Page 1 of Ghosting software for copying old HD over to new HD

Before I start experimenting I was wondering if anyone had any experience with software to copy a whole (working) OS and applications over from one hard disk to another. I have an 80GB hard disk with XP and have just bought a 250GB hard disk. I propose to have both HD`s in the same machine at the same time but use the 250GB one as the main drive and use the 80GB as a backup for the OS, apps and important data.

I`m considering using the

PC Inspector Clone Maxx 1.0

or this

HD Clone

which are both free.

However, it may be worth forking out and getting something like this :

Acronis True Image 8.0

as it may be worth it to save searching around.

Better still personal experience from someone would be great! Thanks.

We use Acronis at work. Pretty good actually. My team leader copied his active partition while working, which can`t be bad. I`ve cloned a few drives with it when doing rebuilds, even badly damaged drives.

I use Acronis at home and it`s been well worth the money (about £20).

It has an option to create a hidden partition which you can then boot into (even if your main partition won`t boot) and then do a full or partial restore (it`s got my mum`s PC up & running a couple of times)

If you`re using Windows 98se and have both harddrives in the same machine then save yourself some money and do this to duplicate your drive`s contents...
Assuming C: is your usual drive and D: is the new one then type this into Start/Run

Code:
xcopy32 c:\*.* d:\ /h /e /c /k /y

I haven`t tried it with XP but it may work if you log in with full supervisor access.

I tried the XCopy but it didn`t recognise the command. I then decided to look at the Acronis True Image Trial Version - which I am sure I read somewhere was not fully functional - but it is for 15 days! Wow!!!! Whole system copied over in less than 45 minutes after a few clicks on the True Image menu. Am now running on the new hard disk with the old one removed as a backup. I`m now going to investigate what else it can do - but that just saved me hours.

Sorry, with WindowsXP they simplified the name of the command from xcopy32 to xcopy but it has all the same settings so the command to copy all the contents of drive C: to drive D: is

xcopy c:\*.* d:\ /h /e /c /k /y

Thought I`d better mention it in case it wasn`t obvious but xcopy doesn`t wipe or format the destination drive, it just copies files from one place to another, but it will overwrite any files with the same names so it`s not too important if you forget to wipe off an old copy.

This item was edited on Tuesday, 6th September 2005, 16:37

Oh dear, XCopy! That doesn`t provide an image of your hard drive. I wouldn`t do it because it renders the drive unbootable.

Xcopy is not a cloning program. It copies files, not sectors. It is effectively a shell for the "copy" command, it cannot copy boot sectors etc.

You will have to use a proper imaging program. I`ve used Norton Ghost and find it to be very unintuitive. Acronis does seem to make lighter work of it although I havn`t used it before.

This item was edited on Saturday, 10th September 2005, 12:36

Hehe, it`s amazing what gets suggested when you`re away from a thread. Either Ghost or Acronis will do it. As will DriveImage and probably loads more.

Tell me, Chris, how reliable is Acronis? Does it also provide verification during/after backups and also format backup media on the fly? And one more question, if I may, what are the steps involved in backing up and restoring. I hate using Norton Ghost (and also don`t trust Norton software due to several conflicts with Windows after Symantec took over and implemented very low level programming techniques) but at the end of the day it does its job. However, if Acronis proves to be reliable and much more innate, I will give it a try.

By the way, DriveImage has been superceded by Norton Ghost 9 (as Symantec took over PowerQuest) and it was the backup program I used prior to Ghost. It is just as unintelligible as Ghost.

This item was edited on Saturday, 10th September 2005, 23:20

Well I`ve used Acronis to do a number of clones at work, and it does do image verification. never used it myself, as I was cloning from severely f*** HDD that I`d used the old `stick in the fridge` trick on to get working again. It;s basically as easy as selecting the partition(s) you want to clone, telling it where to store the image and hitting go. ;d not used it before the beginning of August and it was a doddle. This is basically what you get at start-up.



Not used a current version of Ghost or DriveImage in ages. Just uise the ones on Hiren`s Boot CD.