# Disk Operations

All the functions we designed for disks (HDD, SSD, Flash drives, or any other kinds of external disks), some of the functions are only available when conditions satisfy, some, will be available when you click on the disk, read on to know more.

# Clone Disk 5.1.0+

Option available when clicking on a disk

You can use this function to

• Backup data by cloning data disk
• Migrate OS and partitions to another disk

Steps of cloning a disk:

1. Plug in a new disk (SSD, HDD, or other external hard drives)
2. Run Partition Expert and click on a disk, then choose Clone Disk
3. First choose a source disk from the disk list v5.3.0 added
4. Then choose a target disk, the one you just plugged in and click NEXT
5. Delete all partitions if the connected disk is not empty and click NEXT again
6. Resize the target disk or just click Next to do a complete clone (clone data and free space of the source disk)
7. Then click Finish and Commit

(Hover on the image to see another screen capture)

# Convert MBR disk to GPT

MBR disks only support 2TB capacity at most while GPT disks have no such limitations, we can use Disk Management to format a disk to GPT, but we can also use Partition Expert to convert MBR to GPT without data loss

Steps to convert to GPT disk:

1. Click on a disk and choose Convert to GPT
2. Click Yes to confirm and Commit to convert

# Wipe Entire Disk

Available when clicking on a disk or a disk of unallocated space

Steps to wipe disk:

1. Click on a disk and choose the function Wipe Disk
2. Click Yes to the warning message
3. Choose a wiping method from the list
4. Click OK and Commit to wipe

Be sure that important stuff has a backup before wiping

# Disk Surface Test

Option available when clicking on a disk

What will this function does:

• Scan physically damaged bad sectors
• Mark bad sectors as red while good sector as green
• Create a scan log after the operation completes

Steps to surface test a disk:

1. Click on a disk and choose Surface Test
2. Specify scan area if needed
3. Click Automatic shutdown after scan if needed
4. Click Scan Now to scan it

After the scan, a path to the scan log file will be displayed in the info section, you can check it to locate the bad sectors

# Delete All Partitions

Want to delete all partitions at the same time? try this function

This function can be used:

• Before Cloning disk
• Before migrating OS
• Before reinstalling system
• To empty the disk

Clone and migrate functions require empty disk as the target or destination one, although they'll delete all partitions too if you proceed in their wizards, you can manually make the deletion here

Steps to delete all partitions:

1. Right-click on a disk and select Delete all partitions
2. Confirm Yes when prompted and click and click Commit

# Clean up Disk

What's will this function do?

• Remove all the volumes
• Uninitialized the disk

Steps of cleaning up disk:

1. Click on a disk and click Clean up disk
2. Click Yes to the confirmation message and click Commit

An uninitialized disk cannot be used, Windows File Explorer won't list the disk either

Only when initializing disk can we make a disk to GPT or MBR

# Delete all VS Cleanup VS Wipe

What are the differences between 'Delete all partitions', 'Cleanup disk' and 'Wipe disk'?

	Method	Recovery Chance
Delete all	mark space available	High
Clean up	erase headers	Low
Wipe	overwrite sector	No

Those three methods have different usages:

• Delete: empty disk, re-format
• Clean up: mainly for initializing a disk
• Wipe: thoroughly remove everything beyond recovery

# Initialize

Option only available on an Uninitialized disk

Steps to initialize a disk:

1. Click on the uninitialized disk and click Initialize
2. Choose MBR or GPT from the partitioning scheme
3. Click OK and Commit

You can use the 'Clean up disk' function to empty a disk and un-initialize a disk and change disk to MBR or GPT, or you can convert an MBR disk to GPT disk without data loss

# Online/Offline disk

Function available when a disk is off-line/on-line

No need to click Commit, directly take action after confirmed

Off-line disks cannot be recognized by Windows File Explorer, but Disk Management and diskpart.exe command prompt tool are able to detect the status

Off-line disk is not removing anything from the disk, just mark that disk not connecting the computer, when you re-online the disk, everything stays the same

When online a disk, Windows will open a window in File Explorer to show the root folder of the disk

System disk cannot be off-lined, so when you click on the system disk, this option is not available, you won't see this option if there's only system disk on the computer, but you'll find it when you connected any external hard drives

# View Disk Properties

Disk Properties contain:

• Produce Name
• Status
• Signature
• Total sector
• Total capacity
• Sector size
• Cylinders
• Tracks per cylinder
• Sectors per track

# Set Disk to Read-only/Writable

Option only available on non-system disk

If you don't want someone to change data on your external hard drive, you can set it to Read-only, and then writable again when you get your drive back

Steps to set read-only disk:

1. Click on a disk and choose the option Set Read-only Attribute
2. Click Yes to the confirmation message

This function would not require the 'Commit' step, when you confirmed, it completes the operation