# Duplicate Bolt HDD questions



## mayor (Oct 31, 2018)

I have the Bolt, with an external HDD in an external enclosure, hooked up to the SATA port through a cable, because the original 2.5" drive failed. I want to duplicate the current HDD to a new drive. If I use a duplicator, what steps do I need to do? Does the new blank drive need to be formatted in a certain way before starting? I have a Windows PC, if that is needed info. 
Thanks for looking and hopefully guiding me a bit.


----------



## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

No formatting....

If you were to duplicate the drive, it would be the same size (should the newer drive is bigger) ... You should use MFSTools 3.x to copy and expand.


----------



## V7Goose (May 28, 2005)

You should give us more information about what you are trying to do. WHY are you duplicating the drive? If going to a larger drive, MFSTools is easy and best option (in my opinion). If just making an exact copy on same size new drive, MFSTools will work, but so will a cloning dock.

Be aware that you can easily loose ALL recordings on a Bolt by swapping drives if you do not understand what you are doing. If you clone the drive, then the new clone should boot just fine and still have the recordings, but if you then try to put the last drive back in (the one that you cloned), it will wipe that drive, and then if you try to go back to the clone, it will wipe that drive too!


----------



## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

mayor said:


> I have the Bolt, with an external HDD in an external enclosure, hooked up to the SATA port through a cable, because the original 2.5" drive failed. I want to duplicate the current HDD to a new drive. If I use a duplicator, what steps do I need to do? Does the new blank drive need to be formatted in a certain way before starting? I have a Windows PC, if that is needed info.
> Thanks for looking and hopefully guiding me a bit.


As ThAbtO stated.
A duplicator needs no prep to duplicate the drive. It copies bit for bit. The target drive should be as large or larger than the source drive.


----------

