General Forums >> Ask A Tech Expert >> What is the best way to clone a hard drive
What is the best way to clone a hard drive
40 posts back to top |
Posted about 1 month ago I need to replace a hard drive that isn't booting up. They want me to clone the hard drive first. What do I do? It's a Sata Drive |
|
40 posts back to top |
| Posted about 1 month ago The drive in there won't go past the Splash Screen. |
5 posts back to top |
| Posted 16 days ago Try dropping a boot disk in the drive and running it off that. If you just want to copy the file contained [ex. pictures, movies, music] then capy them to an external source. If you want a FULL cloning of the disk, put in the boot disk, partition your HDD, then go my computer -> look for the old partition of the disk you want to copy -> right click -> copy -> paste to a new partition on the disk [not the one your running], then reboot and use the boot menu to test boot it form the new partition. if this work awesome! if not then the problem is inside the boot files in the disk and it will not boot of those files. If the disk itself however has become corrupt, then there little chance of a succesful cloning. The best you can hope to achieve is to throw in a new HDD and run the computer, then explore the drive and copy all containing files 1 by 1 so long as you have the administrative password. If you have an instant messenger I'm sure I can help you more kenny_2bt_s@yahoo.com if you need any assistance. best of luck. |
|
40 posts back to top |
| Posted 15 days ago Thanks for your imput. I appreciate it. I managed to get the HD CLONE program to clone from Drive to Drive. It didn't stick though, I am not sure why. But then I did as you suggested below. Still didn't work. Checked my original drive and it isn't corrupt, but I am thinking maybe the new drive is. Not sure totally. But I get a blue screen with white lettering and it won't program. Says something about the Bios or hardware conflict or seomthing . Ididn't wirte the message down. I don't have messaging. I use Facebook and Text on my phone is about as much as I do in that regard. |
31 posts back to top |
| Posted 11 days ago Try Ghost...
|
25 posts back to top |
| Posted 8 days ago Tech_Know says ...
^^ Concur |
|
40 posts back to top |
| Posted 6 days ago I don't know what Ghost is. Please explain. I managed to clone the hard drive ,the HDCLONE application that I had was a newer one. SO, I used an older version and voila it workd! |
|
31 posts back to top |
| Posted 6 days ago Ghost is an application that allows you to make an exact image of your hard drive. It is made by Symantec and is one of the few products that I actully like by them. If HP Clone (not familiar with it, but I am guessing it is the same idea) worked then you are good to go. Ghost is good to use to periodically make backups of your computer... Glad to hear you got it working at any rate! |
1 post back to top |
| Posted 5 days ago If you are on Mac, you can always use TimeMachine which is AWESOME!!. I don't know about Linux or PC. Stuff that you clone back from PC doesn't always work right since they have like wrong driver, wrong motherboard, wrong this, wrong that. Or maybe I'm wrong. |
1 post back to top |
| Posted 5 days ago I second Tech_Know's suggestion of using Ghost for periodic backups. Use this run-in as a lesson to make sure you always have good backups around. Then it's as simple as swapping out the drive with a new one. On the Apple, there is software called Time Machine that will backup your computer as you use it. That's a REALLY good idea if you can find a comparable package for WinXP or whatever OS you're using. |
|
2 posts back to top |
| Posted 5 days ago The thing about TimeMachine and Ghost ... TimeMachine allows you to save the changes that you made to your HDD periodically. Ghost, I believe you have to save the whole chuck of HDD at one time which can be very time consuming. The plus about TimeMachine is that .. it has the user interface to be able to zoom into yesterday, yester-week ... yester-month and grab that file. It's really that awesome. Once you tried it. You will want to keep working on Mac. http://movies.apple.com/media/us/mac/getamac/2009/apple-mvp-teeter_... |
|
2 posts back to top |
| Posted 5 days ago Sorry, my Mac side of me wants me to do this ... Mac rules!!! ... |
|
11 posts back to top |
| Posted 5 days ago How big is the drive? You'll need a drive the exact same size. Use dd. |
|
40 posts back to top |
| Posted 3 days ago The only reason that I needed to clone the hard drive is because I needed a bigger hard drive to go to windows 7. I have Macs and PC's here and have time machine, I back up on external hard drives for all of my machines. That wasn't the issue. I appreciate the help. Thank you. |
