Copying a complete replica of my existing drive onto another.

mc_bob

mc_bob

mc_bob

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Hi,
Im going to buy a 160GB hard drive soon and want to know if I can just copy all my files over and expect it to work?
Someone said I would need partition magic, so I thought I'd ask you brainy lot at OcUK. ;)

Thanks in advance.

MC_Bob
 
hi,
this same question was asked yesterday or the day before, I can't link it for you cos I'm on my phone, have a scan back
ally best way is to use a program, can't remember if there's a free one
 
Acronis True Image & or some hard-disk maker software like Maxtor's MaxBlast should have the tools to do a clone.

Don't forget to check if the software's made the new Windows partition active.

If you encounter any problems after clonning like NTLDR (or something) missing, go into Recovery Console (Windows CD or can install it as a boot option - Google-it) & type FIXMBR :)
 
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Don't touch Norton Ghost - very unreliable. Use Acronis True Image and in the 30day free trial, I believe it is fully functional.
 
I used Norton Ghost 10 just yesterday to migrate to larger HD as you're wanting to do. It worked but there was an unexpected snag, so thought I'd outline how it worked out in the end:

1. I made a full backup up of my old HD to an external HD with Ghost (just a precaution but saved the day in the end as you'll see).

2. I then used the HD Copy feature to copy my old HD directly to the new HD. When I removed the old HD and set the new HD as master and active/bootable, I found that the new drive stayed as "E:" even if the "C:" drive was removed. Never seen that happen before. So naturally windows couldn't find it's files on the new drive. Couldn't find a way to change the drive letter and the original HD for some reason also got slightly corrupted (could be unrelated; it's very old)

3. I popped in the Windows setup disc and deleted and then recreated the primary partition on the new HD. After doing those two things I exited windows setup. This allowed the HD to be recognized as "C:" again.

4. I booted with the Norton Ghost CD (with the external HD mentioned earlier also attached). I did a restore my computer from the backup saved on the external HD. I chose "custom restore" instead of "express" in order to make a few options changes: disable "copy HD serial" and enable "copy MBR". After I also made sure that the HD was active and bootable with a utility on the Ghost boot disc.

5. After all that I finally had windows booting and functioning normally from the new HD.

so a few more steps than I anticipated. So the copy from HD-2-HD didn't work because of the drive letter staying as "E:". Restoring to the new HD from a backup worked (but don't forget the two custom options mentioned in that step).

btw, the free utility mentioned in an earlier post above is http://www.bootitng.com/copywipe.html#download. A poster in that thread said they tried it and it worked without hassles.

good luck
 
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jidh007 said:
Don't use Acronis, had nothing but trouble with it :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Have to disagree strongly. Acronis does have bugs, yes, but is far more reliable and less troublesome than Ghost (I speak from long experience with both).
 
smids said:
Don't touch Norton Ghost - very unreliable. Use Acronis True Image and in the 30day free trial, I believe it is fully functional.
Click to expand...

Sorry but you must be doing something wrong!!

I have been using Norton Ghost for years (Various DOS Corp. versions) and have never had a single problem. I have imaged and cloned drives on various formats: IDE, SATA, SCSI, RAID ..etc

Obviously the more tricky ones such as SCSI & less mainstream SATA controllers require a little computer knowledge as you need to add the device drivers to your DOS boot CD, but even that can be done by a novice with a little Google searching.

DOS Ghost Corp. 9 is FAR more reliable than True Image, hence why all the professionals at blue chip IT companys pay the $£$£$ for it.

True image 4 show
Ghost 4 Pro's :p

All this is done with a tiny .exe file that can fit on a floppy, USB pen, CD/DVD ..etc. No need to install any bloated rubbish in windows.
 
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xtreme.BIN said:
Sorry but you must be doing something wrong!!

I have been using Norton Ghost for years (Various DOS Corp. versions) and have never had a single problem. I have imaged and cloned drives on various formats: IDE, SATA, SCSI, RAID ..etc

Obviously the more tricky ones such as SCSI & less mainstream SATA controllers require a little computer knowledge as you need to add the device drivers to your DOS boot CD, but even that can be done by a novice with a little Google searching.

DOS Ghost Corp. 9 is FAR more reliable than True Image, hence why all the professionals at blue chip IT companys pay the $£$£$ for it.

True image 4 show
Ghost 4 Pro's :p

All this is done with a tiny .exe file that can fit on a floppy, USB pen, CD/DVD ..etc. No need to install any bloated rubbish in windows.
Click to expand...
No I do know what I am doing and no, I didn't do anything wrong - it just created fubar images most of the time, and failed to produce a decent working image when it did indeed manage to make an image. It also has a whole heap of documented problems with RAID - for which admittedly there is a workaround but not one you expect to have to carry out.

I will admit the older Ghosts were good, but the modern ones are pap in my view. I think 7 was the last decent one - or was it 6?
 
I use ghost 7 about 10 times a day in work, mainly for hard drive to hard drive clones, but it has always worked fine, fits on a floppy so i dont have to have the cd plugged in and mess about with jumpers for the image hard drive.
 
Bubba said:
I use ghost 7 about 10 times a day in work, mainly for hard drive to hard drive clones, but it has always worked fine, fits on a floppy so i dont have to have the cd plugged in and mess about with jumpers for the image hard drive.
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Yup - that's the last one I liked. Ghost 9 and 10 were very unreliable for me, especially in my RAID environment. Acronis deals with the RAID with no problems whatsoever.

Anyone who buys ghost is obviously going to buy the latest i.e. Ghost 10 which is pap. How many people do you think will buy an old Ghost? Very few unless they are in the know - another reason why I wouldn't recommend it to the consumer, Xtreme.BIN
 
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smids said:
... i.e. Ghost 10 which is pap. ...
Click to expand...
Could be some truth to that. I think I read another post where it was claimed that the source HD got slightly corrupted after an HD-2-HD, which is what apparently happened with me... luckily I did the full HD backup first.

I don't like how you have no option in Ghost 10 of unloading from mem. I'm not planning on having it do anything scheduled, but still it has to sit there occupying a slice of overall mem... dumb.

The boot disc functionality is good though and very easy to use... and recognizes many devices on it's own... many options there.
 
I used Acronis TrueImage to go from a single IDE drive to a SATA RAID-0 setup without a problem when in the past Norton Ghost gave me lots of problems even when going from IDE to IDE.
 
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