HardDrive Cloning?

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WizeOne

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Does anyone have any experience with it? I need to change a drive out and want to make it as seemless as possible (really mean painless). It has my DOS based business program on it and I am totally out of space. I don't even have enough space to do a defrag and I have blown out absolutely every thing that I possible can.

In addition, the drive is probably pushing 10 years old and never (or hardly ever) gets turned off. It is an old PII 450 mHz computer that has been bulletproof and it is running Win 2K which I will stick with.

Here are my basic questions re; drive cloning. Do you have to load the clone program onto the existing harddrive? ie, the one that you want to replace?

If so, do you put the new hardrive in the secondary slot?

I'm just looking for a basic outline here, not all the little details. I'm sure that the program will have those. Seagate has a downloadable clone program that they also ship with their drives. It is made by Acronis??
 
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jsfinn

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Re: HardDrive Cloning?

Acronis makes good stuff.

You shouldn't have to install anything on your old drive - you should be able to boot from a floppy or CD to clone the disks. I know Symantec (or Norton) Ghost will let you do this.

The disk order won't matter for your clone either - of course, after the clone, you'll want to set your new disk as your primary.

Be sure to keep the old disk in a safe place in case the new disk fails - you'll have a good backup of your software. You do backup your data, don't you? This sounds pretty important to you. :)
 
i386

i386

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Re: HardDrive Cloning?

I use Acronis true image...

You don't need to install anything. Just boot from the CD.
 
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WizeOne

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Re: HardDrive Cloning?

i386 said:
I use Acronis true image...

You don't need to install anything. Just boot from the CD.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, I do have to download this seagate program. Do I download it to any drive and make a CD of it? If so, do I burn it using Nero Rom or some such?

My work computer currently has two internal drives. Do I remove the current #2, put the current #1 in the #2 position, put the new drive in the #1 position then boot from the CD?
 
i386

i386

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Re: HardDrive Cloning?

WizeOne said:
Gotcha i386. That is their backup program, not their Clone Program.
Click to expand...

Trust me, it clones too. I use it at work for both disk imaging and disk cloning. You won't need to clone disks very often at home, but the disk imaging feature will be useful long after the need for the cloning feature is gone.

You can...
Install a fresh copy of Windows. Install updates. Load your favorite software. Make a disk image.
Backup your data at regular intervals.
PC gets really screwed up one day.
Restore your disk image, then restore your last data backup. Done.
Get yourself a nice big USB hard drive to store your disk images on.
Invest a little time and money, backup data regularly, and even the worst software/OS problems become trivial to solve.
 
tommays

tommays

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Re: HardDrive Cloning?

Every hard drive i have bought in recent years comes with a utilty like maxblast to clone your old drive to the new drive you buy
 
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WizeOne

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Re: HardDrive Cloning?

i386 said:
.....and even the worst software/OS problems become trivial to solve.
Click to expand...

You mean like the disaster I almost just had with the spyware problem?:D



i386 said:
Get yourself a nice big USB hard drive to store your disk images on.
Click to expand...


Funny you should mention. Just yesterday I stopped at Costco and picked up a 1 TB Western Digital My Book USB external HD.

But still my basic question has yet to be addressed. All that you say is very good to know but my primary/current interest is understanding how to go about cloning my teeny little C: drive partition, on my work computer, so as to be able to graft it onto a new, larger harddrive?

Also, will the techniques you mentioned above work for a laptop as well? Might as well protect the wife's laptop while we are at it, huh?
 
i386

i386

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Re: HardDrive Cloning?

Yes it'll work on the laptop too. I use it on mine.


IF you buy a hard drive in a retail box it will come with some sort of cloning software. For example, Maxtor drives come with Maxblast. If you're like me and buy OEM drives (just a drive in a static bag) because they're cheaper then it won't come with that software. Back in the day when I used those utilities, they came on a floppy and you booted the floppy while having both the old and new drive connected. As long as you knew which drive was which you could clone one drive to the other.

My favorite tool for years was Norton Ghost. It just ran off a standard dos boot disk.

If you get the acronis software you boot the acronis cd whilst having both drives connected. The software has MANY functions and utilities, cloning being one of them.

There are many free tools to clone drives. I was just trying to offer you way to get your drive cloned AND have the benefits of drive image backups which would have saved you a lot of heartache.
 
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joed

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Re: HardDrive Cloning?

Hiren makes a bootable CD with many useful utilities on it. There are partion managers, HD cloning&imaging.
 
i386

i386

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Re: HardDrive Cloning?

joed said:
Hiren makes a bootable CD with many useful utilities on it. There are partion managers, HD cloning&imaging.
Click to expand...

Hiren's is awesome. It's also illegal. :(
 
T

ThumbPkr

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Re: HardDrive Cloning?

But it's freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.LOL.Ron G
 
Nandy

Nandy

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Re: HardDrive Cloning?

wizeone, I recomend you use the disc that comes with the new HD.
 
i386

i386

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Re: HardDrive Cloning?

WizeOne said:
Just got an email from Newegg. They have Acronis TI for 25$ shipped. I think I will give it a try.
Click to expand...

That's where I got mine from. You won't be disappointed.
 
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WizeOne

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Re: HardDrive Cloning?

I don't think that I have gotten an understanding yet of the basic mechanics of cloning.

Should I move my current primary HD to the secondary slot, then install the new blank drive in the primary spot?

Also, my current primary HD is partitioned and has programs on it. Will I be cloning the new HD with the same partition so that those programs will continue to work? And if so, will I be able to state a partition size or will the software simply mirror the sizes as a percentage of the new HD size.

I also assume that once I set things up as described above (if that is correct) that I then boot from the Acronis CD and proceed from there?
 
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ThumbPkr

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Re: HardDrive Cloning?

It really does not make much difference which drive is where during the cloning process.The software will know which drive needs what basically.
It will ask you if you plan to use the new drive as a boot drive during the setup configuration of the clone process.
You will need to connect the new drive at the end of the ribbon cable and jumper it properly at some point in your task but it can be done before or after the cloning.
I usually jumper my drives CLS but optical drives sometimes have a problem with this.I don't remember ever having any issues with magnetic drives though.Ron G
 
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