Best cloning software

[irse]

What is the best cloning software to clone my HDD in my laptop to a SSD and just swap out the two? I have used Bounceback Ultimate in the past and it has worked in my desktop. It didn't work too well with my laptop. Acronis True Image 11 didn't either. I don't know if it's because the HDD is partitioned into a C drive and a recovery drive or the fact that my SSD is smaller than the HDD drive (although there is ample space in the SSD). Thinking about trying Paragon. Is there anything else. I don't particularly care for Norton Ghost. I don't mind paying as long as it works. Thanks

 

[stargazr]

Usually the HDD manufacturer will have a free program on their website. WD has Acronis for example.

 

[Dahak]

Usually the HDD manufacturer will have a free program on their website. WD has Acronis for example.

If its for a quick one time clone then this would be the best way. Otherwise the full version of acronis seems to work well for a lot of people too

 

[irse]

As stated, Acronis didn't work for me.

 

[bruceb]

Try using this program (free)

http://clonezilla.org/

Also if you do try Acronis again, select Manual mode when you do the clone. You can then set partition sizes as needed. You should get your old drive partitions set to the best sizes before you clone.

 

[irse]

Try using this program (free)

http://clonezilla.org/

Also if you do try Acronis again, select Manual mode when you do the clone. You can then set partition sizes as needed. You should get your old drive partitions set to the best sizes before you clone.

I was reading about Clonezilla. It says that the destination drive has to be larger than the source drive. In my case the source drive is larger although only a small portion is being used.

 

[bruceb]

TruImage should be able to clone to a smaller drive, if you use manual mode.
Also, as I said earlier, you should resize your old drive to just a bit bigger than
it needs to be to move it to the new drive. Then do your clone.

 

[irse]

Did more of a search and seems like ti's not good practice to clone a HDD onto a SSD. From the Microsoft site

"Cloning from a HDD to an SSD is a bad practice. Win 7 sets unique features when installed on an SSD. These settings don't exist when installed on a HDD. Cloning also does not set the partition boundries correctly which can lead to stutter. The life of the SSD can be significantly decreased without the special settings unique to them."

http://social.technet.microsoft.com...l/thread/5b8bb2ab-856a-40d4-8e31-fdf8bdd1c47c

Now I have two extra SSD. Maybe I'll do fresh install on one of my laptops.

 

[TheStu]

Use the Windows Easy Transfer tool to make an easy transfer file. Clean install and then open that file on the new system to pull your data/settings.

 

[irse]

Will that have the drivers? It seems like laptops don't come with a driver CD anymore but there is a recovery partition. What exactly is that for and what am I supposed to do with it? It seems like if the HDD fails, so will the recovery partition.

 

[FishAk]

I like Macrium Reflect, which is free for home use.

As stated earlier, you need to shrink your OS partition so it's smaller than the destination before creating an image. This can be done with Partition Wizard- which is free.

The "tweaks" MS refers to include turning off defragmenting for the SSD, and a few other things that you can do yourself much easier than a complete re-install. If the original install was set up in IDE mode, than it becomes complicated, but the other adjustments are easy.

Alignment can be an issue, since not all recovery programs will properly align, or maintain alignment in the partition they recover to. If the original W7 install was made properly, it will be aligned already. By pre-partitioning the SSD with W7 it will start out aligned. Macrium Reflect won't align the recovered OS if it wasn't aligned originally- even if the destination partition is pre-aligned. It will, however, maintain alignment if the original was aligned.

If the HDD fails, you are correct that you will also loose the "Recovery Partition". To fix this, create an image of your current OS install. Than recover from the "Recovery" partition, and save an image of that blank factory install. Recover the image you previously made of your current install, and then you can delete the "Recovery " partition.

If you make a partition on the inside edge (slowest part) of each of your HHDs, you can save multiple versions of the OS for backup. It's important to keep images in a dedicated partition, because images are somewhat fragile. They aren't reliable if they get moved or defragmented, and it's easy to tell your defrag tool to leave that partition alone.

You can also use TreuCrypt to encrypt the image partition to keep images from becoming infiltrated by malware. Hiren's Boot CD has both Macrium Reflect and TrueCrypt, so an encrypted image partition can be mounted for recovery. It also has Partition Wizard, but do not use it if the disk is encrypted. The partition table can get messed up, and you can loose several partitions. First decrypt- then partition- always have backups.

 

[Emulex]

acronis easy migrate is free for 30 days. it comes with intel ssd and wd drives iirc. it does the auto-resizing for you. doesn't resize the 100meg win7 partition. all automatic. wham bam simple. 30 day trial no features disabled just go use it.

 

[RU482]

I still use Symantec Ghost Solutions Suite 11.
I make USB flash recovery media using the DOS "ghost.exe" via the bootdisk builder tool

 

[irse]

Since I already have TI Home, this is what I'm planning on doing. I already imaged the main disk to another HDD and tested to make sure it works. I plan on removing the recovery partition and any other partition that is present on the cloned drive so I have it as just being the C: drive. Then I'm going to defrag it and make the OS into a smaller partition. Then I'll image it to the SSD and change the BIOS to AHCI. Seems like a lot of work but I think it will work properly. The last time I just tried to clone the original drive to the SSD, Microsoft Office didn't work properly and gave me an error message when I tried to install and I never could get it to install.

 

[Muse]

Will that have the drivers? It seems like laptops don't come with a driver CD anymore but there is a recovery partition. What exactly is that for and what am I supposed to do with it? It seems like if the HDD fails, so will the recovery partition.

See if you can make recovery disks. My Lenovo Thinkpads allow me to do that and I've had to use them a few times, including a couple weeks ago because one of my Thinkpad's HD went belly up (without warning!).

 

[irse]

See if you can make recovery disks. My Lenovo Thinkpads allow me to do that and I've had to use them a few times, including a couple weeks ago because one of my Thinkpad's HD went belly up (without warning!).

I'm thinking about doing that. I cloned it and one of my important work program keeps crashing and a few minutes of use. Spent all weekend working on the computer so maybe I'll go back to the original HDD for a little while then try the recovery disks that I made last week.