Looking for utility to clone multi-OS dual boot HD.

[schrodinger's cat]

I am replacing the HD in my laptop, and I'd like to clone the entire old
drive over to the new one. My existing HD is dual boot, with partitions
for Windows XP Pro (FAT32), Kubuntu Linux (EXT2), Linux Swap, and Data
(FAT32).

I hope to use an external USB HD enclosure to copy the existing HD to
the new HD through the USB port. Naturally, I need to be able to copy
all the partitioning and file system formatting as well as the MBR and
data from the old drive, and have the new drive be bootable when it is
installed. I have looked at a number of ways to accomplish this, such as
xxCopy, xxClone, CloneMaxx, rescue disks such as BartPE and
SystemRescueCD, live Linux distros with Partimage or dd, etc, but I
thought I would check to see if anyone here has any freeware utility
recommendations based on doing something similar. Any solutions need to
at least be able to mount a USB HD on my native USB1.1 ports, or
preferably on a PC Card adapter with USB2.0 ports for faster throughput.
Thanks.

 

[David]

I am replacing the HD in my laptop, and I'd like to clone the entire old
drive over to the new one. My existing HD is dual boot, with partitions
for Windows XP Pro (FAT32), Kubuntu Linux (EXT2), Linux Swap, and Data
(FAT32).

I hope to use an external USB HD enclosure to copy the existing HD to
the new HD through the USB port. Naturally, I need to be able to copy
all the partitioning and file system formatting as well as the MBR and
data from the old drive, and have the new drive be bootable when it is
installed. I have looked at a number of ways to accomplish this, such as
xxCopy, xxClone, CloneMaxx, rescue disks such as BartPE and
SystemRescueCD, live Linux distros with Partimage or dd, etc, but I
thought I would check to see if anyone here has any freeware utility
recommendations based on doing something similar. Any solutions need to
at least be able to mount a USB HD on my native USB1.1 ports, or
preferably on a PC Card adapter with USB2.0 ports for faster throughput.
Thanks.

Why bother with USB. It will just slow things down. Keep your
existing drive as your boot drive and put your new drive as either the
master on the secondary IDE cable or as the slave on the primary
cable. Use one of the clone programs to clone each partition or, if
the disks are the same size, just clone the whole disk.
When the cloning is finished you can remove your existing drive,
change the new drive to master on the primary cable and only then put
your old drive into your USB carrier if you wish.
--
David
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E-mail: justdas at iinet dot net dot au

 

[schrodinger's cat]

...Keep your
existing drive as your boot drive and put your new drive as either the
master on the secondary IDE cable or as the slave on the primary
cable.

I guess you missed the part about it being a laptop.

 

[David]

I guess you missed the part about it being a laptop.

Then leave the case open while doing the cloning. Cables may look
messy but they do the job.
--
David
Remove "farook" to reply
At the bottom of the application where it says
"sign here". I put "Sagittarius"
E-mail: justdas at iinet dot net dot au

 

[Steve H]

Then leave the case open while doing the cloning. Cables may look
messy but they do the job.

You don't often get laptops with a secondary hard drive connector -
either on the primary lead or on the board.

You can buy adaptors quite cheaply to connect a laptop hard drive to a
standard IDE cable on a desktop PC.

Regards,