How to successfully copy a hidden partition to another drive/USB

By

Sherly 

Written by

Cici 

Last updated on April 22, 2024

As the name suggests, a hidden partition is an invisible partition in Windows. To some extent, a hidden partition can prevent data from being leaked or deleted by viruses.

However, a hidden partition may get corrupted when hit by a powerful virus attack. So, can you clone a hidden partition? And how to better protect a hidden partition? Don't worry. This post will tell you whether it's possible to clone a hidden partition and, if so, how to copy it with professional cloning software.

Can I clone the hidden partition?

Of course, you can copy the hidden partition to another disk or USB flash drive.

There are three main types of hidden partitions:

• The user hides partitions to prevent data leakage.
• A third-party program is used to hide partitions.
• The manufacturer hides partitions, like System Reserved Partition, recovery partition, and OEM Partition, for system protection.

Thus, it's essential to clone the hidden partition for the protection of your computer. You can even use the hidden partition to restore Windows to its initial status when the system crashes. Or you can recover from a corrupted OS with the cloned partition. Now, how to clone hidden partition? Read on.

How to Clone a Hidden Partition

This section will be divided into two parts, explaining how to clone the hidden partition.

Guide 1. Preparing to Clone the Hidden Partition

Guide 2: Steps to clone the hidden partition

If you're all set, you can skip ahead to Guide 2 to learn how to clone your partition with a professional program. If not, pay close attention to the Preparation section.

Guide 1: Preparing to Clone the Hidden Partition

Before you begin cloning, make sure you are well-prepared:

1. Cloning will overwrite all data on the target disk. Back up data on the source disk with professional backup software before you start.

2. Make sure that the target drive or USB device has more free space than the hidden partition.

3. If the other hard drive or USB flash drive is new, first format it as either MBR or GPT, and make sure it's the same format as the disk that contains the hidden partition.

4. If you've hidden the System Reserved partition and cloned it to another drive, set that drive as the boot drive.

5. Download a professional cloning software – AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, to safely and quickly clone the hidden partition to USB or another drive.

Follow the step-by-step guide below to learn how to clone a hidden partition.

Guide 2: Steps to clone a hidden partition

AOMEI Partition Assistant is an excellent system cloning software, which can be used to clone system or partition. It provides sector-by-sector clone and edit cloned partition features. It helps you copy a hidden partition from one disk to another without losing data.

Please clone the hidden partition following this guide:

Step 1: From the left menu, choose "Clone." Click "Clone Partition" and "Next."

Step 2: Select the source partition, and click Next.

Step 3: Select the target partition and click "Next" to continue.

• If you are cloning a partition to an existing partition, move or back up your data first to prevent overwriting. • Read the warning and click Yes.

Step 4: Click “Start,” and wait for the cloning process to finish.

You can see how to clone a partition or the System Reserved partition in this video tutorial.

With the Partition Master tool, you can safely and quickly clone a partition. You can also resize the partition to be cloned and only clone used space. In addition, if the hidden partition being cloned contains a system partition, you need to set the target drive as the boot drive in the BIOS following these steps.

Step 1: Restart your computer and press F2/F8/Del to enter BIOS.

Step 2: Change the boot order on the left.

Conclusions

All you need to know about cloning hidden partitions is in this article. If you have an important hidden partition on your computer, you can clone it to another drive for better protection. Make sure you prepare in advance before cloning. Then use the Partition Master tool to copy a hidden or non-hidden partition to another drive with simple steps.

AOMEI Partition Assistant has more advanced features that allow you to easily hide or unhide partitions. It is also a powerful partition converter, with which you can easily convert NTFS to FAT32, or convert MBR to GPT during Windows installation, and it can solve many disk-related issues you encounter. Download and have a try now!

"FAQs on How to Copy a Hidden Partition in UTF-8 Encoding Format"

We've learned how to clone hidden partitions. Here are some other questions and answers about cloning partitions. Read on if you're interested. Hopefully, these questions will help you too.

1. What is a clone partition?

Cloning a partition means precisely duplicating all the data on the source disk partition, including boot data, applications, and other information, to another drive. The target partition will have the same data as the source one.

2. How do I view hidden partitions?

You can use Disk Management or third-party tools to show hidden partitions. To display the hidden partition with Partition Master, follow these steps:

< strong > Step 1. Launch Partition Master, click the partition that you want to view and choose “Advanced”.

Step 2. Select "Unhide" from the drop-down menu.

Step 3: Click "Yes."

4. In the top left, select “Execute 1 Task(s)”. Then click “Apply”.

3. How do I clone the hidden partition?

Cloning a hidden partition is very simple. This article will give you a detailed guide, or you can follow these easy steps.

Step 1: Download and launch the Partition Master program, then choose “Clone” from the left side.

Step 2: Select the source partition, and click "Next".

Step 3: Select the target partition and click "Next". Confirm by clicking "Yes" in the pop-up window.