Summary :
Power Tools Disco does more than just look pretty, though. Pro users will be glad that they can take advantage of the seamless multi-session support, many different file systems, and tons of disc image burning options.Disco can also handle creating a disc image from a set group of files, erasing rewritable media, Audio disc burning, and it can even detect physical motion on laptops to prevent. A commendable disk cloning app with multitudes of robust and scalable features is available with the EaseUS Todo Backup tool for Mac. If you are looking for a free Mac cloning software, then this can be your best chance to acquire a cloning app that comes with a 30-day free trial in addition to 30-day money-back guarantee. Burning software makes it easy for a user to record files on your CD or DVD. Whether you are using a Windows or Mac device, you can easily find software for burning your disks. Here in this article, we have shared some of the best free DVD burner software for Mac. So without further ado, let’s check the software and their offering.
What is the best free drive copy software? MiniTool Partition Wizard is the best hard drive cloning software which can be used to clone hard drive easily and safely. Download the free cloning software now and have a try!
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Why Clone Hard Drive?
Disk cloning is very useful in hard drive management. Simply put, disk cloning copies the complete contents of a hard drive, including the files, the partition tables and the MBR to another location.
It is worth mentioning that when you clone a hard drive, both the source disk and the target disk can be used directly, which is regarded as a simple, direct duplicate (however, cloning is different from copy & paste, check Clone VS. Copy & Paste for the detail).
In the following situations, you may consider hard drive cloning:
- To upgrade to larger hard drivewhen the current hard drive is too small and cannot meet your data storage requirements any longer. For example, you meet the 'low disk space' issue but all partitions are almost full.
- To upgrade hard drive to more advanced SSD to enjoy smooth computer performance. This is extremely useful for those who want to upgrade system disk, as SSD offers faster read-write speed.
- You have a batch of computers (with the same configuration) to be installed. To avoid installing all computers one by one, you can install only one at first and then turn to hard drive cloning software to save effort and time.
- To make an exact hard drive backup. Through free disk cloning, you get a copy of disk backup and avoid the trouble of data restoration when the backup copy is needed.
So the conclusion here is that if you are upgrading your hard drive to a larger one, or replacing it due to a physical failure, cloning hard drive is the easiest method to complete that task. Besides, doing hard drive copy reduces the risk of any accidental data loss.
Recommended Hard Drive Copy Utility
Since hard drive copy is significant, you must be wondering: which is the best freeware for drive copy? In my opinion, MiniTool Partition Wizard is the top recommendation. I will give you my explanation.
Developed by MiniTool Software Ltd., MiniTool Partition Wizard is regarded as the best drive copy software for Windows users, including those who are running 32/64 bits Windows 10, Windows 8, and Windows7.
As free drive cloning software, MiniTool Partition Wizard offers two ways to clone hard drives for hard drive upgrade or data backup, including 'Copy Disk' and 'Migrate OS to SSD/HD' (if you only want to clone the system).
All you have to do is put the new drive in the computer as a slave or secondary drive and use this disk copy software to clone the old drive to the new one. Once the process is complete, switch the new drive to the primary and then you are good to go (for hard drive upgrade).
Just press the button to have this free drive cloning tool downloaded! The free edition is flexible to copy any non-system disk; while to copy your system disk, you will need to upgrade to a more advanced edition.
Knowing what MiniTool Partition Wizard is, let's have a look on how to clone a hard drive by using MiniTool Partition Wizard. Here we just take clone hard drive Windows 10 for example, and MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition should be the right choice.
Note:- To use 'Copy Disk Wizard', both the source disk and target disk must be basic disks.
- The target disk will be cleaned during the cloning process. Please make sure it can be cleaned; otherwise transfer data out at first.
Step 1. Run MiniTool Partition Wizard to the main interface, then you can see all your hard drives connected to this PC are shown in the middle panel and some operable features are listed in the left panel. Now, select Copy Disk feature to clone hard drive.
Step 2. Here you need to select the target disk (must be basic disk) and click Next to continue. Make sure you know which drive you are cloning to so you do not overwrite the wrong drive.
Step 3. Here come the copy options. If you are copying from a GPT disk, you are able to see 2 options. (4 options when you are cloning an MBR disk, see details here.)
- Fit partitions to entire disk: all partitions will be cloned to the target disk and take up its full capacity according to the partition size proportion.
- Copy partitions without resize: all partitions will be cloned to the target disk according to the original partition size. This option is available when the target disk is large enough to hold all partitions on the source disk.
After you have made the copy options, you can customize each partition size according to your own preference. Then click Next to go on.
Step 4. Then you can see a note which reads 'To boot from the new disk, please configure computer BIOS settings. Make sure the new disk is configured as the default boot disk.' Please keep this in mind if you are cloning the system disk before you click Finish.
Step 5. Finally, you need to press the Apply button located on the toolbar to start hard drive cloning process. When finished, you will find all your files stay intact on the original drive and the target drive has an exact same copy.
For a more intuitive guidance, please watch this video:
Don't hesitate to have a try on this free cloning software now!
RECOMMEND:
Want to know more information about how to successfully boot computer from the new hard drive? Now, you can find answers from our previous post: 2 Ways to Boot from New Hard Drive after Copying Disk or Migrating OS.
In fact, MiniTool also puts forward another free cloning software to clone hard drives which is called MiniTool ShadowMaker. Although it is mainly designed for Windows backup, it also comes with useful Clone Disk feature. To get the details of how to use this disk copy software, you are suggested to read Clone OS from HDD to SSD.
Tips for Cloning Your Hard Drive
Now you know how to clone hard drive by using MiniTool free cloning software. Here I would like to put forward some tips to help you deal with cloning issue better.
- Don't just copy & paste files to another location on your hard disk if you are leading the operating system. Use professional disk cloning software like MiniTool Partition Wizard to help you.
- Use another hard drive, especially an external hard drive for your backup copies, because there is less chance of losing/damaging computer and external hard drive at the same time.
- At least one cloning copy should be kept well. Don't erase the current backup unless you are going to create a new one.
- If you use your computer frequently, back up your data often. Having a recent backup is always good for data recovery. Apart from hard drive clone, professional disk imaging software is also recommended to save effort.
Further Reading: Cloning VS. Imaging
When dealing with backup issue, cloning or imaging is always the question asked by many users. Many people choose to make a disk image, while many prefer hard drive cloning. Before I state my opinion, I would like to start with cloning VS. imaging.
One may ask, 'what the heck is the difference between cloning and imaging?'
Imaging is frequently used for preventative backup, which means you never know when you need the backup image for data restoration. Today most disk imaging software offer schedule backup feature, and you can set to back up files daily, weekly, or monthly. Besides, incremental backup and differential backup are provided, making it possible to save hard disk space.
If something bad happens, you can have the original image for restoration purposes without having to reinstall Windows and other applications.
Disk cloning is more significant for hard drive replacement or hard drive upgrading, which means probably you will use the destination disk right away. When you clone a hard drive, actually you are cloning the entire contents of the drive instead of creating an image file.
The only issue you need to concern is that you need to have another physical hard drive that is large enough to contain all data in the original drive. During the cloning process, all files on the target disk will be cleaned so be sure that you are operating the right disk.
The conclusion here is: although cloning and imaging both back up and restore data, whether to choose cloning or imaging all depends on what you want to accomplish. In a word, for frequent backup issue, imaging software is better; for hard drive upgrading issue, free hard drive cloning software should be given the priority.
Summary
In this post, I mainly tell why you need to clone hard drive, which tool is best for hard drive clone, how to use it to clone hard drive, the differences between cloning and imaging, and several tips on hard drive cloning. Hope all these information is helpful in dealing with your hard drive copy issues.
Now it's your turn to have a try. Just download the best free drive copy software and start cloning hard drive. I believe you can do everything smoothly as long as you follow this guide correctly. For any suggestions or questions towards using MiniTool software, please contact [email protected] or leave us comments below. Much appreciated!
Despite the illusion that streaming services are taking over the way people consume video content, there is still a large population searching for the best free DVD copy software, with an aim to digitize their collections over the years or make replications with a disc-to-disc copy.
There are many tools on the market that helps you to pull media content from a disc to a computer or a blank disc. If you got a shelf full of old DVDs, you will also need to check whether the copier can scan and read content from scratched or damaged discs. Free tools offer you basic options to convert DVDs into digital format, and paid tools may add extra features for tricky scenarios. For instance, VLC cannot play non-UDF DVD because the disc is mastered using an older file system. Handling nuances as such is the case for the best DVD copy software that keeps updating its algorithm to help DVD collectors.
Before you get started to use one of the following DVD copiers, make sure you own the DVD and Blu-ray discs, and comply with the local copyright law.
1. VideoProc Converter
Available for: Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7 Mac OS X 10.6 and later
If you have damaged or scratched DVDs, discs with regional locks, 99-title DVDs, copy-protected discs, or old DVDs that are mastered with a file system that other software cannot handle, VideoProc Converter will be your lifesaver. It is a lightweight and powerful video processing tool packed with DVD copy utilities. Thanks to the advanced auto-detect mechanism, VideoProc Converter can fix the bad sector and read the broken sector in your old DVD, making a replication without error.
You can copy DVD to MP4, MKV, and other popular formats, create ISO images, VIDEO_TS folders for burning, or backup the DVD to a hard drive. While retaining 1:1 original quality, the option is also highly customizable: you can digitize the DVD with all the content and structure preserved, including main movie, hidden track, deleted track, subtitles, menu, trailers, and behind-the-scenes bonus for movie buffs; or select titles and chapters, or extract audio only.
Developed by Digiarty Software Inc., a global leader with 15 years of experience in DVD ripping, DVD copy, video converting, recording and editing, VideoProc Converter inherits the cut-edge tech to deal with discs of all sorts.
It helps you to bypass various kinds of protections, including but not limited to Disney's Fake option, X-project, CSS, UOPs, APS, RCE, Sony ARccOS, Region Code, etc.
There are 6 Modes for DVD Backup:
- Main Movie Content Copy: You can flexibly select video tracks and audio tracks, choose whatever you want to digitize.
- Full Title Copy: Backup all the titles, chapters, subtitles, video trailers, hidden tracks, and audio.
- ISO: 1:1 clone DVD to ISO image, with 100% content and structure preserved.
- VIDEO_TS: 1:1 copy DVD to VIDEO_TS folder, retain full content for DVD burn.
- DVD to MKV: Convert full DVD content to MKV to playback on computers, mobile phones, tablets, TVs, etc.
- DVD to MKV H264: Copy full title to MKV with H264 encoding.
Besides building up your digital library by backing up and copying DVD in Windows 10/8/7, you can also convert DVD to mobile- or console-friendly format, such as MP4, MOV, AVI, etc, and enjoying offline playback on the go.
A bonus feature is the editing tools built-in. You can click on the edit icon to rotate, add subtitles or effects, and cut the video, and then rip the video as you wish.
Pros:
- Read damaged/scratched DVDs, and bypass all kinds of known copy protections.
- Support level-3 hardware acceleration to copy, back up and convert DVD at 1:1 quality.
Cons:
- Cannot work on macOS Leopard or older versions.
Free Download VideoProc Converter to Preserve Your Precious DVD Collections
2. HandBrake
Available for: Windows 10/8/8.1/7 Mac 10.11 and later, Apple Silicon Mac, Linux Ubuntu deb, Flatpak
Developed as a converter, HandBrake can modernize your DVD into computer playable format, namely, MP4, MKV, and WebM. It is not a dedicated DVD copy software for Windows 10 and Mac, but it is free and open source. It works nicely to copy homemade DVDs, as no decryption is required. For DVDs that you bought from stores, such as music videos or movies, Handbrake cannot skip the copy protection to rip the media. If you are tech-savvy, you can install a libdvdcss package from VideoLan. For Windows computers, you will need to download the .dll file and copy it into the installation folder of Handbrake, while for Mac, you may need to use command tools if you are on Yosemite and newer OS.
Handbrake can copy the DVD one title per time. You have to configure HandBrake manually to copy each title and queue them up, so that the program starts ripping one title after another. Let's say there are 57 titles in the DVD, you will have to configure and queue the episode 57 times before starting to copy the DVD to the computer.
Pros:
- Free and open-source software for occasional users.
- Copy DVD to a hard drive in MP4, WebM, and MKV.
Best Free Dvd Burner App For Mac
Cons:
- Cannot create ISO image or VIDEO_TS folder
- Occasional errors crop up, such as audio missing; ripped content is fuzzy and pixilated.
3. MakeMKV
Available for: Windows 10/8/7, Mac, and Linux
MakeMKV does what its name suggests. It simply copies the video stream from the DVD and puts it into the MKV container. No transcoding is involved in the process. You can think of a DVD as a house, storing furniture and other stuff. MakeMKV just moves those furniture and other things to another house, the MKV (Matroska) container.
It can read DVD and Blu-ray discs, and for those copy-protected discs such as AACS and BD+, MakeMKV can remove the copy protection.
Pros:
- Relatively fast since it only repackages the stream to MKV, and no re-encoding is involved.
- The developer runs an active forum with helpful guides and timely responses for bugs.
Free Cd Copy Software
Cons:
- MakeMKV is free in the beta version. You have to frequently find the license key in the forum and update your registration status.
- If you want other formats, such as MP4 (most compatible for various scenarios) or MOV (for Apple Devices), MakeMKV alone is not enough. You will need a video converter to transcode the MKV.
4. WinX DVD Copy Pro
Available for: Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP/2003/2000
WinX DVD Copy Pro is one of the most popular DVD copy software on the market. It supports DVD clone, DVD to MPEG 2, VIDEO_TS folder, ISO file, and disc-to-disc copy. One feature that sets it apart from its competitors is the ISO mounter, which allows you to mount ISO image to a virtual drive, which performs in the same way you play the DVD on a DVD player, only that you are watching the DVD digitally on a computer, with all the content and menu preserved. If you use a remote controller to navigate through the menu of the DVD, now you can use mouse clicks on the mounted ISO. You can also extract video or audio streams flexibly.
Once you insert the disc into the DVD driver, you can select how many sectors to read per time. For copy restriction discs, you can tick the box to remove region code, CSS, UCPS, or Disney's Fake. The program allows you to copy 15 minutes of the content for free.
Pros:
- Keep an exact replication off the DVD and CD.
- Removes all kinds of known copy restrictions in the market.
Cons:
- No option to compress video so as to burn DVD9 content to DVD5.
5. IQmango DVD Copy Software
Available for: Windows 8/7/XP/Vista/2003
IQmango is a piece of lightweight DVD copy software for Windows with a simple interface. It supports lossless DVD content copying, with customizable options to choose which titles to clone. There is also a compressor built-in, helping you to squeeze the content copied from a DVD and make it fit in a smaller disc. But since it needs to reduce the file size, inevitably, there will be quality loss.
Note that the IQmango DVD Copy Software and IQmango DVD Ripper refer to the same product. Probably due to their marketing strategy, IQmango sets up two product pages. In fact, you will be downloading the identical EXE file for installation.
Pros:
- Support backup and burn the disc, thus making it possible for disc-to-disc copying.
- Option to remove restrictions from Blu-ray MKB61 and MKB62.
Cons:
- Cannot burning data (not video streams) to DVD.
- Cannot split DVD or copy DVD 9 to 2 pieces of DVD 5.
6. DVD Cloner
Available for: Windows 10/8.1/8/7, Mac OS 10.10 or later versions
DVD Cloner has been around for nearly two decades, and it is a reliable DVD copying software on the market. Beginner or Pro, you shall find DVD Cloner satisfy your requirement in a high-quality way. There are an Express mode and an Expert mode to choose from. For general tasks such as copy everything from DVD to another empty disc, the Express mode serves you well. If you have two DVD drives, the copying process will be done automatically. Alternatively, you can create MKV from DVD in 1-click. The Expert Mode allows more customizability. You can select titles to copy, and leave out all the redundancies.
An interesting feature you can avail of DVD Cloner is its ability to combine multiple DVDs into one, be it Blu-ray (BD-R/RE) or dual-layer DVD (DVD±R9).
The free version only allows you to copy one DVD for free, so that you can check how the software performs before upgrading to the premium version.
Easeus Clone Disk Free
Pros:
- It is pricy for occasional users.
- The feature to compress DVD 9 to one blank DVD 5 disc could be problematic, since DVD 9 is about two times the size of the DVD5.
Cons:
- Option to copy multi-channel audio including DTS and Dobly digital 5.1.
7. DVDFab Free HD Decrypter
Available for: Windows 10/8.1/8/7 MacOS 10.10-10.15
DVDFab Free HD Decrypter is the free and feature-limited version of DVDFab DVD Copy software. The main difference lies in the ability to remove copy protections. Free HD Decrypter struggles with newer copy protection techs, and can only handle DVDs protected with old schemes.
It offers two modes to copy DVD: full disc and main movie. However, you cannot copy DVD 9 to two pieces of DVD5 discs, as the free version isn't baked with a splitting feature. You can use this freeware to digitize DVD to MKV or MP4, but note that if the DVD contains multiple VTS protections, or if the DVD is a Blu-ray issued before 2018, this decrypter will fail you.
Pros:
- Free to use, offers basic DVD copy mode.
- Support copy DVD to ISO and Video_TS folder.
Cons:
- Won't support H265/HEVC or UHD 4K videos for MKV copying.
- No option to customize what content, titles, or chapters to copy.
8. WonderFox Free DVD Ripper Speedy
Available for: Windows 10/8.1/8/7
If you are looking for DVD copy software to transfer content from DVD to hard disc drive, WonderFox provides an easy solution. It assists you to convert DVDs into digital formats such as MP4, MKV, and AVI. The free version allows you to rip no more than 15 minutes for each movie, and you can choose between PAL and NTFS modes for movies from different regions.
For users with the upgraded license, you can batch copy movies in 1:1 quality, provided that your driver supports multiple discs. Another nice feature is the editing kit, with which you can add effects to the video, or rotate sideways video after copying from DVDs. One thing to notice is, during our test, it takes a considerable amount of computational resources, which might affect how your machine performs. You can turn off other programs while using WonderFox.
Pros:
- Bypass erroneous data and scan scratched DVDs.
- Skip protection schemes such as Sony ARccOS, Disney X-project, CSS, Cinavia, etc.
Cons:
- Doesn't support disc-to-disc copy since there is no DVD burning feature.
- Extracting multilingual DVD can be problematic sometimes.
9. ImgBurn
Available for: Windows 10/8.1/8/7
ImgBurn is a handy free DVD copy and burning tool when physical media was king. It supports major brands of the DVD blank disk and can help you copy an image file to a disk. No matter you have ISO, DVD, CCD, DI, NDS, NRG, or PDI, you can easily write it to a physical disk. VIDEO_TS folder and BDAV / BDMV folder are also supported to write content into DVD and Blu-ray disks. ImgBurn also works the other way around: you can create an ISO image from the DVD. You can choose a mode from the home screen, start digitalizing or burning a DVD. For a new task, you can press Ctrl+shift+P to go back to this Easy Mode Picker (home screen).
Pros:
- Option to create Blu-ray disk via a virtual device.
- You can queue multiple images for batch task, and there will be a Log window showing what's in progress.
Cons:
- It hasn't been updated since 2013, and may not be able to cope with some problems.
- You cannot copy DVD into MP4/MKV, or select titles to copy.
Note: Make sure to download the installation file from the official site, and choose Mirror 7 – Provided by ImgBurn to avoid bundleware or adware. The latest version is v2.5.8.0 released in 2013, and the development is halted since then.
10. BurnAware
Available for: Windows 10/8/8.1/7
In DVD to DVD copying, you will need to copy DVD to a computer in the first place, and then burn the digitize files to a blank DVD. BurnAware is here for the second task. Once you prepared the DVD content in the form of ISO image, VIDEO_TS folder, or merely an MKV file, you can use BurnAware to copy the content into a blank disk. Besides movies and home videos, you can write other kinds of data supported by the disk. In that way, you are using the DVD as a backup method for important files. BurnAware can erase content on an already-used DVD, provided the DVD is rewritable (DVD + /- RW).
Besides being a free DVD burner, it also offers you the option to create Audio CDs, MP3 disk, and Blu-ray disk, free of charge.
Pros:
- A clear user interface to navigate through all the features.
- Support Blu-ray disk copy for free, which may be charged in other tools.
Cons:
- No option to extract audio tracks, or extract files from ISO images in the free version.
Free Dvd Copy Software
FAQs
Can Windows 10 Copy a DVD?
Windows 10 can finish part of the task in copying a DVD. The DVD copying is a cover term for several operations. If you are expecting DVD to blank DVD copy, then you need to use DVD copy software listed above to pull content out, store them on a Windows computer (in a format of ISO or VIDEO_TS folder), and then use Window File Explorer or Windows Media Player to burn the files to a blank DVD.
What is the Most Used Free DVD Copying Software?
HandBrake, ImgBurn, and DVDShrink have been around for a long time and have accumulated many users along the way. However, ImgBurn and DVDShrink are obsolete and haven't been updated for many years. HandBrake is more of a converter that has been repurposed to rip DVD into MP4. For advanced features, you can check other copiers listed above.
Disclaimer: We do not advocate copying authorized or protected DVDs for commercial use.