How to clone a hard drive as a backup for your Windows computer

You can clone your PC's hard drive easily with a third-party program.
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You can clone a hard drive to make a duplicate that you can use to replace a failed drive or get a new computer up and running quickly.
Windows can't clone a hard drive automatically, but there are free and paid commercial programs that make the process easy. 
You can clone any hard drive — the system drive, a data drive, and both SSDs and HDDs.  
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