Casper

[Ken Blake, MVP]

That may be it. But I cut the FAT32 partition in half and formatted the
other half NTFS (exactly the kind of tomfoolery I was hoping Casper would
circumvent for me). It still says there is No Suitable Drive available.
Which leads me to believe it does require the up front end of the drive of
ancient lore to be able to function.

In my opinion, in this day and age, a cloning program should be able to:

1. Check all drives for space.

2. Identify spaces of sufficient size.

3. Ask which one you want to use.

4. Do the necessary work to set up the necessary configuration on the
target area.

5. Make the clone in a way so that you can, if you want, get one or all
files from it.


I once used BAT files and copy commands to do pretty much this, but the
cloning was easier and faster. I don't even know if BAT files are still
in existence and couldn't write what I needed if they were.

In summary, I think ease of use is F-A-R more valuable than the hot-new so
many developers throw at you by the truckload.

I'm with you regarding ease of use.

By the way, you say "Several here have recommended Casper to clone
your hard drive." As far as I can recall, the only regular poster here
who consistently recommends Casper is Anna. Most of us here recommend
Acronis True Image for this kind of task.

I've never tried Casper (as I said), because I've been happy with
Acronis True Image, so I can't compare the two directly. But in my
view, True Image is very easy to use.

 

[inkleput]

I've never tried Casper (as I said), because I've been happy with Acronis
True Image, so I can't compare the two directly. But in my view, True
Image is very easy to use.

I made one last attempt. I put a NTFS partition on the front of the 320 -
using Casper itself!! Upon clicking the clone full hard disk option (this
time trying to put about 40gb on 140gb) it immediately said there wsa no
suitable target.

I'd say that pretty much seals their fate in my view.

I don't doubt you find Acronis easy, but you are a guru, not a dummy with
no ST memory like me.

JimL

 

[Daave]

"Daave" <[email protected]> said:





Right now I'd prefer to copy a system back than swap drives.

Since cloning is best suited for the latter, imaging is what you should
look into, then.

Whoa. W-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-Y too complicated for me. I bought it and
fought
with it for a couple years and never could restore a single thing from
it.
You couldn't even get rid of old, outdated files without deleting the
entire image system and starting over. You have to know a lot about
drive
systems to even run it.

How long ago did you try this?

If you try it again, I'm pretty sure you'll get the hang of it. And you
can always post questions at the following forum:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=65

Or you could always try DriveImage XML (which is free):

http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

http://lifehacker.com/software/feature/hot-image-your-pcs-hard-drive-with-driveimage-xml-326086.php

Note that you won't be able to do incremental or differential imaging
backups, but still , it's not bad for a freebie.

 

[inkleput]

Since cloning is best suited for the latter, imaging is what you should
look into, then.

How long ago did you try this?

I worked at it for about a year and a half, up to about 6 months ago.

If you try it again, I'm pretty sure you'll get the hang of it.

Us old fogies get worse, not better.

And as for the deleting old files, their support people told me you have
to delete the whole thing and start over - no way to get rid of dirty
diapers.

Or you could always try DriveImage XML (which is free):

http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

Looks interesting. Thanks

I finally got an actual reply from Casper support. They looked at the
submitted report again and said Casper said "no suitable target hard
drive" because it found free space on the source hard drive. I call that
strange programming. And after first ignoring it they admitted that the
target drive must be empty, regardless of how much space is on it.


JimL