Brain dead again....

Art Scott

I know it has been discussed and I finally gave up searching and looking thru page after page of various forums.


How does one get an exact working copy of the "c" drive copied over to a new blank drive(120 GB) that truly wants to become the new "c" drive????


My old HP Vectra came with a 20 gb "c" drive and with all the updates from windoooooze and adobe and other software comapanies it is alsmost full...I do not use it to store anything but active working software all file are on another 300gb drive.

So since I do not have the disk for my XP Pro and some of my software was bought as download only (and I lost my key codes, which were on a dvd that became corrupted sitting in a storage binder).....

Thanks for all help in advance! :bow

LuckyBob

I've been using Acronis True Image for quite some time for basic system cloning to replication of Windows and Linux server environments. Plus as of last time I checked, the demo is fully functional for two weeks so you can "try it out" with your transfer

http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATICW/

fotodojo

As in the previous reply Acronis or Symantec's Ghost (formerly Norton) are great of this - BUT failing that, and if you are adventurous you could try this method using a Linux Live CD

Keep in mind though that i haven't tried this (Linux) so you're kinda on your own .

Art Scott

THANX for the advicethumb.....if acronis is fully functional for 2 weeks..does the clone die after 2 weeks {or become inoperable until you pay for the service (software) }??

A friend has Norton Ghost...may give it a try..

found the thread...HARD DRIVE HELP...in the acessories forum....that is what I was looking for.

Thanx again.

digismile

Acronis True image is a snap to image one hard drive to another. I used to use Norton Ghost and now use True Image. Basically it's just an easier program to use.

So skip the the trial program and jsut get it! It's very inexpensive and does a great job of doing your backups too.

LuckyBob

The images you make with the demo of True Image (as of last time I had to use the demo in a pinch) don't expire. I used it to replicate one rebuilt system to 16 others (same hardware) and they're still running months later.

Linux Live / Knoppix work great as long as you're not trying to copy Windows itself. If you do a straight data dupe with Knoppix (which I tried at one point), it doesn't copy the boot sector properly and although the data is intact, the computer doesn't know how to boot from the drive. I'm sure there's a way around this, but I didn't bother looking into it since Acronis works great

The great thing about Linux Live / Knoppix is if you've got an NTFS hard drive with slight corruption or permission issues, you can get into it. Note that everybody out there should be aware of this - anybody can get at your supposedly secure NTFS files with a Linux Live variant.

claudermilk

Let me add a nother vote for Acronis. Fantastic software, and dirt cheap through Newegg.