Looking for Data Recover Disk Software

[tjdarth]

Hey guys, I had a HD error and had to replace it5 with a new one. I found a
good deal on a 1.4 TB HD. I have partitioned this new drive in hopes of
moving my existing XP-SP3 entire system to one of the new partitions. I am
looking for a package that will allow me the opportunity to achieve this
cloning function without losing access to the OS. Any ideas on this subject
would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance . . . . Tom J.

 

[sandy58]

Hey guys, I had a HD error and had to replace it5 with a new one. I founda
good deal on a 1.4 TB HD. I have partitioned this new drive in hopes of
moving my existing XP-SP3 entire system to one of the new partitions. I am
looking for a package that will allow me the opportunity to achieve this
cloning function without losing access to the OS. Any ideas on this subject
would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance . . . . Tom J.

Acronis True Image.

 

[JS]

Can you still boot to Windows from the old drive?

 

[tjdarth]

JS, Believe it or not I can, even though I have to go through some hoops to
get back to my full blown system which is on an entirely different disk. I
think I am hitting the MTBF limit on at least one maybe two drives and I
want to be able to put Plan 'B' into play if necessary. I really want a
product that allows me to clone the OS from its' current partition to a new
one on the new drive and be able to boot from that new drive as if nothing
has happen (transparancey bound process).

Any ideas . . .?
Thanks . . .TomJ.

 

[JS]

EASEUS
http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/

Have not used it since I prefer Image backups
but give it a look.

 

[JS]

Also:
New drives like Maxtor and Western Digital (that are not OEM versions) come
with a CD that includes a drive copy utility.

If you have an OEM drive go to the Manufacturer's web site.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Hey guys, I had a HD error and had to replace it5 with a new one. I found
a good deal on a 1.4 TB HD. I have partitioned this new drive in hopes of
moving my existing XP-SP3 entire system to one of the new partitions. I am
looking for a package that will allow me the opportunity to achieve this
cloning function without losing access to the OS. Any ideas on this
subject would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance . . . . Tom J.

A few things. First, you're asking about imaging software, not data
recovery software.

Second, many people get excellent results with Acronis TrueImage, and you
can use the free trial.

Third, if the source disk has errors, imaging may fail.

Fourth, moving the install to a partition that won't have the same drive
letter isn't necessarily a good idea.

HTH
-pk

 

[tjdarth]

Thanks Pat for the input. Thanks for the helpful corrections.

First, indeed I am looking for imaging/cloning software not data recovery,
although that would be an added benifit.

Second: Sandy58 on this thread offered the idea about Actonis which I
downloaded the Acronis True Image Home 2009. It appeared to be the answer to
my cloning situation until I selected the Destination partition on the new
disk and it responded with
an option box the wants to delete and reformat the entire disk of which I
have off-loaded some important data to buy mysekf some room on my OS boot
partition. This troubles me because I don't want to spend another two to
four hours moving some of the same data again to yet another location. All I
need for a product to do is copy/clone/image one partition om disk (A) to
the another partition on disk (B). This Seagate new drive software offers
the same type of functional option as Acronis.

Third: Currently, the source disk has no errors, but my OS is in the
extended area of this disk & I would like to restore the OS to a Primary
partition.

Fourth: I am hoping the processing of cloning this partition that the
software picks up information from the BIOS to include in this clone
feature, and place that information on the destination disk as well. I hope
this type of functionality exist in some of these cloing packages to
eliminate a lot of headaces down the road. In addition, my new mobo has
features that allow me to not only set the (First, Second, Third) boot
sequence, it also gives me ability to physically choose whidh disk should be
the first inline to be booted from, so XP should recognize how my
environment is structed and apply his drive-letter routine accordingly.

Thanks again for all of your input. If I am off-base about something please
get back to me . . .
TomJ.

 

[tjdarth]

He Sandy, I took your advice and downloaded Acronis True Image 2009. It
appeared to be the answer to my cloning situation until I selected the
Destination partition on the new disk and it responded with an option box
that wants me to delete and reformat the entire disk of which I have already
off-loaded some important data to buy mysekf some room on my OS boot
partition. This troubles me because I don't want to spend another two to
four hours moving some of the same data again to yet another location. All I
need for a product to do is copy/clone/image one partition om disk (A) to
the another partition on disk (B). This Seagate new drive software offers
the same type of functional option as Acronis.

I am still looking for a solution.

Thanks TomJ

Hey guys, I had a HD error and had to replace it5 with a new one. I found
a
good deal on a 1.4 TB HD. I have partitioned this new drive in hopes of
moving my existing XP-SP3 entire system to one of the new partitions. I am
looking for a package that will allow me the opportunity to achieve this
cloning function without losing access to the OS. Any ideas on this
subject
would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance . . . . Tom J.

Acronis True Image.

 

[Mike Torello]

Replies are IN line.

Thanks Pat for the input. Thanks for the helpful corrections.

First, indeed I am looking for imaging/cloning software not data recovery,
although that would be an added benifit.

Second: Sandy58 on this thread offered the idea about Actonis which I
downloaded the Acronis True Image Home 2009. It appeared to be the answer to
my cloning situation until I selected the Destination partition on the new
disk and it responded with
an option box the wants to delete and reformat the entire disk of which I
have off-loaded some important data to buy mysekf some room on my OS boot
partition. This troubles me because I don't want to spend another two to
four hours moving some of the same data again to yet another location. All I
need for a product to do is copy/clone/image one partition om disk (A) to
the another partition on disk (B). This Seagate new drive software offers
the same type of functional option as Acronis.

Cloning to a partition is problematical, even for Casper, the King of
cloning software (but that's all that it can do is clone).

You should merely IMAGE your drive to that partition. You can save
multiple images to that partition, limited only by the size of the
partition.

Third: Currently, the source disk has no errors, but my OS is in the
extended area of this disk & I would like to restore the OS to a Primary
partition.

Imaging will handle that... but there might be complications that I'm
unaware of (haven't had that need) - even if you clone.

Fourth: I am hoping the processing of cloning this partition that the
software picks up information from the BIOS to include in this clone
feature, and place that information on the destination disk as well. I hope
this type of functionality exist in some of these cloing packages to
eliminate a lot of headaces down the road.

Nope. None of them will do that.

 

[Bill in Co.]

Why don't you just use the IMAGING option, instead of cloning?

 

[tjdarth]

Thanks Bill for the response. I am going to give Imaging a closer look I
just want to make sure I understand what differences there are between
cloning and Imaging, and determining which will be the most effective for me
w/o calling for a lot of future problems.

Thanks again . . . Tom J

 

[JS]

You can use "Image Backup" software to make a complete backup
of your Windows partition (usually the C: drive).

Image backups are stored in a compressed image file which is about 40% less
in size than the amount of space used by the Windows partition (pagefile is
excluded from a backup).

You can also specify the file size break point, so for instance if a full
image backup creates an image file of say 8GB the beak point can be set to
4GB resulting in a split file of 4 GB each which then can be saved to a DVD
or optionally during the Image backup you can specify the DVD drive as the
destination and create the backup directly to DVD media.

You can only Image and restore FAT32 to FAT32 and NTFS to NTFS.
So for example an image of a FAT32 drive or partition can not be restored
to an NTFS partition on the new drive.

Most image backup software also allows you to extract a file or folder (from
the image backup file) back to your Windows partition. This way you can
restore what you need as long as a file you are extracting is not in use
"locked or In use" by Windows.

Norton Ghost - has a 30 day trial available
(Trial does not allow you to create a Bootable Restore CD)
http://www.symantec.com/norton/products/overview.jsp?pcid=br&pvid=ghost14
Product Review "Symantec's 14th Ghost":
http://www.softpedia.com/reviews/windows/Norton-Ghost--Review-78775.shtml

True Image 2009 - has a 15 day trial version available,
(Trial version can create a Restore CD/Rescue Media)
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/
User's Guide: http://us1.download.acronis.com/pdf/TrueImage12_ug.en.pdf

 

[Bill in Co.]

I use imaging all the time to make generational backups of my system.
Typically what happens is I try out some software, decide I don't want it
(or it goes astray) and want to remove ALL vestiges of it, by simply
restoring a previously saved image of my C: partition, saved on a backup
drive. I have several images for different dates in case I ever find I
need to go back even earlier to get a clean system.

When I make the image backup, I save the C: partition and the two hidden FAT
Dell partitions to the backup drive. Since I'm using IMAGING instead of
CLONING, I don't have to worry about what else is on the backup drive, as
that will be left alone (the image goes into Free Space over there). When I
want it back, I simply restore the previously saved image (which ends up
rebooting the computer).

However, the main disadvantage of IMAGING is that it does NOT make a backup
clone that you can pull out and swap back in and boot up on, in case your
source drive dies (say like a hardware failure). That's probably the main
reason for using CLONING - if you need that swappable drive feature.

 

[JS]

That what the recovery/rescue disk is for.
Pull the old drive, install the new then boot from
the recovery CD/DVD, pick the image backup
file you saved to another internal drive, external drive,
or DVD media and restore to the new drive.

One 8 year old PC I used up to early this year had
two boot drives fail or start to fail over the eight year
span and I used Ghost to restore the image to the new
drive in each case. Earlier this year I built a new PC and
Imaged the contents of that 8 year old to another drive
on the new PC and then did a repair install since the
motherboards were different.

 

[Bill in Co.]

True enough. It's just with cloning you could directly swap the drives, if
that was someone's desire. I use imaging, however, because it works out a
lot better for me (and not cloning).