examples

MultiDrive CLI examples

Ready-to-run automation scripts for MultiDrive — a free disk management tool for Windows 10 and 11 that can back up, clone, restore, and erase drives from the command line via mdcli.exe.

These examples are for system administrators and power users. They want to automate drive operations with PowerShell and batch scripts. This can be for scheduled backups, fleet-wide secure erase, drive upgrades and unattended workflows.

Full CLI reference and screenshots: https://multidrive.io/backup-drive-command-prompt

Contents

Folder	What it does
backup/	Back up a whole drive or a partition to RAW/ZIP/ZST, with hashing enabled.
clone/	Clone one drive to another bit-by-bit — drive upgrades and bootable backups.
restore/	Restore a drive (or part of it) from a RAW/ZIP/ZST backup.
erase/	Erase a drive or an entire fleet in parallel.

Install MultiDrive

# Windows Package Manager
winget install multidrive

# …or silent install to a custom folder
MultiDriveSetup.exe /s /d=C:\MyFolder

Download: https://multidrive.io

Finding drive IDs

Every command targets a drive by its Short ID (d1, d2, d3, …) or System ID. List all connected drives first:

mdcli list

The Short ID in the first column is what backup, clone, restore, and erase use.

Run as Administrator. Drive-level operations require an elevated PowerShell or Command Prompt (Win + X → Terminal (Admin)).

Running these scripts

The PowerShell scripts auto-detect mdcli.exe (PATH, then the default %LOCALAPPDATA%\MultiDrive and Program Files locations). Override with -MdCli:

.\backup\backup-drive-to-zip.ps1 -Source d2 -Destination D:\Backups
.\backup\backup-drive-to-zip.ps1 -Source d2 -Destination D:\Backups -MdCli "C:\MyFolder\mdcli.exe"

If your execution policy blocks scripts, run them for the current session with:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope Process -ExecutionPolicy Bypass

⚠️ Safety

clone, restore, and erase overwrite the target drive. The -y / --yes flag bypasses all confirmation prompts — use it only when you are certain of the target IDs. MultiDrive protects the boot drive, but always double-check mdcli list output before running unattended operations.