Clone / Image

worthingsaxovtr · 29 Oct 2011 at 11:13

Can somebody please explain to me which one I ened to do.

I want to make a complete backup of my C: drive onto another hard drive.

So if my C: drive goes down I shall take it out and swap over to the other drive and just start using it with no problem.

Using Norton Ghost, I know the 2nd Drive wont have a C: assigned to it and it will need to be bootable I guess.

Hope that makes sense, or if there is an easier way of doing it.

Cheers

Nigel

robinbredin · 29 Oct 2011 at 12:33

I use True Acronis, it does the job. If you have a WD or Seagate drive, then you can get a free copy off their web site's.

Deleted member 77746 · 29 Oct 2011 at 12:39

Another vote for True Acronis. If you have Windows 7 Professional/Ultimate, this already has a built in image utility ready for you. It basically uses ImageX.

worthingsaxovtr · 29 Oct 2011 at 15:12

yep have Windows 7 Professional, didnt know it had an in built image utility.

Is it any good ?

3dcandy · 29 Oct 2011 at 15:14

yes very for free. You can backup everything and clone drives very easily.

lurkio · 29 Oct 2011 at 15:20

+1
acronis

darael · 29 Oct 2011 at 15:21

Macrium Reflect.

ian54 · 31 Oct 2011 at 17:49

Paragon Disk Copy, sorts out the drive letters a treat, but it's a bit expensive now.

TBH you maybe should think about using RAID 1.

worthingsaxovtr · 31 Oct 2011 at 19:29

cheers for the info everybody.

With Raid 1 do I just need to buy a raid card for my mobo?
As my machine is already up and running do I have to wipe windows?
If on a Raid 1 setup, one of the drives goes down does it automatically kick over on to the other drive? and then when I replace the drive it builds up the mirror itself or do I have to tell it to do so

sorry about all the questions

Deleted member 77746 · 31 Oct 2011 at 19:37

worthingsaxovtr said:
cheers for the info everybody.

With Raid 1 do I just need to buy a raid card for my mobo?
As my machine is already up and running do I have to wipe windows?
If on a Raid 1 setup, one of the drives goes down does it automatically kick over on to the other drive? and then when I replace the drive it builds up the mirror itself or do I have to tell it to do so

sorry about all the questions

Don't bother with raid. Your better with a soft image using one of the mentioned software packages.

If you were to create an image that will do for an easy restore incase of failure.

thedoc46 · 31 Oct 2011 at 20:55

Hey fella's

Can Windows 7 image creator be used for swapping out to a bigger HD?

I'm in need of a larger HD.

Being that the registry and drive manager will restore thinknig a different drive was in place, how will that work?

Deleted member 77746 · 31 Oct 2011 at 21:02

Once you have restored the image to a bigger drive you can resize a partition in windows 7 on the fly now using the built in partition tools.

thedoc46 · 1 Nov 2011 at 10:55

mrbell1984 said:
Once you have restored the image to a bigger drive you can resize a partition in windows 7 on the fly now using the built in partition tools.

Last time I tried that, it would not allow you to increase the boot partition. There was a third party tool that I downloaded, but that caused problems in the end i just bit the bullet and rebuilt from scratch.

So far, there doesn't seem an easy way to clone the O/S partition and transfer onto a bigger drive without a complete rebuild.

Deleted member 77746 · 1 Nov 2011 at 11:00

Shrink/Extend volume has worked perfect for me since day 1. Disk changes e.t.c so I am unsure whats going wrong with yours.

bledd · 1 Nov 2011 at 13:56

Macrium Reflect

bledd · 1 Nov 2011 at 13:56

mrbell1984 said:
Shrink/Extend volume has worked perfect for me since day 1. Disk changes e.t.c so I am unsure whats going wrong with yours.

There are limitations in the Windows built in one, personally, I just use a Parted Magic boot cd and do it when it's 'offline'

ian54 · 1 Nov 2011 at 22:57

thedoc46 said:
So far, there doesn't seem an easy way to clone the O/S partition and transfer onto a bigger drive without a complete rebuild.

I've used Paragon software to do this on several occasions, the latest is using Disk Copy, it sorts out the boot problems automatically.