HDDGURU: HDD Raw Copy Tool v2.1

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HDD Raw Copy Tool v2.1

HDD Raw Copy Tool v2.1 – click to enlarge

Developer: HDDGURU.COM

License terms: Freeware. Free for home and commercial use.

Supported OS: Windows 10, Windows 11

HDD Raw Copy Tool v2.1 is a utility for low-level, sector-by-sector hard disk duplication and image creation.

Who is this for?

Home users: make a full image of a USB flash drive, back up a disk before recovery, or migrate to another drive
Corporate users: capture full raw device images for backup, re-use, lab workflows, or internal archival
Digital forensics users: acquire sector-level images with optional hashes, embedded logs, and job notes in .imgcv2

Choose the right mode

Raw .img: plain raw image with broad compatibility; this is the same basic idea many users know as a dd image
.imgcv2: resumable image format with embedded logs, metadata, notes, and optional hashes
Read Only: read and validate the source without writing an output image

What v2 adds

Modern Windows 10/11 release with a simpler workflow
Resumable .imgcv2 images with embedded log, metadata, job tag, and notes
Optional hashing: MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-512
Pause / resume and stop-for-resume-later for supported workflows
Read Only mode for source validation without writing an output image
Legacy v1 downloads remain available below for users who prefer the older release

Good to know

For physical-drive work, run the tool as Administrator
For the safest physical-drive imaging, exclusive source access is preferred
File-only workflows, metadata viewing, and automation can be used without elevation

Examples of possible uses

Data recovery: make a copy of a damaged drive and work from the copy
Data recovery: image a damaged hard drive while skipping bad sectors
Migration: completely migrate from one drive to another
Backup: create an exact image of a disk or USB flash drive for later restoration
Corporate imaging: store device images and restore them later
Digital forensics: acquire raw sector images with detailed logs and optional hashes
Software QA and lab workflows: restore prepared test systems from saved images
Duplicate, clone, or save a full image of almost any supported media

Downloads for current v2.1 release

Download Windows Installer (recommended, most people will want this option): HDD Raw Copy Tool v2.1 setup
Download portable executable (works without installation): HDD Raw Copy Tool v2.1 portable

Technical details

Supported interfaces and media:

S-ATA (SATA), IDE (E-IDE), SCSI, SAS, USB, FIREWIRE
USB and FIREWIRE external drive enclosures are supported
SSD and HDD devices from Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, Samsung, Hitachi, Fujitsu, IBM, Quantum, Kingston, Intel, OCZ, Maxtor, and almost any other supported media
FLASH media through a card reader, including SD/MMC, MemoryStick, CompactFlash, SmartMedia, and XD
Large drives (LBA-48) are supported

HDD Raw Copy Tool makes an exact duplicate of SATA, IDE, SAS, SCSI, SSD, USB, and other supported media. It can create a sector-by-sector copy of all areas of the drive, including MBR, boot records, all partitions, hidden partitions, and the space between partitions.

HDD Raw Copy Tool does not depend on the operating system or filesystem on the source media. Windows, Linux, macOS, and other filesystems or partition layouts can be copied as raw media as long as the hardware interface is supported.

If your media has a supported interface then it can be copied with HDD Raw Copy.

The tool can create exact raw (.img) images or newer resumable .imgcv2 images of the entire media, including service data such as MBR and boot records. A raw .img is the same general concept many users refer to as a dd image. All partitions as well as space in between are copied. All filesystems, including hidden ones, are copied as raw sectors.

Bad sectors are skipped by the tool. In v2, logging, resumable imaging, metadata, notes, and optional hashes are expanded for more advanced workflows.

Legacy v1

Legacy v1 remains available for users who specifically want the older release.

HDD Raw Copy Tool v1.20 – click to enlarge

Download Windows Installer (most people will want this option): HDD Raw Copy Tool v1.20 setup
Download Windows Executable (works without installation): HDD Raw Copy Tool v1.20 portable

Previous legacy version:

Download Windows Installer (most people will want this option): HDD Raw Copy Tool v1.10 setup
Download Windows Executable (works without installation): HDD Raw Copy Tool v1.10 portable

Detailed v1 vs v2 comparison

Area	Legacy v1	Current v2.1
Supported Windows versions	Older Windows releases including XP/Vista/7/8 and Server-era systems	Windows 10 and Windows 11
Main workflows	Disk to image, image to disk, disk to disk, image to image	Disk to image, image to disk, disk to disk, image to image, plus Read Only validation
Primary image formats	Raw image plus legacy compressed image support	Raw `.img` plus resumable `.imgcv2`
Resumable imaging	No resumable image container	Yes, using `.imgcv2` checkpoints and resume metadata
Embedded acquisition log	No embedded structured session log in the image itself	Yes, embedded in `.imgcv2`
Job Tag / Notes	No	Yes, stored inside `.imgcv2` targets
Optional hashing	No built-in modern multi-hash workflow	MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-512, selectable individually or together
Pause / stop / resume-later	Basic operational workflow	Pause, resume, and stop-for-resume-later for supported workflows
Read Only source validation	No dedicated mode	Yes
Metadata viewer	No equivalent embedded metadata viewer for image container state	Yes, for `.imgcv2` metadata, log, job history, and hashes
Automation / CLI	Traditional GUI workflow	GUI plus file-only CLI for automation, validation, inspect, annotate, and test-image generation
Physical source logging	Operational log output	More detailed timestamps, offsets, lock/unlock entries, resume and workflow-state logging
Damaged `.imgcv2` source salvage	Not applicable	Explicit damaged-source salvage mode for structurally inconsistent `.imgcv2` files
Intended audience	General disk-copy users of the original tool	Home users, corporate imaging users, and forensic workflows needing richer logs and metadata

HDD Raw Copy Tool works at the raw media level. Instead of copying files one by one, it copies sectors from the source media and writes those sectors directly to another device or to an image file. This means it can capture data that normal file-copy tools do not see, including partition tables, boot records, hidden partitions, filesystem metadata, unallocated space, and the unused gaps between partitions.

This is important for backup, migration, recovery, and forensic work. A file-copy utility only sees files that the operating system and filesystem currently understand. A raw imaging tool sees the entire addressed media layout. That is why a raw image can often be used later for recovery, re-deployment, deeper examination, or exact restoration of a drive or removable device.

In v2, the plain raw .img format is still supported for maximum compatibility with other tools. The newer .imgcv2 format adds resumable imaging, embedded session logging, job metadata, optional hashes, and a metadata viewer. This makes it more useful when a job may need to be paused, resumed later, documented carefully, or reviewed after the fact.

For physical media workflows, the tool attempts to lock mounted volumes before imaging so the source is as stable as possible. If exclusive access is not available, the operator can decide whether to continue in a less-consistent mode. This matters most when imaging live or recently used media. For file-only workflows, elevation is not required.

When a physical source has read problems, the tool can continue imaging while recording the issue in the session log. The goal is to preserve as much readable data as possible, rather than aborting immediately on the first bad area. This behavior is useful for damaged media recovery scenarios where a partial but structured image is preferable to no image at all.

Potential users should also know that raw imaging is not the same thing as filesystem-aware backup software. Raw imaging is larger in scope, often slower, and more exact. In return, it can preserve information that normal backup tools intentionally skip. That tradeoff is why raw imaging remains useful for recovery labs, corporate imaging workflows, QA environments, and forensic acquisition.