OT! OT! Hard Drive Cloning

[Jim Thompson]

I haven't done this in years, so could I have everyone's opinion for
best hard drive cloning software?

I have one that's starting to exhibit clunking noises and I'd like to
copy it *now* so that I don't have to do massive software re-installs
;-)

...Jim Thompson

 

[Bob]

PowerQuest Drive Image is an excellent choice.

Bob

:I haven't done this in years, so could I have everyone's opinion for
:best hard drive cloning software?
:
:I have one that's starting to exhibit clunking noises and I'd like to
:copy it *now* so that I don't have to do massive software re-installs
:;-)
:
: ...Jim Thompson
:--
:| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
:| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
:| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
:| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
:| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
:| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
:
:I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

[Martin Riddle]

Any partitioning software should have a clone feature as well as fixing file
paths. Its good to have too with the larger drives and if you want to try
another os. They even have boot managers.

You can also check the manufacturers web site. WD doesnt but others may.

Cheers

 

[j.b. miller]

I've got both C and D in removable trays,setup as masters. Every once in a
while I use XXCOPY to 'clone C to D.
Having the drives in trays means I can pullout D ,put into C's place and be
'up and running' in 5 minutes or less.
This system has been in use for about 6 years.

fwiw
jay

 

[clare @ snyder.on .ca]

I haven't done this in years, so could I have everyone's opinion for
best hard drive cloning software?

I have one that's starting to exhibit clunking noises and I'd like to
copy it *now* so that I don't have to do massive software re-installs
;-)

...Jim Thompson

Use XXcopy. Blows Norton Ghost away. And it is free.

 

[scada]

I haven't done this in years, so could I have everyone's opinion for
best hard drive cloning software?

I have one that's starting to exhibit clunking noises and I'd like to
copy it *now* so that I don't have to do massive software re-installs
;-)

...Jim Thompson

Buy your new HD now, and download the drive copy software free from the
manufactures web site.

 

[oldsoundguy]

I haven't done this in years, so could I have everyone's opinion for
best hard drive cloning software?

I have one that's starting to exhibit clunking noises and I'd like to
copy it *now* so that I don't have to do massive software re-installs
;-)

...Jim Thompson

If you buy a WD drive, there is a very good cloning utility on their
disc that is included with it .. but it will ONLY copy to WD drives.
Powerquest Disc Copy (not cheap) and Norton Ghost (included with the
Norton System Works (usually 9 bucks or so on eBay) or Partition Magic
are the three commercial programs of choice in most shops.
(and some programs such aw MS Office XP will copy, but will have to be
re installed .. some others will, such as Agent will have to be re
coded before they will launch, Windows Trace Remover requires a re
registration ...just a few of things.) You should check for the
lauchability of each program you use after cloning, because THAT is
the time to fix them, not when you need them.

 

[Mac]

I haven't done this in years, so could I have everyone's opinion for
best hard drive cloning software?

I have one that's starting to exhibit clunking noises and I'd like to
copy it *now* so that I don't have to do massive software re-installs
;-)

...Jim Thompson

Norton Ghost works well for this, although I haven't used it in a few
years.

Another approach is to do a full backup of your system (this can be done
over the network, if you are part of a LAN), making sure you backup the
system state as well as all of your files. The system state is a special
checkbox you have to check during the file selection phase of the backup
process.

Then, you would have to install a new disk, re-install Windows, since the
backup and restore software only runs under windows, (but you can do a
bare minimum installation) then do a restore of the full backup. When you
reboot, your system will be just like it was at the time of the backup.
It's a bit of a pain, but it has the advantage of not needing any other
software and working easily over a network.

I have done this with win2k. winXP uses the same backup software, so it
should work there, too. I'm pretty sure windows 95 and 98 had similar
backup programs.

Mac

 

[Costas Vlachos]

I haven't done this in years, so could I have everyone's opinion for
best hard drive cloning software?

I have one that's starting to exhibit clunking noises and I'd like to
copy it *now* so that I don't have to do massive software re-installs
;-)

...Jim Thompson

I use Symantec's Norton Ghost 2003, with excellent results. Have cloned
WinXP bootable HDs with no problems.

Costas

 

[Ian Stirling]

I haven't done this in years, so could I have everyone's opinion for
best hard drive cloning software?

dd.

 

[Mjolinor]

dd.

 

[Martin]

I've used Drive Image for the last few years, making a new image of the
primary drive on a removable drive frequently, and it has worked well for
me. On two occasions I used the last image to save my butt. Being able to
replace all of the files as well as the OS saved me days of work.

 

[Chuck Harris]

simple, get one of the cd bootable linux distributions, and dd
the old drive onto a new one. dd is what the law enforcement
forensic guys use when they absolutely positively need a perfect
copy of the original drive. dd is a standard dump utility on all
unix systems.

-Chuck Harris

 

[Linear]

You can get a little more life out of the old drive if you do a scandisk in
thorough mode (with autofix enabled) and let it map the bad sectors so you
don't try to write to them. If you don't you are inviting crashes everytime
the computer tries to use one of the bad sectors.

 

[Jan Panteltje]

simple, get one of the cd bootable linux distributions, and dd
the old drive onto a new one. dd is what the law enforcement
forensic guys use when they absolutely positively need a perfect
copy of the original drive. dd is a standard dump utility on all
unix systems.

-Chuck Harris

Well, I did cat /dev/hda > /dev/hdb
The drives MUST be IDENTICAL, as EVERYTHING including
partitioning etc... will be copied.
JP

 

[Blair P. Houghton]

simple, get one of the cd bootable linux distributions, and dd
the old drive onto a new one. dd is what the law enforcement
forensic guys use when they absolutely positively need a perfect
copy of the original drive. dd is a standard dump utility on all
unix systems.

Also comes with Cygwin (www.cygwin.com), which no jonesing
unix hacker should be without.

--Blair
"I'm posting on it."

 

[Bob Nielsen]

I haven't done this in years, so could I have everyone's opinion for
best hard drive cloning software?

I have one that's starting to exhibit clunking noises and I'd like to
copy it *now* so that I don't have to do massive software re-installs
;-)

...Jim Thompson

Before I dumped the MS O/S for Linux, I always set up the partitions
with fdisk formatted the new disk and used xcopy (all after booting to
DOS from Windows). I've heard that ghost is pretty good.

 

[Paul Camilleri]

Jim,

First find out of the drive you wish to clone has bad sectors not marked in
the drive bad sector list if it has one. If no new bad sectors exist then
take your pick of the majority of hard drive cloning software out there as
long as the software you choose is capable of handling the cluster sizes of
the 'source' drive with possible on-the-fly modification as said clusters
are re-created on the 'destination' drive.

However, if the drive you wish to clone DOES have new bad sectors, and said
bad sectors contain data you wish to attempt to regain, then your choice of
cloning software should ideally, and in addition to the above, include
provision to perform 'sector data recovery'.

I won't recommend any particular hard drive cloning software for either of
the above scenarios so I'll leave that to people more familiar with what is
actually available.

If you want to be more specific with the nature of the (impending?) fault as
you see it then just give us shout. By the way, you are likely to be correct
about the need to sort this out now.

Paul Camilleri

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

In Jim Thompson typed:

I haven't done this in years, so could I have everyone's opinion for
best hard drive cloning software?

I have one that's starting to exhibit clunking noises and I'd like to
copy it *now* so that I don't have to do massive software re-installs

The other suggestions are better if they can still read the drive, but
if they fail on some sectors then try Diskpatch ($40).

http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/~tkuurstra/DiskPatch.htm

Ghost et. al. will stop on an unreadable sector, but Diskpatch keeps
going, so it copies whatever can be read, but it still works on a sector
level so it isn't like using xcopy. After copiing a drive with some
missing sectors you can run Scandisk on the new one and maybe reinstall
some programs to fill-in the missing sectors. Some of the other
utilities might do this but not AFAIK.

However Diskpatch does not retry bad sectors because, the author says,
in his experience retrying was always futile.

 

[N. Thornton]

You can get a little more life out of the old drive if you do a scandisk in
thorough mode (with autofix enabled) and let it map the bad sectors so you
don't try to write to them. If you don't you are inviting crashes everytime
the computer tries to use one of the bad sectors.

You can sometimes get a lot of life that way too. I had an old backup
puter that gots used occasionally with bad bits on the HDD, but it
never did fail.


Regards, NT