Cloning and reinstalling OS

[Beginner-At]

The computer's OS is Win8.1

I'm trying to learn how to clone one of my computers' C drive.

If I install the cloning app on the C drive, and if that C drive breaks down, or whatever, the cloning app would vanish. The clone would be useless.

Should I install both the cloning app and the clone on an external drive??

In advance, thank you very much for your help.

 

[corkyg]

Good cloneware will create bootable media for you which does not vanish, and can be used on any machine. I have my cloneware on up-to-date USB flash drives and optical disks. IMHO, it is always best to use bootable cloneware so as not to involve your OS in the process. You will never have a sharing problem that way, and it is faster with a better GUI.

 

[Beginner-At]

Hi

Thanks for your reply

If I understand correctly your answer, both the cloning app and the clone should be installed on a USB drive.

By mistake, I almost installed the cloning app onto the C drive.

Thank you very much for your help

 

[pcgeek11]

Hi

Thanks for your reply

If I understand correctly your answer, both the cloning app and the clone should be installed on a USB drive.

By mistake, I almost installed the cloning app onto the C drive.

Thank you very much for your help

That isn't what he said.

Install the cloning application onto the computer. It will have an option to create a bootable CD or USB drive that you provide.

Then clone or image the Hard Drive(s) in the computer to an external drive.

Then if disaster strikes you can boot from the Bootable CD or USB drive and restore from the image you created earlier.

 

[Paperdoc]

corkg and pcgeek11 are quite right. A true clone of an original drive contains absolutely everything from it, arranged properly on the copy unit. So, assuming the original drive was a bootable drive, the clone also will be.

As an example, a short while ago I proved this all for my system. I have two internal HDD's - one to boot, another with only data storage. I have one larger HDD mounted in an external enclosure, and all three drives are by the same maker. So I downloaded the free disk utility package from that maker and installed it on the C: drive. I wiped the external drive unit clean, then used the cloner utility to clone the C: drive to a new Partition on the external drive, adjusting its size two accommodate all the stuff from C: without using up too much empty space. Then I ran the cloner a second time and cloned the D: drive, making a new second Partition on the external unit to accept that. At that point on one external HDD unit I had two clones, each in its own Partition. One was the clone of the bootable C: drive, and the other the clone of the D: drive.

That way I had complete backup copies of both drives. Under "normal" conditions I could access each of the "drives" on the external unit and copy, alter or open any file on them. But - here's the final test - what about not normal conditions after my C: drive failed? So I shut down the system, disconnected both internal drives, and moved the third HDD unit from the external case into my main case, connecting it as the only HDD unit in the system. I booted up and it did exactly as I wanted - the system found the bootable clone image in the first Partition of that HDD and booted from there with no trouble. When it finished, both my C: drive and my D: drive were present and usable. The system really did not care where they were located. The only difference from "normal" was that each of those versions of my two "drives" were slightly smaller than the originals because I had made the clones that way, with less empty space on each "drive". Un-doing all that put my original two internal drives back into play, and my third drive containing the clones back into its external case.

Bottom line: as anticipated and designed, the clone copy was fully able to substitute for the original even when the original was not even present in the system.

 

[sm625]

The point of cloning is to create a drop-in replacement for your boot drive. If that is not what you are doing, then you arent talking about cloning.

 

[corkyg]

It does not have to be the boot drive. I can clone (create a bit by bit duplicate) any drive.

 

[John Connor]

I use AOMEI Backuper to clone to an external HDD that is of adequate size. Then I store the external HDD in a fireproof/waterproof safe.

 

[RolandJS]

If one does not desire to clone, one can make full images onto external media of the OS partition(s) and Data partition(s). Those full images can be restored by any usb or dvd boot as described by earlier posters.

 

[corkyg]

If they are exact images, they are cloned. If they are backup images, they require restoration.

 

[RolandJS]

"If they are exact images, they are cloned. If they are backup images, they require restoration."
Some sources will disagree, some will agree. According to some sources: a clone normally means an entire source hard-drive is copied onto an entire target hard-drive en toto, et al.

 

[corkyg]

That depends on the cloneware, but an image of a drive is a clone of the drive.

 

[techmanc]

I used ATI acronis true image for years to make daily image backup of my current OS and it has save men on many occasions and I do a daily backup incremental backup for 5 days then make a new full backup. The other nice this I can do with the software is mount the backup to recover any files that were backed up

 

[RolandJS]

TechmanC, that's been my experience with ATI, later on with Macrium Reflect and Image for Windows. Restoring is much easier than OS or data recovery, agreed.

 

[Ajay]

Another vote for ATI. Used it professionally for restoring engineering workstations (Acronis Universal Deploy) and at home. Great bare metal solution.

 

[RolandJS]

Paperdoc, if I re!ad your very informative post correctly, you were able to have both source clones on that one target external HD? I'm geeking over that one!