How to Copy Hidden Partition to New Hard Drive Effortlessly?

How can I copy a hidden partition to another hard drive?

“My Dell computer comes along with a hidden recovery partition, which occupies my disk space. To free up space, I plan to get rid of it. But my friend told me that it can be used to restore my Windows to the original state if system crashes. Thus, I want to copy the hidden partition to my USB external hard drive and delete it on my local disk. Supposed that the operating system is damaged, I can restore it using USB with recovery partition inserted. However, I have no idea how to copy a hidden recovery partition to USB. Is there any advice?”

Freeware for cloning (hidden) partition in Windows 11/10/8/7

To securely clone hidden partition like recovery partition, you can use the free partition manager: AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard (support all editions of Windows 11, 10, 8.1, 8. 7). It is featured with Partition Clone function, enabling you to transfer all data saved on a hidden recovery partition, hidden reserved partition, data partition, or system partition to new drive. What's more, it allows you to clone all partitions from one disk to another without losing data via Disk Clone function.

Copy hidden partition to another hard drive step-by-step

Before cloning hidden partition to USB, SSD, or HDD, you need to know:

▪ Only unallocated space can be chosen as the target location. If there is no unallocated space on the target disk, you can resize partition or delete unused partitions to get unallocated space. ▪ The capacity of the unallocated space on the destination disk shall not be smaller than the used space of the hidden partition.

Now, you can connect the target disk to your computer, free download AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, and check out the following steps.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant,  right-click the partition you want to clone and select the "Clone Partition" tool to run partition clone. (You can also click the "Clone" main tab and select "Clone Partition".)

Step 2. In next window, select the destination partition or unallocated space to hold your source partition, and then click "Confirm".

Step 3. Then, you will enter the Confirm interface where you can check the source and destination clone location. After all is set, you can click the "Confirm" button to continue.

Notes:

• There is a "4k alignment" option. If you want to copy a partition onto a SSD (Solid State Drive), ticking this option will optimize the read and write speed on this partition. It can also extend the life of the SSD.
• If you select the "Sector-by-Sector Clone" mode, the unallocated space must be equal or larger than source partition. If you tick the option, it will be unable to resize the destination partition.

Step 4. In the next window, you can click the "Settings" button to adjust the target partition size. As you can see from the screenshot, you could adjust the size of source partition in order to fit the target partition as per your need, or directly skip the step and click "Save".

Step 5. You can preview the partition copy operating by viewing the "Pending Operations". To commit the "Pending Operations", please click "Apply" and "Proceed".

The cloning process will start and you can check the cloning process. Once the process is completed successfully, you will get a congratulation window. Finally, you can check the partition layout on the destination disk will be identical to the source partition.

Conclusion

With AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, you can copy hidden partition or unhidden partition to another hard drive within few steps. If you want to enjoy more advanced features of it, such as converting system disk between MBR and GPT, allocating free space from one partition to another and so on, you can upgrade to Professional version.