Disk Cloning Software?

[Ross M. Greenberg]

I'm installing a new 80GB USB Seagate Drive on my XPPRO Dell.

I want to make a partition image of its current 40GB Seagate onto it.

What's best to use? Free would be nice!

Thanks!

Ross

 

[Alan]

I'm installing a new 80GB USB Seagate Drive on my XPPRO Dell.

I want to make a partition image of its current 40GB Seagate onto it.

What's best to use? Free would be nice!

Thanks!

Ross

Did you look on your disk makers web site?

 

[Ross M. Greenberg]

Did you look on your disk makers web site?

Yup. I see nothing. Diag, sure. Clone? Nope.

 

[Mike Fields]

Yup. I see nothing. Diag, sure. Clone? Nope.

Most of the mfgrs have cloning SW with the drives, but
you indicate you are looking to make an image to USB.
I suspect you may not find that configuration for free.
You might want to check out BING or Image4Dos
from Terabyte inc. Good price - small and works well.
http://www.terabyteinc.com Bing (Boot It Next Gen)
is also a partition manager and boot manager too.

mikey

 

[Plato]

I'm installing a new 80GB USB Seagate Drive on my XPPRO Dell.
I want to make a partition image of its current 40GB Seagate onto it.
What's best to use? Free would be nice!

Not best, but free:
http://www.xxclone.com/

 

[Gary]

Xref: TK2MSFTNGP08.phx.gbl microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:1469562

I'm installing a new 80GB USB Seagate Drive on my XPPRO Dell.

I want to make a partition image of its current 40GB Seagate onto it.

What's best to use? Free would be nice!

Thanks!

Ross

I have used Acronis True Image to clone and restore backup images and it has
never failed me. You can check it out here. http://www.acronis.com/

 

[Glen]

Acronis True Image has failed me with a number of corrupt backup images. I
still have them if any one doesnt believe. I have now gone back to Norton
Ghost.

You could check the hard drive manufacturer they sometimes make software
that allows you to clone from one hard drive to another and it should be
free.

Glen P

 

[Ross M. Greenberg]

It looked good, but. alas, did not work

Most of the mfgrs have cloning SW with the drives, but
you indicate you are looking to make an image to USB.
I suspect you may not find that configuration for free.
You might want to check out BING or Image4Dos
from Terabyte inc. Good price - small and works well.
http://www.terabyteinc.com Bing (Boot It Next Gen)
is also a partition manager and boot manager too.

mikey

 

[Ross M. Greenberg]

I have used Acronis True Image to clone and restore backup images and it
has
never failed me. You can check it out here. http://www.acronis.com/

Tried it, a little. *Very* slow, and machine hung while it copies. I had
used PowerQuest's DriveImage a while ago, and I guess it spoiled me.

 

[Ross M. Greenberg]

Not best, but free:
http://www.xxclone.com/

Does this do image copy or just file-by-file?

 

[Mike Fields]

Did not work?? You mean you could not image the
drive, were unable to restore from the image or
some other issue ?? While it does not have the
fancy GUI that some others do, I have found it
works for me and a lot of others on many machines.
Terabyte also has their own news group and a
fairly good knowledgebase and FAQ at their site.
(for backup/imaging utilities, I prefer reliable over
fancy GUI ... )

mikey

 

[Jonny]

Header says cloning, text says you want an image. Which?

 

[Ross M. Greenberg]

Yes.

Well, I desires a bit-for-bit copy of my current C: drive onto this larger
USB drive, I consider it both.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Yes.

Well, I desires a bit-for-bit copy of my current C: drive onto this larger
USB drive, I consider it both.

A "clone" can be booted directly. An "image" has to be "restored"
from other media before it can be booted. Booting from a USB drive
is still considered a trick which most people cannot do (including me).

For cloning - making a bootable copy on another hard drive - I use
Casper XP. It costs $50, but you can download a free copy that will
work for 30 days from www.FSSdev.com/products/casperxp . I prefer
Casper XP over Acronis's True Image because Casper XP can
copy just one partition off a hard drive which may contain many
partitions, and put the copy into one partition (or unallocated space)
among other partitions on the destination hard drive. True Image
copies the *entire hard drive* onto the entirety of another hard drive.
That's fine if you're just upgrading to a larger hard drive, but it sucks
if you want to archive a current version of a system partition among
other versions. I do the latter in order to have multiple clones that I
can fall back on in the event of failure of the primary hard drive, and
I don't want to spend the time to "restore" a system from CD or DVD
or external USB hard drive. To boot one of the clones, even without
failure of the primary HD, all I have to do is adjust the boot order in
the BIOS, restart the PC, and the clone of a previous system loads
up. Casper XP is dedicated to cloning, and it does its thing within
Windows while Windows is still running - unlike Symantec's Ghost.
For cloning, Casper XP is the best utility I've found.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Ross M. Greenberg]

CasperXP looks great and looks like it'll do the trick! Gotta resize the
partition: right now it's 33 GB in an 80GB partition -- Casper wants me to
resize it. Based upon your say-so, I'm spending the $50 today! You know, I
can't find any decent partitioning software either! Arrggghhhhhhhhh!

 

[dreamtheater_142]

Hello,
Any way my vote for Acronis True Image
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/.
Timothy Daniels, I use this program almost for backup my OS partition.
As it perfectly suits for this act, it could create backup from
separate partition as well as full disk.

 

[Jonny]

That's a clone, not an image.

Consider your USB enclosure's bios may interpret the USB connected hard
drive a bit differently when and if you have to move the clone to the PC in
the event of onboard hard drive failure.

A fixmbr from the XP repair function on its install CD may fix it.
Subsequent file allocation errors may result and be fixed afterwards as part
of that.

Similar when moving local hard drive to a different motherboard in some
cases.

 

[Plato]

read the docs

 

[Ross M. Greenberg]

Just decided to try True Image. Made a True Image of my 40gigger.

Took 12(!!!!) hours and knocked me out of Windows the whole time!

It's gonna be Disk Image from PowerQuest, methinks. 12 hours on a fast Dell
Box with 7200 rpm disks. 12 hours!!

It would be funny if it weren't so pitiful!

 

[Ross M. Greenberg]

Okey doke: True Image isn't the only one wasting my time.

True Image copies my 40 gig drive into an 80 gig partition. 12 hours.
Used Partition Magic to turn 60 gig partition into a 40 gig partition and 40
gig unallocated: 2 hours. Copying that 40 gig partition into the unallocated
space as an additional backup: 55% done, 8 hours!

Sheesh!