Help with cloning HDD!!

[jimithing2077]

So I've been asked to reformat a work computer and my supervisor wants me to make a backup of their C: and D: drives (both internal IDE drives).

C: is 120 GB
D: is 60 GB

Right now we have an external 300GB maxtor HDD that we want to use to hold EXACT copies of the contents of both the C: and D: drives.

Now I cant just right click on C: and choose "copy" and paste it over can I?

Or does everyone recommend I can use something like Acronis True Image to do this?


-Also, the external is USB if you need to know that, can Acronis still make exact copies of both C: and D: to the external if its USB?

Thanks everyone.

 

[phisrow]

You'll want to use a real imaging program, Acronis or similar, for a job like this. Mucking around with default Windows shell tools will, at best, get all the files, not MBR, filesystem, etc. You aren't even assured that all the files will come over, hidden, system, etc. sometimes don't play nice. Acronis should be fine with dumping the image files to a USB drive.