Clone or copy hard drive?

[Pghpooh]

HI
Dumb question.
I have a laptop that is not very dependable. It is two plus years old and 1 already replaced the hard drive and have problems with the motherboard and wifi card.

What is the best way to save data from the hard drive? Clone or copy?
Any suggestions on what software to use?

And, I have software installed such as Microsoft Word and Norton 360 and others.
If I clone or copy will that software copy to a new machine or hard drive so I don?t have to buy new software or a new license???

What about those data transfer cables that connect between 2 machines to transfer data from old to new? Are they worth it?

Thanks
Pghpooh

 

[bruceb]

Cloning makes an exact, instantly bootable copy of your current drive to a new one. You then swap drives & power up like nothing changed. Any software on a clone will continue working just like it was. A copy of the drive, will not copy everything the OS needs to run. The only time you may need to reactivate or change licenses, is if everything is moving to a new computer. In some cases, the program will think it is on another computer and will ask to activate.

 

[AFurryReptile]

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking here...

Assuming you are getting a new PC, the easiest thing for you to do is going to be taking an exact clone of your hard drive and re-image it to the other PC. Whether or not this is the "best" thing to do is going to be up to you, some hard drives (especially laptop ones) are "tattooed" and only work on the laptop they were installed on. Therefore your image clone may not work on a new PC. Not to mention your problems may be software related, so you'd just be transferring them over...

If you're just trying to keep your data safe "just in case" a hard drive fails or whatever, your best bet will be to get yourself an external hard drive and maybe download something like this to periodically backup your data.

http://www.gfi.com/backup-hm

If you just want to nuke your OS and start new, I'd just backup your stuff with that program, run Windows Settings and File Transfer Utility, and do that. Of course you're going to have to download new drivers, AV, and such, but you're getting a clean install.

 

[Pghpooh]

HI
I?m just looking for information and an easier way to do things.
Replacing a hard drive is time consuming and I don?t want to do that again. Being better prepared on my part will make things go faster and easier.
Cloning to a ?spare hard drive? would be a big time saver.

As for transferring files from one pc to another or old to new is something really new to me. I?ve seen different brands of software and cables to do this. I am not sure how well they work. I have seen people say they connected new and old pc to their network and transferred files and data that way.
There is always a better way to do things and coming here to Anand Tech for help has been a great experience for me.
Thanks
Pghpooh