Disk Cloning and Partition Management Software for VISTA 64?

[BonzaiDuck]

It appears that software like Partition Commander and Partition Magic do not work with VISTA 64.

Then there is something called "Acronis Disk Director" (ADD), and related Acronis software.

I read somewhere that ADD isn't sufficient, or that you need another Acronis product to clone a boot disk.

Anybody else have some inside info or better insight toward something that works reliably and worth what I'll pay for it?

 

[flexy]

omg...PM is so old.

Please use Acronis Disk Director.

I cloned one Vista partition to another with Acronis DD, since it allows to copy a partiton. So i made a another unallocated partition, right click Vista partition and "copy" to new partiton. Works.

(Edit: The cloning itself wont be the problem, however it took me SOME time to actually be able to boot from Vista Clone 1 or Vista Clone 2, especially if drive letters change and similar.)

 

[rudder]

I've used the 15 day Acronis trial to clone my boot drive and it worked perfectly. My work has purchased the enterprise edition and is really a sweet product.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Originally posted by: rudder
I've used the 15 day Acronis trial to clone my boot drive and it worked perfectly. My work has purchased the enterprise edition and is really a sweet product.

I'm surprised you can do that. The Trial 15-day version's promotion says that you can only "create a partition of [some few] megabytes." Can you clarify on this?

I'm only guessing that the software may not allow "creation" of partitions greater than several MB, but may allow the copying of an existing partition to another disk.

Of course, all of us here would find no moral qualm in using a Trial version to achieve some objective without paying for the fullblown product. My view is this: If I can get the Trial version to complete my urgent and immediate task, I'll buy the software anyway after it proves itself.

For flexy:

omg...PM is so old.

I think I bought Partition Commander 10 back in early 2007, because I was testing components for a new machine, had a sample hard disk of the make and model I intended to purchase in quantity for a RAID5 array, and initially installed the XP MCE 2005 OS on the single disk. Once I was ready, I cloned the original OS/boot partition to the RAID5 without a hitch. So, of course, knowing that there has been good software available to do this sort of thing with the older mainstay operating systems, I've got to find the right product for VISTA 64. And you're right -- it appears that Acronis DD is just the thing for it. . .

 

[gba]

I have been using the free version of Easeus Partition Manager, which does not support Vista x64, however the paid versions do. The free version works really well.. the gui is very much like Partition Magic.

 

[mc866]

I believe the new version of Acronis True Image includes a disc management tool and also is a great tool for cloning and backup images.

 

[Griffinhart]

Originally posted by: BonzaiDuck
It appears that software like Partition Commander and Partition Magic do not work with VISTA 64.

Then there is something called "Acronis Disk Director" (ADD), and related Acronis software.

I read somewhere that ADD isn't sufficient, or that you need another Acronis product to clone a boot disk.

Anybody else have some inside info or better insight toward something that works reliably and worth what I'll pay for it?

The question I need to ask is:
What do you want to do with something like Partion Commander/magic? If you simply want to resize your disk partions, the answer is simple. None of the above. Vista disk manager lets you do that natively. I recently resized my Raid 0 (500GBx2) from a single 1TB partition to an 800 and 200GB partition so I could install Windows 7 and dual boot.

As for cloning, I used Norton Ghost to clone my laptop's Vista install when I upgraded to a larger hard drive. I haven't tried Vista's system restore option.

 

[gba]

Originally posted by: Griffinhart

Originally posted by: BonzaiDuck
It appears that software like Partition Commander and Partition Magic do not work with VISTA 64.

Then there is something called "Acronis Disk Director" (ADD), and related Acronis software.

I read somewhere that ADD isn't sufficient, or that you need another Acronis product to clone a boot disk.

Anybody else have some inside info or better insight toward something that works reliably and worth what I'll pay for it?

The question I need to ask is:
What do you want to do with something like Partion Commander/magic? If you simply want to resize your disk partions, the answer is simple. None of the above. Vista disk manager lets you do that natively. I recently resized my Raid 0 (500GBx2) from a single 1TB partition to an 800 and 200GB partition so I could install Windows 7 and dual boot.

As for cloning, I used Norton Ghost to clone my laptop's Vista install when I upgraded to a larger hard drive. I haven't tried Vista's system restore option.

I have noticed that Vista's disk manager is picky about when it will let you extend a volume. Once you have shrunk an adjacent volume, you may not be able to extend into the newly created unallocated space. I imagine there could be some rhyme or reason to the quirkiness (read: functions grayed-out) but I have thus far avoided yet another fight with Windows. Up to this point, I have either used free easeus under Vista x86 or removed drives from x64 machines to my trusty ol' W2K machine and used Partion Magic 8.0 in DOS or Windows.

I imagine I will soon try ADD, then decide if I will buy either Easeus Professional or ADD.

 

[Googer]

Download the Ultimate Boot CD and use the MaxBlast or Western Digital Datalife Guard tool set, it's free and does the job well. Both are based on Ontrack's DiskManager Software. There are other free utilities, but this is the one that I have used successfully many times before.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

 

[Googer]

http://www.rajeevnet.com/hacks..._clone/os_cloning.html

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/53777

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2...clone-your-hard-drive/