PC Gurus a question about HD cloning

[windrunner]

Hello! here is a question for the PC Gurus about HD cloning.

Right now, I do a dual start when I switch on the pc: the old small one where I have FS, and the newest 500 GB with a vanilla SP installation and back up data.

I'd like to clone my small FS Hard Drive (everything in there: from the OS to the last program, about 37 GB) and to transfer all that data to the bigger drive of 500 GB; as I do not want to install from zero every piece of software and I want to keep the same registry keys, addons, etc. in that new SATA master.

Do some among you have any experience with this procedure? any recomendations and advices are welcome, and which is the software that will make the job better?

[milton]

This is what I would do with basic win/xp backup utility.

Boot your small hard drive.
Click Start, then type ntbackup
Select Backup Files and Settings
Next Window is What to Backup
Select "All information on this Computer"
This backs up all information and creates a recovery file
Then select your backup device and go

[milton]

Nov 11, 2010 20:34:01 GMT -5 milton said:

This is what I would do with basic win/xp backup utility.

Boot your small hard drive.
Click Start, then type ntbackup
Select Backup Files and Settings
Next Window is What to Backup
Select "All information on this Computer"
This backs up all information and creates a recovery file
Then select your backup device and go

Ideally, your backup drive is an external drive.

You can use the same utility to do the Restore selectively or full drive.

[windrunner]

This is interesting, I forgot to say I still have XP SP3. I suppose that methode may do for a good back up of all data. I have several external drives for storage and that will save me lot of time in the close future when upgrading my sistem, this could be a good idea.

I've being reading about some software that may do the trick in a few minutes (like HD clone). I'll have to try this some time since I am too lazy to reinstall everything, even in a new sistem.

[milton]

Any HD Clone is likely better for a full HD restore. However, for Win/SP3 I use this at home and at work.

At home, you can also do incrementals to reduce time. Start with a full backup, then schedule a daily incremental for files/folders that have changed since the last backup.

Weekly, an HD Clone backup is probably best if you can afford the software.

[Roger]

I used a clone utility that can be used as long as one of your disks is a Seagate drive and is downloadable from their website. I cloned my 300 gig Seagate hd to a 1 terabyte drive and now it is my boot drive with FsX & GW3 intact with all the registry entries also intact.

[windrunner]

Only curious Roger: how much time does it takes to clone 300 gb of data? the new big one is a Seagate but unfortunately the old one is a Maxtor.

Good! once I'll try that Milton! I think that will save me a few bucks.

[Roger]

It took less than an hour but the main thing for me was not to have to reinstall FsX and all the payware registry entries so hence a complete clone...that's the only way to go if you're happy with you OS. Having one drive that's Seagate will do.
The free acronis cloner is called Seagate "DiscWizard".

Here's the link to the utilities page:

www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads

[windrunner]

I'm glad to report I am now enjoying my new 500 gb local drive; I migrated the original one with Roger's method and Discwizard. It was fast! now I'ld like to unplug the old one for ever by unplugging it physically from the pc, but after two false startups I had no start up at all (the BIOS seemed not to recognize the new architecture). I'll have to read a bit more about the boot.ini in Windows and see if it even possible, but as it is now, it's OK.

Thanks you guys! now to defrag and to install other "vital) games like RTW and M2TW and all.