drive image

[plummer66]

my buddy's Duh-Ell machines hard drive is starting to whine. So we have a replacement.....however he doesn't want to take the time to go through the whole backup game. So he wants me to do a mirror image of old -> new drive. I tried Acronis and it fails. Anyone with some recommendations for software??
Thx.

 

[velis]

Ghost?

 

[PC Freak]

I use GHOST

 

[Auric]

Ditto good ol' single executable Binary Research based Ghost. In lieu of that, the free utility offered by the HDD manufacturer but it will be muy slower. In any case, it may be desirable to run chkdsk first.

 

[Atheus]

Linux will do it without specialist software, just boot a liveCD like knoppix and use the 'dd' command.

from here:

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb

This command will copy each bit from sda (Master drive) to sdb (Slave drive) including MBR (Master Boot record). Thus after cloning new drive (sdb) is ready for deployment. This will also copy any information like File System IDs etc.


/edit: make sure you understand the process and know _for sure_ which drive is which before doing this with linux or ghost or anything else.

 

[plummer66]

ok...........i've never used Linux.............and i've tried Ghost and it didn't work either.
This is a Dell machine.............and it seems to have a second partition that is really small. What for, i'm not sure. But i'm suspecting that it might be the cause? Anyone with ideas?

Thx.

 

[doan]

Dell machines usually have a small partion that is used to re-image the system back to a "new" state

 

[plummer66]

ahhhh, makes sense. So would Acronis image that partitiion as well? Or should I just try deleting it and then try the image?
Thx.

 

[plummer66]

bump

 

[Copyr]

Try program COPYR.DMA: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=27&threadid=1801783&enterthread=y

 

[dunkster]

Download the drive-maker's DOS cloning utility for the destination drive and install it on bootable floppy or CD. Boot it and follow the prompts to clone the old drive to the new drive.

If the drives have different capacity, the utility will ask you if you wish to adjust partition size(s). Say yes.

I've used these utilities for both WD and Maxtor drives, and they worked flawlessly, including scaling partitition sizes.

Hope this helps!