Cloning my harddrive.

[CTskifreak]

I looked here at this topic, and wasn't sure if it could work for me. I'm looking to by a larger harddrive for my laptop, and would like to just copy everything over to the new drive so I could plug it in and it would work. First of all, what software would be best for this, and two, what type of cable interface would work for it? Thanks

 

AJ

[marmite]

This should be a good way to do your upgrade, yes.

 

[i'd certainly use Macrium Reflect just to back up a drive, but it won't clone a drive directly (as in ... it will only do it via an intermediate image).]

 

Cloning is the easiest way to go. Have a look at this ... http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/.

 

I've never used it ... but it does the cloning part and it's free. I don't know whether it will clone 'on the fly' though ... I'm assuming it must be either done on the fly or from a boot disk.

 

I'm pretty sure other people on here can recommend other products that do the same thing.

[login123]

Marmite:

"I'd certainly use Macrium Reflect to back up a drive, but it won't clone a drive directly (as in ... it will only do it via an intermediate image)."

 

Marmite, does that mean that the disk data must be put onto another medium, like an external drive or DVDs, and then copied to the new hard drive? Please excuse the newbie question. :-) I have never done that.

 

FYI, CTSkifreak, what I have done is clone an old EIDE HD to a newer bigger one using Acronis True Image v11 and Acronis Disk Manager v10. Worked great. Easy. Used the extra plugin on the factory installed flat ribbon cables. Just copied everything from old to new.

 

Also, that new Western Digital HD came with a CD. It has some drive migration utilities. Didn't use them, but your new HD might come with a CD also. ??

Also, there are some similar softwares for free from seagate and maxtor, I will check to see if my links still work and post them in a minute if they do.

[login123]

This is an article Inquirer article. The links near the bottom still work. They go to SeaGate DiskWizard and to Seagate MaxBlast.

 

The original article was at downloadsquad.com.

 

Sorry to report I have not used them. I took the easy way out, used Acronis paid version, got it pretty cheap from a special offer (gone now). It would be nice to know how well they work.

 

Also, some other member might know of an easier way...??

[marmite]

Marmite:

"I'd certainly use Macrium Reflect to back up a drive, but it won't clone a drive directly (as in ... it will only do it via an intermediate image)."

 

Marmite, does that mean that the disk data must be put onto another medium, like an external drive or DVDs, and then copied to the new hard drive? Please excuse the newbie question. :-) I have never done that.

I have Reflect on another machine, but not on this netbook. But I'm pretty sure from looking at the Macrium site that it works as I believe; it's a back-up utility and does not have any disk copy functionality. Hence the need to use an intermediate image if you were going down that route.

 

To answer your question, if the new drive is partitioned, you could use Reflect partition images (or those from many back-up programs) and restore them on a partition-by-partition basis. So theoretically, depending on how your partitions are configured, you could back up partitions and restore them onto your new drive without using additional media.

 

But it is much easier to use a disk copy program!

 

Edited to add: Perhaps my original post should have said "I'd certainly use Macrium Reflect to back up drive contents or partitions" since it works on a partition basis. But that was a bit of a throwaway anyway; as I say I think the preferable route is to clone the disk, not to migrate via an image.

[login123]

Over in Spyware Hell Rorschach112 recommends 3 backup programs:

 

"DriveImage ( my personal recommendation, it is also free )

Acronis

Macrium Reflect"

 

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=20214

[marmite]

Over in Spyware Hell Rorschach112 recommends 3 backup programs

Note though, these are disk / file back up programs, not disk cloning programs

 

But as back-up programs, having tried all of them, I'd still go with Reflect. I haven't used Drive Image recently, but Acronis has lots of funky buttons and is perhaps more user-friendly. I prefer Reflect's clean interface, its versatility and perhaps slightly more technical options.

[login123]

Well, I just installed Macrium Reflect v 4.2 2097. It requires no reboot. It offers to back up any of the drives...not going to do it, too much time, but it seems like Marmites original suggestion is a good one. If you just use Macrium, you will can transport the image to the new HD and will have a set of restoration images for an emergency. Is that right?

 

Thanks to Hazelnut, here are a couple of pictures of Macrium's options:

 

 

[marmite]

Well, I just installed Macrium Reflect v 4.2 2097. It requires no reboot. It offers to back up any of the drives...not going to do it, too much time, but it seems like Marmites original suggestion is a good one. If you just use Macrium, you will can transport the image to the new HD and will have a set of restoration images for an emergency. Is that right?

Just to confirm, my suggestion is not to use Reflect for the actual disk migration. Use a disk copy/clone program to do the migration. I've gone back and edited my earlier posts to try and make that a bit clearer.

 

I would use Reflect to back up the partitions on the old drive so that they could be used to restore the system in the event of a problem with the migration. But any such problem is more likely to just require starting the process again; since it's unlikely the original drive would be affected.

[login123]

OK. I misunderstood. Agreed anyway.

 

Have a question now, tho. If you are going to make disks w/ the image on them anyway, why do the extra step? Why not just format the new HD, then put the images on it?

[marmite]

Have a question now, tho. If you are going to make disks w/ the image on them anyway, why do the extra step? Why not just format the new HD, then put the images on it?

I take partition copies as a matter of course; I'd just make sure I did one before migration.

 

But I couldn't just create that image on the new drive; an image isn't the same as a copy - you couldn't boot from it for example.

 

An image is just a file that contains a copy of a partition or partitions. But it is a file in proprietary format file from which those partitions have to be extracted using software that can read that format. It's not an exact copy of the raw disk, in the same way that a zip file isn't an exact copy of the files it contains.

 

Disk cloning software does an exact byte for byte copy of one disk onto another; hence the target disk has to be at least as big as the source disk.

 

So you may be able to successfully restore the image into the new partition, but you have to create the image separately first anyway, if you see what I mean.

 

Having backed up the system as normal, the easiest step has to be just to clone that disk.

[login123]

Well, ya live and learn. I never understood that one subtlety, about not being able to boot from the image. Never tried it, just used Acronis for disk cloning, 'cause I knew it would work. Thanks. Its been an education.

[marmite]

I never understood that one subtlety, about not being able to boot from the image. Never tried it, just used Acronis for disk cloning, 'cause I knew it would work. Thanks. Its been an education.

Thanks

 

I've just loaded Reflect on this machine to make sure what I've said is correct.

 

Most disk back-up programs (including Acronis and Reflect) can create compressed archive images. This is the type I would normally do on my own partitions ... you want it to take up as little space as possible. It appears that Reflect does do an exact clone of a partition or partitions, which means that it will do a sector by sector clone of the whole disk ... but it does still create this as an image file as mentioned earlier. So that still leaves the situation where that image file needs to be 'restored' onto the new drive. Dunno if Acronis can clone the disk directly?

 

I guess one thing to watch is terminology. Direct cloning of a disk is probably straightforward. But I have used the term image file when perhaps a more accurate term is archive file. Other people might use image to mean the same as clone. As long as you're aware of the difference between actually cloning the disk (or partitions) to another disk, and creating an archive/image file of that disk (or partitions), you should be okay

[login123]

Hi Marmite.

 

"Dunno if Acronis can clone the disk directly?"

 

Yes it will ( if I have my terminology right ). I simply hooked up the new HD to a spare connector on the cable, copied old to new, took out old, put in new, and the new now is C: drive. Didn't have to fiddle with the jumpers in this case. The Acronis software led me through the options. Those were not very straightforward, but there was nothing to lose, the computer didn't work as it was. Not malaware, just slow and so full of junk it wouldn't even defrag.

 

Your point about terminology is well taken. Is this a partition, an extended partition, a volume, a raid volume, a striped volume...no checkered volumes afaik, but probably volumes with checkered pasts...and also are we cloning, copying, imaging...snarl, snap, growl. Only the structured, logical thinking of computer experts could result in clicking on "Start" to shut down the computer.

 

ONE more question, if I may. Could one not make the image disks with macrium, then make a boot disk with Macrium, then if necessary boot with the boot disk and install the image from the disks? And thus be back at the starting point? Even if this is doable, seems that directly cloning would be easier.

[marmite]

"Dunno if Acronis can clone the disk directly?"

 

Yes it will ( if I have my terminology right ). I simply hooked up the new HD to a spare connector on the cable, copied old to new, took out old, put in new, and the new now is C: drive. Didn't have to fiddle with the jumpers in this case. The Acronis software led me through the options.

Cool - sounds good.

 

Now you have me worried that I'm doing Reflect a disservice - hope not 'cos I'm a huge fan! In all seriousness I don't think so though - I've been through it a few times though and I can't see a disk-to-disk clone operation.

 

...no checkered volumes ...

LOL ... interesting concept

 

ONE more question, if I may. Could one not make the image disks with macrium, then make a boot disk with Macrium, then if necessary boot with the boot disk and install the image from the disks? And thus be back at the starting point? Even if this is doable, seems that directly cloning would be easier.

Yep; ignoring cloning for a moment that's your (well 'my' anyway!) standard system failure recovery option.

[login123]

Marmite, you put a lot of time into this thread. Thanks. This information will help more users that you will ever know...certainly cleared up a lot for me.