
You're welcome.
Thanks for the review, it helped me decipher the lights and buttons and understand how to use it with out googling the manual.
1) I think the product works as it should. The process of cloning a smaller drive to a larger drive with a piece of hardware, it cannot know how you want the destination to look. Like one of the commenters (Nick Henson) said, Windows's Disk Management is a easy tool to EXPAND a partition with. Free and simple. And maybe you don't want it to be full 100% but some other percent, you can do that too.
2) Yes this can do mechanical spinning disks, notice the flap on the source/destination that can go down, this is where the 3.5inch drive slides in.
I've made multiple clones for Win 10 computers, and I can not get Window's Disk Management tool to work. In every case, I had to use a 3rd party application -- it was free, but it took some puzzling to figure it out. Windows' tools were just grayed out and would not let me change anything.
Which software did you use for the partitions?
As I say in the video (at 6:50), I used Aomei Partition Assistant. And it was not intuitive... I struggled with it for a couple of hours before I figured out what to do. That was 5 years ago, so I don't remember exactly what needed to be done.
Thanks Bob this is the best for off line cloning. Thanks for showing how to use wavlink. Excellent 👍
You're welcome... glad you like it!
Great video, have referenced this a number of times over the years - Thanks
@@DiveInto You're welcome... I'm glad to hear that it's been useful.
Thanks for keeping this video posted Bob, just cloned my PS4 hard drive. This makes an excellent one-to-one copy.
When cloning smaller SSD or hard drive to a bigger SSD or hard drive use AOMEO partition magic to extend a the partition on the ssd or hard drive.
Excellent work thanks
You're welcome... and thank you for the lovely note.
Just do it in Disk manager on Windows.
Thank you for the concise and clear information without intolerable music or a self adulating 30 minute introduction complete with paypal link.
Ha! You're welcome.
Thank you for the video. I have one of these that I've been using as an external docking port to read data off a bunch of old hard drives I had in a box. Now, I'm getting ready to get rid of the old drives, but want to wipe them first. So, I wiped one drive and am using that for the source. I was having problems getting the cloning to start because the manual says you just hold the button until all the lights turn on. Well, they started flashing for a few seconds, then went off. It didn't mention that you had to let go and press it again to actually start the process. That step was important.
Anyway, now that it's actually cloning, it seems to be a much faster way to wipe a bunch of drives since the data doesn't have to go through USB. Plus, it frees up my computer and I can put it into sleep mode while the drive clones.
Overall, I'm happy with this device. It was a VERY easy way to go through all the old drives to find any data I may have missed. Just shut it off, drop the drive in, turn it on, and it shows up as an external drive. No need to make sure the SATA connectors are lined up properly. It works great for 3.5 or 2.5 drives, SSD or spinning media.
You're welcome... and thanks for sharing your story.
I find it very useful, thanks and greetings from Mexico
You are welcome!
You didn't have to use the downloaded software. You could have used the Disk Management took to make the HDD bigger. It's already installed in windows.
Many other people have said the same thing. However, I have used the Wavlink to clone drives for two different computers, and both times the Windows partitioning apps were grayed out... couldn't use them. I had to use a third-party app.
Great video Bob can you please by any chance make n followup video on how to make the other space available plz and what software to use
That was also exactly what i got the wavlink for and yes now im stil back to square one😢
Making a video that shows that is a good idea, but it will be quite a while before I can get to it. Thanks for the idea!
You didn't need to download software to extend the partition Bob. You can do that in Disk management in the OS.
Yes, a couple others have pointed that out in the comments. But thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. Hope the video was otherwise useful to you.
I just cloned another boot drive for a different computer and attempted to use Windows Disk Management feature. However, the "Extend Partition" line was grayed out and could not be selected. The advice I found online says that if "Extend Partition" is grayed out, use the AOMEI partition management software that I used previously. So apparently Win10 Disk Management does not work every time.
@@BobKovacs The Windows Disk Management may just work on the 10 Pro,Not the Home version.
needed this video. FYI Bob, it works with spindle drives too. i just cloned an SSD to a HDD.
Thanks!
You would think that they would have included instructions on their product. Regardless, thanks for taking the time to create the video. Your instructions worked perfectly on my unit. Thanks again : )
You are welcome! There were instructions with mine, but they were a bit confusing and contradictory in places. Always glad to hear that I helped someone, however.
Thanks for the helpful video. I was able to clone a 1TB HDD (with Linux Mint) to another 1TB HDD without having to partition or extend a partition on the target drive. Just thought it would be helpful for your viewers to know this device did this seamlessly. I didn't format the new WD drive or anything else before cloning.
Thanks for that information. About how long did it take you to clone a 1TB drive?
@@BobKovacs : About 1.5 hours with around 500mb of data on the drive(s).
Thanks for sharing that bit of information.... all I had to go on was the 128GB drive that I cloned.
At this moment, I am cloning 1TB HDD to 1TB SSD, been running for 1 hour and 45 minutes, its 100% blinking now, so wait foe it to be solid Blue.
Thanks Bob - Question, did you have to first format your new Crucial SSD before inserting it into the Target bay connector, or did you just connected it in Target connector as is from the factory?
I did not format the target disk. Whatever format your source disk has will be copied onto the target disk. Just insert the two disks (as I show in the video), push the button, and the magic happens.
its a clone, right down to the hidden partitions
You can extend the partition of the cloned hard drive in Windows usings the Disk Management tool. No need to "download" an additional tool if the partition that you want to extend is the partition adjacent to the empty space to the right of the partition that you want to extend.
If you read the comments below, there are a few others who said the same thing. And as I told them, I have now cloned drives twice using this device, and both times the Windows Disk Management tool was "grayed-out" and unavailable. Only third-party software would work for me. And that was on two different computers.
Great video Bob ,W10 disk management tool in W10 can extend the volume
I've tried using Win10's disk management -- twice -- and could not get it to work either time. My choices were grayed out. Annoying, but I'm glad there were alternatives.
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.
Hello Bob, You don't need any software like Aomei, just go to disk management on Windows and expand volume on there.
That was the first thing I tried and it was grayed-out.... unavailable. Only 3rd-party software worked for me. That was true both times I've used the Wavlink to clone a drive -- both times, Windows disk management was grayed out. And that was on different computers.
Do you know what is the down point? It won't clone if the target size is smaller than the source, even if the contains of the source is 10GB out of 1tb and the Target is 512GB
Yes, the target has to be at least as big as the source. That's because the Wavlink has no intelligence... as far as it is concerned, a byte with no information is exactly the same as a byte with information. It would be excellent (and probably a lot more expensive) if there was a smart version of Wavlink that could analyze the data and do a "smart clone."
Thanks, Bob. It's a good video about the unit. I don't agree with you regarding the partition, since the system is cloning block by block what's in the source drive. Depending on the OS, there are srveral utilities to deal with that. Cheers.
Thanks for tutorial man I finally understand how to used it.
You're welcome... glad I could help.
Well done. You answered my one question which is what do the lights do when the cloning is done. I used my Wavlink to clon a 1TB HD to another 1TB HD. The source drive is from my WD Book World NAS system running RAID 1, which has a hardware problem, so I need to get the data off of one of the drives, using Linux. For reasons of safety I will be taking the data from the cloned drive and not one of the original drives. After that I will see if I can repair the system board on the NAS. Hopefully it's just a capacitor.
Thanks... and I appreciate the detail on what you're doing.
Wish my Wavlink was that fast. .It took all day and night for the lights to become solid on mine and the cloning to finish. Source drive was a 800 MB spin hard drive. Target was a solid state one TB drive.
After cloning, I hooked the USB cable to another windows 7 machine and it read both drives fine, but it would only read one drive in the toaster at a time.
When I installed the cloned SSD drive in another machine that the source drive came from, that's when all heck broke loose. A lot of blue screens of death sprang into action and Windows started running scan disk and automatically putting in fixes, etc. After it finished, everything worked again, including the dual boot for the other side of the drive containing a Linux installation.
Don't know why mine took all night when others said theirs only took less than an hour. I was happy that a solid state drive didn't have issues in an old win7 machine and Microsoft didn't ask for a license key usually triggered by a new drive.
Thanks for sharing your story... I appreciate it.
after pressing and holding the clone button the blue 'Source' and 'Target' lights are flashing and I see 1 solid blue light spinning between each %. When I try pressing the clone button again nothing happens. I am trying to clone a 2TB SSHD to a 4TB SSD. Any ideas?
It's been a while since I used the Wavlink, but I did show the steps in the video. I don't think it is a problem to go from a 2TB SSHD to a 4TB SSD as far as the Wavlink is concerned, but you will have to open access to the new space afterward. Again, that is not something the Wavlink does.. My only suggestion is to follow the steps I show in the video. That's worked for me twice now.
Bob, will you please confirm that the target hard drive was bootable immediately? A couple of things.. I am certain that it would work the same for any form of SATA drive, and Windows Disk Management would have worked to resize the main partition after cloning, or you could have hooked up the USB cable and used software to do the whole thing that way on the fly. Thanks for the video.
You are welcome. Yes, the cloned hard drive was bootable immediately. I put it in my computer and it booted right up, with everything where I expected it to be. The only problem was that my new 960GB SSD drive thought it was a 128GB drive. But the cloned drive booted right up, just like the computer did before the cloning.
The problem with this is that you can't clone your hard drive as a backup to the same size target, eg from a 1tb to another 1tb (needs to be double the size they say) so it is no good if you want to keep your hard drive backed up regularly to a spare hard drive like I do. I believe it needs to be twice the size to work.
I'm not sure I agree with you. My understanding is that you can run the cloning feature from drive A to drive B, as long as B is the same size or larger than drive A. If you have a 500GB drive, you should be able to clone it to another 500GB drive.
It is possible that Samsung's 500GB drive is larger than Toshiba's 500GB drive (just to offer a couple of manufacturer names). They both might be called "500GB," but the cloning process won't run if drive B is even a few bytes smaller than drive A. That's why it's a good idea that drive A should be larger than drive B. However, equal size drives should clone properly.
@@BobKovacs Yes I think you are right because I have now seen other UA-cams that say they do clone the same size discs. I got told that from the Wavlink UA-cam channel but I think they might be wrong.I hope so because I am wanting to buy one of these because I have three 1tb hard drives in my PC and I have another three as backups that I clone every week or so to keep them up to date incase of a hard drive fails I don't loose anything. Lets hope and thanks for your reply.
Question: I need to copy to new drive. Does the new never used drive need to have Windows installed on it before it can be cloned?
No, you do not need to have Windows installed on the new drive or prepare the new drive in any way. Whatever the original drive has will be copied onto the new drive.
Great video thank you! My Source Light and Target Light are blinking together and it seems I can't get them to clone for some reason. Is there a way to troubleshoot these WaaveLink Dual Bay devices?
Did you do the button press sequence that I show at about 3:55? If you did that and do not get the response that I show in the video, it's possible your Wavlink device is defective. It's also possible that there is a problem with one of your hard drives... I can't diagnose it at a distance.
Good luck!
I’m using this to offline cloning old 1tb to new 2tb SSD. It’s been blinking at 25% for three hours. What happens if the process is stopped/interrupted? Will source data be lost? Or new SSD damaged? Or, can I have a redo without any issues?
I have not tested it to see what will happen if it is interrupted. My guess is that your source drive will be fine. You might want to let it do its thing overnight. If it isn't done by then, there is obviously a problem. Test the drives for bad sectors. I'm not enough of an IT pro to know what else could be wrong.
making a copy/clone 500GB to 500GB, same size, both are SSD drives, running 12 hours and continues to do so. Should I stop, and try again, since the LED's continue to blink ? How long should it take ?
It should be done in 12 hours, I think. If it hasn't ended by now, turn the Wavlink off, remove your source drive and confirm that your computer still boots up with it. If the computer boots up and runs fine, then try running the clone process again. Good luck!
I have never had the problem with repartitioning after cloning with this drive cloner. I don't know why you did. It may be due to the NAND style of your new drive, if you are cloning from a 3D NAND to a 2D like you did to that 960gb drive, this could be the cause. It does work with platter drives as well. You can even clone from a HDD to an SSD!
I've now done two drive clones and had to struggle to open the extra space using third-party partition software with both. Once you learn how to use the software, it's a piece of cake. However, I had to use two different applications, and had to climb a learning curve with each. Still, I'd rather have my new drives with their extra space... it was worth it.
Hi, when I hold the button to start the cloning the source and target indicator blinks and the progress indicator just moves round in a quick circle.. any idea on why this is happening? Thanks
What are the sizes of your source and target drives? Have you checked the target drive to see if there is anything on it? Are you sure the source drive functions properly? Will it boot a computer? If the source drive is working properly and the target drive is at least as big as the source drive (and it is a working drive as well), then the Wavlink may be bad. But you have a lot of checking to do first to confirm everything else.
By the way, thank you for the video. I saw two Wavelinks, one blue and one green. The green one is cheaper and came out almost a month earlier. I find this strange.
You're very welcome. I'm glad that I made this video, as it has become one of my most popular -- it's my #9 most-viewed video, and I have more than 400 videos posted. You never really know what is going to attract an audience!
It works with solid state and non-solid state drives both. I have one and I've used it on both. I haven't found one yet that it wouldn't work on.
Yes, I just used it to clone a spinning drive onto an SSD. I had a hard time opening up the partition on the much bigger SSD, but got it after a few tries.
Tried cloning my original 1TB Seagate SATA HD to a new fresh out of the wrapper 2 TB Seagate Barracuda SATA HD using the new Wavlink Duplicator. The red power light comes on, I hear the drives startup and spin, and both blue lights come on for source and target slots. However, when I press and hold the center button, it does not do what your video did with the whole circle flashing. It does nothing, just sits there with the power, source and target buttons lit. Any thoughts?
No, I don't have any idea what might (or might not) be happening. I suggest that you contact the company... it might have some troubleshooting ideas.
Does it matter if part of the drive contains a partition that is formatted as bitlocker ?
It does not matter what formatting or partitions the target drive has. Whatever is on that drive will be over-written by the source drive. If the source drive has bitlocker and partitions on it, then bitlocker and partitions will be written to the target drive.
What software did you use to Dre the extra space on you bigger drive?
The software I used was called something like Aomei, and I have an on-screen graphic for it in the video. It was a free download. People have repeatedly said that the partitioning app that comes with Windows can do the job, but I could not get it to work.
@@BobKovacs Thanks for the reply. Yes, I also found some videos talking about the windows disk system can do the job. The thing is I am using OS Mojave from Apple... I tried the Apple's disk utility and it failed to do the work... will keep trying other venues...
@@ele4853 Ah, okay... I have no background with Apple, so I can't help you there.
Bob, I have used the wavlink to clone both Sata and SSD. No issues cloning a Sata but like you mentioned in your video it will clone what ever the source size is to the target so if its not 1:1 then you have to go in and readjust the partition.
Thanks for that info. I have an old laptop with a spinning hard drive that I'd really like to update to an SSD. It sounds like that will be no problem.
@@BobKovacs actually just did it this afternoon with no issue
The way I understand it they both are SATA drives. The difference is that one is a HD or HHD the other is SSD. HD means Hard Drive. HHD means Hybrid Hard Drive. SSD means Solid State Drive. The first two are mechanical. The Third one is not.
I think you can use disk management to resize the partitions or go command line.
Windows Disk Management may work for some, but it did not work for me. I had to use 3rd-party disk management software. Definitely a pain, but I got it eventually.
For a non SSD drive it takes a lot longer for cloning. I cloned a 1TB to another 1TB and it took almost three hours.
Also, on the solid lights indicating it's done, I noticed that first the lights go solid blue, and then after a few minutes they turn off and only the red light at the top remains on.
Thanks for adding those details... I appreciate it!
Hi again....my source hard drive is legacy mode I checked, so MBR. Can I duplicate this onto the ssd but have the ssd hard drive formatted to GPT? Then change in bios to UEFI? Does my target drive have to be formatted to MBR like the source?
Can you duplicate your source drive onto an SSD of at least equivalent size? Yes. Can you then change the formatting of the SSD? I do not know. Does your target drive have to be formatted to MBR like the source? No, the target drive requires no formatting. Whatever format your source drive has will be cloned onto the target drive. You will waste time if you first format the target drive before the cloning process.
Good video / well presented Bob - thanks!
Do you know if it's possible to clone a drive without putting the source in the Docking Station? I need to keep working, and thus Source in my Lappy, but want to create a Clone at the same time...
There is software that you can run on the computer to create a clone of it. One such application is Norton Ghost. I have never used it, and there are alternatives to Norton Ghost that I have no experience with as well. So what you want to do probably can be done, but I have no experience going that way.
FWIW, it takes only 5 minutes or so to pop a hard drive out of a laptop. At least it does for the laptops I have.
@@BobKovacs Thanks Bob, I have discovered a Software Product called Ease US... I refuse to use any Norton Products anymore due to the complexity of trying to remove them after needed...
@@BobKovacs ...and yes, 5-minutes to pop it... but 2-hours+ to clone it... I need Lappy 24-7
I just bought them one but some I put the source and target into 2 correct slot and pushed and hold release and one more push but the source keep blinking at 25% and not moving on. Can you help me with that?
Depending on the size of the drives, it can take an hour or more to get past the 25% mark. Your comment is from a few hours ago, now... did the Wavlink complete the clone?
cool, thx a lot fot this useful info
You're welcome.
Thanks Bob! Mac guy here, I had the same hope as you when I got mine and of course found out what you found out... the extra space wasn't available... so reading many of the comments everyone finds out that Windows 10 can "extend the partition'... nice to know LOL but what about us Mac guys? as many years as I've been "Mac" i've never even thought to "extend a partition"??.... hmmm anybody out there know if it can be done on a Mac formatted drive?? I guess I'll do some searching and see if it's doable... I'll come back and let folks know if I'm successful
Thanks for the feedback, Brad. Please do come back and let us know what you find regarding gaining access to the extra space on the disk.
You should try and clone a IDE Drive to an SSD drive using an IDE to Sata adapter just as an experiment and see if it would work.Nothing to do with what you needed to clone
That'd be interesting.
It works for most all drive HDD and SSSD. I own one
Mine worked flawlessly on my Mac and Windows laptop both hdd to ssd
It does not and should not matter what type of hard drive. The device is just reading the information. You can mix and match however you want.
Yes, I agree. Since I made this video, I used the Wavlink device to clone a spinning drive onto an SSD. Worked fine.
You could have used windows 10 Disk manager to resize your partition!Great Video, I haven't used mine in a while and looked up your video to find the cloning start sequence!
Windows 10 Disk Manager works sometimes and for some computers. However, it definitely does not work all the time for everyone. The last time I cloned a disk, I tried Win 10 Disk Manager, and it could not do the re-partitioning. I had to use something else.
Good video. FYI, You can clone 2 drives of the same size. You can clone when the target is 2TB and the source is 1TB. You can't clone when the Source is larger than the target. Works on 3.5" drives, 2.5" drives, solid state, spinning... High power drives may need a bigger power supply for the Wavlink.
Thanks for the info!
So you can clone from 1-TB HDD Source to 1-TB SSD Target Drive with no issues?
@@re8355I confirm this works, did it a year ago, and still good until now.
FREE = Windows has drive management where you can 'extend' the '128gb' disk to it's full size. In short, when cloning, make sure your target is equal or larger in size. If you're rolling out an image to lots of disks, make sure it's a small disk (32gb) or enough to hold all data, then it can roll out to equal or larger disks...which if larger, you use Windows built in disk management to extend the small disk to the disks actual size. If you have small partitions between the imaged disk and the unallocated space, then you can't extend...the unallocated needs to be next to the 'disk' (partition) you need to extend. Very simple stuff.
Yes, others have said the same in the comments below. However, I have cloned drives two times, and both times Win 10's disk management feature was "grayed out" and not available. I had to use a 3rd party application to get the job done.
Thanks Bob. The video helped. Cloning right now. Looks like it's working. Not thrilled about having to re-partition after the clone. I guess you get what you pay for.
You are welcome. If you look down a couple of comments, someone said that Windows 10 has the ability to repartition, so give that a look before you try something else.
@@BobKovacs Yes. I used disk manager and just extended the copied partition into the unallocated one. Was easy and looks like it worked out. Thanks again.
I wish I had known about that... it would have saved me some heartburn. Glad to know that it worked out for you.
@@BobKovacs I had the same issue as you Bob. I just grabbed the AOMEI software, merged the partitions and called it a day. Took all of 5 minutes to do so no biggie there. I recommend using the AOMEI software if your windows is showing the "extend" option as grayed out.
This is what it is supposed to do. I believe that all dual docks with cloning ability do the same thing no matter what you paid for it. I'm glad you got yours sorted out.
can i use it to clone drive with windows os to bigger ssd and replace the old smaller ssd with bigger fresh-cloned ssd drive?
Yes! It works very well for that. In fact, that's what I do in the video. Once you finish cloning onto the bigger drive, you will have to use Windows disc management tools to expand the partition. If Windows own built-in tools won't work (they were grayed-out and unavailable for me), you will have to use a third-party app to expand the partition and get access to the new space. That is what I discuss in the video.
@@BobKovacs Thanks for the clarification
My C drive is cloned from 128 GB to 1TB but I can't allocate the free space on my 1TB SSD. Its grayed out when I try to use extend volume on disk management. Please Help me what I should do and what software you used to extend your C Drive after cloning. Any Help guys? Thank you!
I discuss the software I used to open up the partition -- it's near the end of the video where I discuss exactly this. Also, read some of the comments below, where this point has come up a few times. Lots of good information there.
As I type this, I'm cloning my WD 1 TB Enterprise drive from my desktop over to a TeamGroup AX2 1TB SSD - the load speed should be insane. :)
I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned but that is very normal to have that extra space unreadable. You are cloning. This means that you are making a 1 to 1 copy basically. It has no way to know what to do with the rest of the space so once you add it to your computer, you can go into computer management and finish making the rest of the drive readable. I see on the video that you downloaded a program to help you out with that which is great but when you said you had bad news, I thought uh-oh... something bad is to be expected... Turns out that it really wasn't bad news. Your expectations just weren't set properly. Anyone getting this should know that whatever cloning device you use, if the target is bigger than the source then you will always have that leftover space that you have to manage yourself.
Yes, it was my expectation that was wrong. Still, I've done this twice now, and the second time I knew I would have to manage the partitions. The second time, it took me all afternoon to find partition software that could do what I needed it to do, then for me to figure out how to do it. Windows Disk Management could not open the space, because the space was "grayed out." So it is wonderful that the Wavlink makes it so easy to create a clone, and if it is a 1:1 clone then everything is good. However, if it is a small-to-large clone, you can easily have a couple more hours of disk finagling to achieve the desired result. Maybe an IT pro would know what to do immediately, but a wannabe like me will struggle. That's something that people using the Wavlink dock for cloning should know.
@@BobKovacs Well, It's a good thing I'm an IT Pro... at your service. I'm going to post my email today and delete it after I get a response that you've seen it. If you ever need help I will be willing to help you. I don't do Linux, but I am a Mac/PC guy. Anything on those two platforms I'm willing to help out with. Just shoot me an email and I'll do my best to respond at no cost to you. I just like to help when I can.
I got it... thanks. What's your name?
@@BobKovacs My name is Bradley. Nice to meet you sir.
Thanks!
Can I use this device to clone a different kind of OS? I need to clone my Macbook and UNIX HDD. Thanks in advance.
Yes, this device will make a perfect clone of a hard drive regardless of its OS. It will work exactly the same way for Mac OS, UNIX and Windows.
@@BobKovacs Thank you! Really appreciated your video. Cheers!
@@ericbernardo3607 You're welcome.
iam working in a company with limited resources
can i use this to colon company ssd to my new ssd to use the system as well as activated windows and Microsoft office?
Yes, you can do that, and Windows and all the apps on the original SSD will work fine on the new SSD. The only caveat is that the new SSD has to be at least as big as the old SSD. It is really easy if you clone a 500GB drive to a new 500GB drive (for example). You can copy it to a bigger drive and the bigger drive will work fine even if you do nothing else. However, if you want to get at the extra space on the bigger drive, you will have to do some work to get at it. This will not work to copy a 500GB drive to a 320GB drive... the destination drive has to be at least the same size as the source drive.
It work with magnetic drive, tested it and work perfectly
Thanks!
Hello! Thank you for the video! If the resource disk with operation system does not work and is possibly damaged, can it be cloned?
You're welcome. I do not know if this will clone a damaged disk. Obviously, it will not clone sectors that are unreadable. I have cloned only two disks with it, and both those source drives were good.
@@BobKovacs Thank you, sir.
@@dmitriyvoskoboynikov9877 I was able to clone a bad hard drive and it worked perfect!, The original hard drive I cloned wouldn't boot and I tried to get the info off of it with an external to USB connector and still couldn't see the files. Cloned it with the wavelink and it the clone booted up fine! Of course the source drive can't be completely dead for this to work!
I have one in mail coming. When you clone, why does it seperate the partition on your source hard drive to?
I'm not sure what you are asking. Whatever partitions are on your source drive, they will be duplicated on the target drive. The cloning process does not add or create anything -- it makes an exact copy of the original.
@@BobKovacs I read that on Amazon video it partions the source drive and the destination drive into 3 partitions? Just the destination drive? You have to expand the volume of the destination drive after cloned?
Some of that information is wrong, and some is confusing. First, understand that this Wavlink device makes an exact clone -- whatever was on the source drive will be exactly duplicated on the destination drive. If the source drive has X partitions, then X partitions will be duplicated on the destination drive. The destination drive is an exact clone.
If the source drive is smaller than the destination drive -- for example, the source drive is 500GB and the destination drive is 1TB -- then the Wavlink will create a 500GB clone on the 1TB destination drive. If you put the cloned 1TB drive in your computer, your computer will report that it is a 500GB drive. If you want to access the extra space on the 1TB drive, you will need to use software (as I discuss in the video) to open up the space for your computer to see it. Some people can use the disk management tools in Windows, but others (like me) had to use 3rd-party software to manage the disk space.
I hope that answers your questions.
@@BobKovacs Ok thanks, that what I thought. Thanks for the vid!
I may use it to clone drives in the future but I would like to use it just as an external hard drive bay and remove the 3.5” drives from my PC auto clean things up. Can this unit, once connected to PC from USB, be used just as external storage? I’d like to remove my 3HDDs and put games and files on my 2 largest of the drives and have it all as external storage.
Yes, the Wavlink works as an external drive dock and will do exactly what you want.
@@BobKovacs thank you sooo much that’s great information! I wasn’t too worried for the price of $25 but I’m glad it will do exactly as I intend I may buy a second one then. Thank you!
You are welcome!
He said the Target drive had to be bigger than Source Drive. So this wouldn't work to clone from a 1-TB HDD over to a 1-TB SSD ?
That will work if the SSD is at least as big as the 1TB HDD. SSDs occasionally have capacities that are just a little less than HDDs of the same size, so check carefully. If your HDD is 1,012GB and your SSD is 1,000GB, you will not be able to clone onto the SSD.
@@BobKovacs Ok, I will check that. Thank You
How long for a 2tb sshd to a 2tb ssd? Been stuck at 100% for a LONG time. Still waiting. Been cloning for over 9-10 hours. We did this on three other drives we cloned and it did not take this long.
I would think 2-3 hours. Maybe someone will come along who has done drives that size and knows the answer.
After that time, I would switch the unit off and confirm that your original drive still works properly. Then try the cloned drive and see if it works. If it works, you're set. If it doesn't work, see if you can run a disk check utility to see if it has bad sectors. If it has bad sectors, see if the utility can repair them and format the drive. Once it is formatted, check it again with a disk utility program and confirm it is good. Then try re-cloning on the Wavlink.
Good luck!
@@BobKovacs I was cloning this for my nephew. His Firecuda sshd was failing. It wound up taking 11 hrs! We had another one take a long time too but not that long. Lol. I was just about to give up and it finally stopped blinking at 100% and then all blue lights went off. It is funny we had one hang with the blue lights still on and the cloned drive worked fine. My nephew will be happy his pc boots to desktop in a few seconds now. Everything, folders, apps, pictures all opening up REAL snappy like they should. Thanks for the tips. The instructions are confusing. It is not very clear about the “double tap” you have to do to make the clone operation work. Thanks!
I forgot to mention he had it PACKED with games. I mean like the drive barely had any room to breath. I told him you got to thin it out a little if you are not playing some of them. I've seen systems get bricked by this.
@@sacul7694 I'm glad to hear that it all worked out. The Wavlink is a handy tool, but it gives you almost no information about how the process is going. 11 hours is a long time to clone a drive!
Can you use this to let you access the two hard drives just like an external hard drive on a pc?
I think you can, but I have never used it for that.
I have used it to access 1 hard drive in the source spot haven't tried 2.
Hi
May you make a tutorial to show us how was the way you did to fix this problem with the aomei partition assistant, please? And any similar app for Mac, play?
I mean please. Thank you
Hi, Miguel. I don't have a good setup for cloning another drive and showing how AOMEI partition assistant works. Sorry. Thank you for asking, however.
do u need to install new one in your computer to format or the tool does it byself
Not exactly sure what you are asking. If you clone your computer's hard drive using the Wavlink I show in this video, you do not have to format anything. The new cloned drive will work exactly the way your original drive worked. As far as your computer is concerned, the cloned drive *is* the original drive.
@@BobKovacs Hi Bob thank you for your answer. You know for using a new disk it has to be formatted. MY question was if that dock does it byself or you have to format the new disk before putting it on the cloner. I think We do not do anything to use. Thank you again
The Wavlink makes a clone of your existing hard drive, including the formatting that is on your existing hard drive. You do not have to format the cloned drive. In fact, whatever formatting is on the target drive will be obliterated by the data cloned onto it from the source drive.
does this clone it in its entirity ie if the source drive has an operating system on it, does it clone that as well?
Yes, everything on the source drive (including the operating system) is cloned to the new drive. I discuss that in the video.
might try again but next time preformat the SSD first in your computer then clone the drive and see if that works out better for you ..
I'd rather the extra step of opening the partition than the couple extra steps that it would take to preformat the drive. Especially if the preformatting turns out to not make a difference during cloning, as I suspect would be the case. But thank you for the suggestion.
@@BobKovacs well here is the story i rencenty did upgrade to ssd on my mac so i formated the ssd which. is smaller then my stock hdd then installed everything fresh and clean then i took a second SSD and Cloned my new SSD but made surfe to format first works perfect .. it takes only a few seconds to preformat your drive out before hand and it is best to do so this way ... how ever do as you like .. i have the upgraded wavlink from yours mine has charge ports extra usb SD reader and micro sd reader and it hot swap as well and has 1 touch cloning to.. its really cool machine for the 45.00 cnd i paid for it .. works like a charm for everything i need to do .. we have several computers in the house and more of them are going to go SSD you cant beat an SSD other then then nvme drives they really kick . i might ad the nvme into my imac eventually but for now the SSD i put in is great
Perfect, thank you!
You're welcome!
awesome video. i recently purchase one, however the lights just keep blinking after i hold the button and nothing happens. what should i do? i am trying to clone two ssd drive like yours. Thanks.
If you follow the steps that I show in the video and are getting a different indication on the LEDs, I don't know what might be wrong. Make sure your disks are fully pressed into their slots. It shouldn't be hard to press them in, just check to be sure they are actually pressed in. Make sure your target disk is at least as big as your source disk. If you do those things and the LEDs are not blinking correctly, then you may have a defective unit. Good luck!
@@BobKovacs thanks. Yeah could be faulty. Didn't work. I've manage to clone it with free software btw, I used Marcrium Reflect. Best software out there period. !!!!.
It's Like bob showed in the video, (it is kind of confusing in the manual) you have to hold the button down til it starts blinking then press it again quickly to get it started!
make sure to format the drive before cloning , that should get rid of the need to partition it after.
I don't think that will make a difference, as the cloning process clones the source drive's format onto the destination drive. That's how I understand it, anyway. The destination drive could be formatted in Linux and overwritten with the Magna Carta, but it will be a clone of the source drive when it's finished.
It can't hurt to format the destination drive... but I don't think it will help, either.
@@BobKovacs I tried it last night formatting the drive, you are correct it went to the source size
@@trashpanda2312 Thanks for sharing your experience.
@@BobKovacs if you go into disk manager you can extend the partition to get the true size of the new disk back, found that while looking for cloning software. so if you made a partition to re claim the lost drive space, delete the new partition and select extend and bam, all the space you wanted.
@@trashpanda2312 The two times I have cloned a drive using the Wavlink, Windows Disk Manager was grayed-out and no selections were available. My only choice was a 3rd-party application.
Thanks for the info, very helpful.
You're welcome!
Bought one on sale but see no reason to use it for cloning, I use only for file transfer between two 3.5" drives. For cloning it makes far more sense, in my little mind, to just buy a single $8 drive enclosure and the free Macrium Reflect Fuse. Dead simple interface, faster with on screen progress bar, able go to smaller target drive as long as data fits and no need to resize partition as it's done automatically. The drive case you bought is now for your old drive to be formatted or locked away to re image in the future.
Intriguing... thanks for the info. I had gone to the local computer store (Micro Center) and asked there what it would cost for them to clone my drive if I bought the new drive there. The answer was $140 (plus tax, of course). I looked around for an alternative that I felt I could handle as a guy with only modest IT skills, and the Wavlink is what I found. I certainly don't think it's the only way to do this, but I'm a video guy, so this gave me an opportunity to make a video about something. And it's done well in that regard.
Thanks for stopping by!
@@BobKovacs Just to let all know, using the Fuse software will work using the Wavelink if connected to computer. You get the choice of your C: drive to either slot or source to target as offline cloning. BTW, nice video, your camera brings out detail!
It's a but unfair to expect a dock to magically figure out what filesystems are on the drive and how to determine what does or doesn't need expanding. Because expanding may also require moving partitions.
You're probably right. Still, some reasonably intelligent people might try something like this thinking that the cloning process *would* leave an easily accessible space on the target disk. I know I did (if you can forgive me for thinking of myself as "reasonably intelligent"). I just want to warn them up front that accessing the new space may take some work. If I didn't tell them, I'd have lots of comments from people asking me where the space is that they should have. They'd then curse and tell me I should have warned them. I've been on both sides of this situation.
Thanks bob great video I've got a cheap 240gb SSD installed in my pc. I'm going to clone to an SSD crucial 240 GB. IT SEAMS THIS WAVE LINK will help me do that. quite easily. Thanks for the help bob. tony uk
Hi, Tony. Yes, if you have an existing 240GB SSD and you want to clone to a new 240GB SSD, the Wavlink is perfect for that. I would use the Wavlink to do that in a heartbeat.
You don't need to download software to extend your partition, most operating systems natively support extending a partition. A quick google should be sufficient.
Yes, others have pointed out the same thing. At the time I made this video, I did do a Google search, as that is where I found the software I used. But it's always good to remind people that there is an easier way, in this case using the tools that come with Windows.
Thanks for the helpful video
You're welcome!
How did you guys use disk management to extend the partition.
I'm actually interested in knowing that, too. I'm getting a 2TB SSD to replace a 1 TB spinning hard drive in a computer, and will need to figure out how to extend the partition. I'll let you know once I figure it out. If I can't figure it out, I will use the AOMEI software that I mention in the video.
I just cloned another boot drive for a different computer and attempted to use Windows Disk Management feature. However, the "Extend Partition" line was grayed out and could not be selected. The advice I found online says that if "Extend Partition" is grayed out, use the AOMEI partition management software that I used previously. So apparently Win10 Disk Management does not work every time, but I would try it first. Go to the Start button and search on "disk management." There are good instructions online.
I'm continuing to struggle with getting the unallocated space on the new SSD to increase the size of the main C: partition. What I may have learned is that you can only increase the size of one partition (the main C: partition) if the unallocated space is directly adjacent to it using Win 10 Disk Management. To facilitate that, I am now formatting the unallocated space using NTFS format. More if/when I complete this task.
I got the unallocated space on the SSD formatted (NTFS) using Windows Disk Management. Then I used another disk partitioning software called NIUBI Partition Editor -- it was free, but weirdly difficult to figure out which version to download. Using NIUBI, I was able to move the unallocated disk space next to the C: drive space and create one partition. So my main C: drive space is now 1.8TB and the computer works fine. All through this, the Wavlink dock device worked fine... no problems with that at all.
this is really useful.
Glad to hear it was helpful!
Fantastic thank ypu for making this video
You are welcome!
I have a 1tb hdd in my computer but the computer says 43gb used and 106 free. that is only 149gb..the question is can I clone this to a 250gb ssd? please anyone.
This Wavlink device will make an exact copy of the source drive onto the destination drive. Therefore, if your source drive is 1TB, it will not copy onto a 250GB drive. Even if there is nothing on 750GB of the source drive, the Wavlink is a "dumb" product that does not care if the bit is 1 or 0. What ever it is, it gets copied. And you can't make a "dumb" copy of a 1TB drive onto a 250GB drive.
thank you Bob, That is what I thought but had to ask.
It works with the spinning drive but its goin to be a slower dupe
Yes, since I made this video, I cloned a spinning drive onto an SSD using the Wavlink, and it worked perfectly.
Hi there, I have the Wavlink 3.0 and just plugged in my MacBook pros 500gb HDD and a Samsung 250 SSD. The light keeps flashing and will not go solid to start the cloning process - any ideas? Thank you
To do cloning, do not plug the Wavlink into a computer. It does its clone thing without a computer. I believe that the clone process will not work if it is plugged into a computer.
So unplug it from your Mac and follow the steps I give in the video. That should work.
Edit: It's possible I misunderstood what you are trying to do. Are you trying to clone the Mac's 500GB hard drive onto the Samsung 250GB SSD? If that is the case, it won't work. The destination drive has to be at least as big as the source drive. You can't clone a 500GB drive onto a 250GB drive, no matter how little data you have on the source drive.
@@BobKovacs thank you, I should have been clearer - it was not plugged into the Mac, only the power source
Ah... okay. Are you trying to clone a 500GB drive onto a 250GB SSD? If so, that won't work -- The destination drive has to be at least as big as the source drive.
Thank you... Very nice video tutorial...
You are welcome.
You have to test this thing out with 2 HDD drive (old spinning)
A couple others down in the comments have tried the Wavlink with spinning hard drives, and it worked fine.
It works fine with HDD drives and HDD to SSD. The only problem I have encountered is cloning from a SSD back to a HDD. The SSD has a little bit more space on the drive and it won't clone to it due to the difference.
Have you a video of the other process you had to go through
No, I don't. It was a lot of trial-and-error to figure out the right settings, and it is probably going to be different for most other users. I have not looked to see if there are any videos on UA-cam that show how to use the re-partitioning software.
@@BobKovacs thanks for quick reply , i have same problem you had when cloning my drive , I cloned 2 tb into 4 tb drive but it's saying my 4tb drive is on 2 tb so i'll check UA-cam to see how it's done , again thanks
I hope you find a video that provides some help. I simply downloaded the software I mention in the video and fumbled with it for a couple hours until I figured it out. I recently cloned another drive, and it required that I use different software to access the missing partition. That took all afternoon to figure out, but it was completely logical once I figured it out.
Good luck!
Great video!
Thanks!
Took me about 5-6 hours to clone a 2tb hard drive to another 2tb