How to Backup External Hard Drive before Formatting in Windows

By Michael | Last Updated January 03, 2024

External hard drives make it easier for us to backup essential data and build the connection for the data transformation between different computers. But for security and other reasons, you need to make a full backup of the external hard drive:

• 1. The external hard drive is almost full, you need to move the data to another external hard drive or stored on the cloud.
• 2. The external hard drive is always connected to different computers, which will increase its risk in crashed or being attacked by virus. When there is error in external hard drive, you have to format it. Thus, it is important to back up the data before formatting.
• 3. You are going to change the usage of it, so that you want to format it. It is necessary to back up the data before formatting.

As is known to all, once we format the external hard drive, it is difficult to find back the data. So, why not backup external hard drive to another external hard drive before formatting?

How to backup external hard drive with CloneGo

No matter where you want to place the backup file, windows computer internal drive, another external hard drive or the cloud, you need to backup it firstly. Here, we will show you the partition backup software iSunshare CloneGo, which enables you to backup external hard drive with simple clicks.

Step-1: Connect the external hard drive to your computer. If you are going to back up its data to another external hard drive, you need to make it connected at the same time.

Step-2: Run CloneGo and click Backup. Then, select your external hard drive to back up.

Step-3: After that, you just need to click Choose button to find the destination folder where you want to keep the backup file. It can be in your internal hard drive or another external hard drive.

Step-4: Click the Start button and click Yes to start the backup. Then, iSunshare CloneGo will work for you.

Step-5: After a short time, all programs and files in your external hard drive will be compressed into a icg file. Then, if you want to keep it into cloud, such as Google drive, you can upload it online. In this way, you can format the external hard drive without data loss.

Tips: how to restore all data of external hard drive with the backup file

As CloneGo compressed the external hard drive data into a file, how can you get reach to the data? You can restore it into new partition. But remember, the restore process needs to format the target partition. It is better for you to prepare a new external hard drive to store the data.

• 1. Launch CloneGo and choose Restore.
• 2. Select the restoration destination. If you want to restore the data to your original external hard drive, you need to connect it to the computer in advance.
• 3. Click Choose option and import your backup file.
• 4. Click Start button and go continue to agree the format option. Then, all you need to do is waiting.

Bottom line:

If there are a small number of files in your external hard drive, you can copy and paste them in your destination folder. But for the large number data, it is the best way to back up your external hard drive. You can take advantage of iSunshare CloneGo to copy, backup and restore partition data in any Windows operating system computer.

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