What's the best way to clone a hard dive?

[fastman]

I have an old Raptor (37Gb) andI'd like to copy it all to a newer one(150Gb).

What's the best way these days?

 

[Robor]

I use Ghost 2003. The CD boots to a DOS prompt. Change directory to (I think) /support/tools and launch ghost.exe. From there it should be self explanatory. Just copy disk 1 > disk 2 (of course make sure you select the correct source/destination disks).

 

[LIVAN]

Acronis is the best, don't use the crappy Norton stuff.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: LIVAN
Acronis is the best, don't use the crappy Norton stuff.

Oh really? Explain why Ghost 2003 is crappy.

 

[LIVAN]

Originally posted by: Robor

Originally posted by: LIVAN
Acronis is the best, don't use the crappy Norton stuff.

Oh really? Explain why Ghost 2003 is crappy.

I was a ghost user too, that was until I started using Acronis. Hey you don't have to use it, just giving the guy another option, use what you are conmfy with, most are resistant to change, you probably still be using ghost 10 years from now? =)

 

[timswim78]

Originally posted by: fastman
I have an old Raptor (37Gb) andI'd like to copy it all to a newer one(150Gb).

What's the best way these days?

Western Digital probably has a free utility to do this. I know that Seagate and Maxtor do.

If you are using XP or 2000, either Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost will work. When cloning a hard drive, there is not much difference between the two.

If you are running Vista, you'll need to use Acronis 10 or higher.

 

[hectorsm]

I am using Acronis and I like it. You can download the trail version to see if you like it as well.

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/trueimage/

I used to have Ghost(a long time ago) and it worked well for me too. Check to see if you can find a trail version on their web site also.

 

[fastman]

I've used Ghost before and found it easy, but I'll give Acronis a shot and the free trial is nice plus too.

Thanks all.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: LIVAN

Originally posted by: Robor

Originally posted by: LIVAN
Acronis is the best, don't use the crappy Norton stuff.

Oh really? Explain why Ghost 2003 is crappy.

I was a ghost user too, that was until I started using Acronis. Hey you don't have to use it, just giving the guy another option, use what you are conmfy with, most are resistant to change, you probably still be using ghost 10 years from now? =)

Why not use it? What can be easier than booting a system with the Ghost 2003 disc, changing to the directory with ghost.exe in it, launching it, and telling it go disk to disk? I've never used Acronis and I'm not a huge Symantec fan - especially recent products - but Ghost is a pretty nice tool.

 

[networkman]

Originally posted by: LIVAN

Originally posted by: Robor

Originally posted by: LIVAN
Acronis is the best, don't use the crappy Norton stuff.

Oh really? Explain why Ghost 2003 is crappy.

I was a ghost user too, that was until I started using Acronis. Hey you don't have to use it, just giving the guy another option, use what you are conmfy with, most are resistant to change, you probably still be using ghost 10 years from now? =)

Yeah, great response there LIVAN. Respond to Robor's post but don't answer his question at all. Have you considered a career in politics? :roll:

I'm with 'ya Robor - I use Ghost Enterprise at work (version 8.0) I think. And it works just fine on all of the hardware and systems that I've thrown at thus far, short of Vista, since we don't have it anywhere in the enterprise. Ghost works great on HP & Dell servers, HP & Dell workstations, SCSI, IDE & SATA drives.. - it just plain works.

I've looked at Acronis - seems a capable product too. But there's not been near enough reason for us to switch to it in the enterprise and justify the cost of getting sufficient licensing to do so.

 

[Pirotech]

Oh really? Explain why Ghost 2003 is crappy.

here the article which explains it.

if you are not running Vista you can get true image version 7 for free, it works good with xp and 2000. look here.

 

[Boyo]

I use Acronis and it's easier than ever to work.

 

[fastman]

I ended up using Acronis as Ghost's trial version does not allow disk cloning and Acronis's does.

My opinion on Acronis, I found it very easy to use although after waiting a while I rebooted the the computer as all I saw was a blank screen? Changed the drive cables and it worked fine.

 

[hectorsm]

Originally posted by: fastman
I ended up using Acronis as Ghost's trial version does not allow disk cloning and Acronis's does.

My opinion on Acronis, I found it very easy to use although after waiting a while I rebooted the the computer as all I saw was a blank screen? Changed the drive cables and it worked fine.

You have to disconect the old drive before booting up your computer again. This will ensure that the new drive becomes the boot drive. That is probably the reason it hung. That happend to me too when I did my first disk clonning. Be sure to read all the instructions on the screen before powering down or rebooting.

 

[SimMike2]

Originally posted by: Pirotech

Oh really? Explain why Ghost 2003 is crappy.

here the article which explains it.

if you are not running Vista you can get true image version 7 for free, it works good with xp and 2000. look here.

I'm not sure that article about Ghost is talking about Ghost 2003. I know that sometime after 2003, Ghost took a nosedive and was in fact a totally different program. I think Ghost 2003 might be the last good version of Ghost.

Ghost 2003 is version 7.5. It isn't version 9, which most people agree is inferior.

 

[vetteguy]

Originally posted by: LIVAN
Acronis is the best, don't use the crappy Norton stuff.

I second Acronis...have been using it at work for about 6 months to image my Citrix servers and it's badass. Fast, reliable, fast, can do incremental imaging, fast, loads of features, fast, can restore to dissimilar hardware...did I mention fast?

 

[pcgeek11]

Ghost went to h3ll after they dumped the real Ghost and bought " Drive Image " from Power Quest Corp. That was the start of the decline. I have used Ghost and Trueimage and I prefer Trueimage. That is just me, as I have had screwed up images with Ghost and never have with Trueimage.

I have also imaged Vista RC2 using Trueimage from a boot CD and restored it without any problems. Of course running it from Vista you will need version 10.

pcgeek11

 

[corkyg]

TrueImage 10 is simply better than Ghost. It allows cloning of individual folders in addition to complete drives or partitions. It is faster than Ghost - and the best reason of all - it is not made by Symantec!

I clone my drives regularly on three computers, and always use the bootable CD prepared by TI-10. That boots to a very easy to use Linux-based GUI. Then, I always use Manual Mode, and control qhat I am doing - i.e., delete all partitions on the target drive, preserve data on the source drive, and then clone as is or proportionally, depending of relative drive sizes.

Ghost is yesterday's news.

 

[Pirotech]

Originally posted by: hectorsm

Originally posted by: fastman
I ended up using Acronis as Ghost's trial version does not allow disk cloning and Acronis's does.

My opinion on Acronis, I found it very easy to use although after waiting a while I rebooted the the computer as all I saw was a blank screen? Changed the drive cables and it worked fine.

You have to disconect the old drive before booting up your computer again. This will ensure that the new drive becomes the boot drive. That is probably the reason it hung. That happend to me too when I did my first disk clonning. Be sure to read all the instructions on the screen before powering down or rebooting.

there is no need to disconnect your old drive, just make it slave changing the jumpers.

Originally posted by: hectorsm
I'm not sure that article about Ghost is talking about Ghost 2003. I know that sometime after 2003, Ghost took a nosedive and was in fact a totally different program. I think Ghost 2003 might be the last good version of Ghost.

Ghost 2003 is version 7.5. It isn't version 9, which most people agree is inferior.

yes the article is about Ghost 10, and may be you are right, coz several years Ghost was the best backup software, but now it sucks...

 

[pcgeek11]

There have been too many people screwed with this.... Remove the drive, boot with the cloned drive. Then slave it if you want...

Never leave it in for the first boot after cloning. You are just asking for trouble.

pcgeek11

 

[Pirotech]

Originally posted by: pcgeek11
There have been too many people screwed with this.... Remove the drive, boot with the cloned drive. Then slave it if you want...

Never leave it in for the first boot after cloning. You are just asking for trouble.

pcgeek11

what problems can occur i don't remove the old drive? I think that when you change the boot sequence it doesn't affect anything. At first you have the old drive first boot, after you have the new one.

 

[corkyg]

Poppycock! The source drive, when properly cloned, and the software is told to leave it alone, is perfectly good. Been doing this weekly for over 5 years and have never had a kiccup with the source drive.

I think the problem with many users is that they don't really understand how to best clone - i.e., don't do it from Windows, but use the bootable CDR prepared by TrueImage.

Before TrueImage, I used DriveCopy by Powerquest - and it prepared floppies. Same principles - same rules.

I never change my boot sequence. All my PATA drives are connected CSEL, and I only have to remove the power cable from the one I don';t want to use. The Pata boot sequence is 00 first and 01 second. If 00 is not powered, 01 becomes the boot drive. That's basic.

With space in the case, the best solution is a mobile rack. A pair of those with on/off switches works great.

 

[Golgatha]

Ghost 2003 was the last good version of the Ghost program IMO. Ghost 2003 works well with RAID0, SATA, and IDE setups and burns directly to CD/DVD media. However, I found its networking, External USB support, and Firewire support lacking and non-existent in many cases.

A couple of years ago, I started using Acronis TI v8.0 for my laptop because of Ghost's poor USB support. After re-imaging a couple to times with it and cloning a hard drive for an upgrade on that system, I began to trust the software more and more as a backup solution. Also being able to mount the Acronis TI images and use them like a regular hard drive letter was amazing, and being able to backup while the OS was running was very nice too.

I now use Acronis TI v10.0 for all my data backups. Key reasons being that it just works, you can image your drives while the OS is up and running, the image takes significantly less time to make than Ghost 2003 does, the software can mount images just like a regular hard drive, you can insert notes into the files for self-reminders, the interface loads much faster now as compared to v8.0, and I have successfully re-imaged several times with it now and thus trust it to do its job.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: Pirotech

Oh really? Explain why Ghost 2003 is crappy.

here the article which explains it.

if you are not running Vista you can get true image version 7 for free, it works good with xp and 2000. look here.

Nice article. This quote is just scary.

I run a freeware program called Spy-The-Spy, which lets me monitor changes to files in certain folders on my C: drive in real time. Unlike Ghost 9, at periodic points throughout the day, Ghost 10 regularly updates a file called SYMLCRST.DLL (below). There are as many as 10 updates daily and they come at odd and varying intervals. I was unable to determine what triggers an update. Symantec Executive Support was also unable to provide an explanation as to WHY this file was bring regularly updated. Mr. Levi Smith claimed this was ?proprietary? information!

 

[walkure]

I currently have a Seagate 160GB 7200.7. I need something to clone this to my new 500GB 7200.10

Any Seagate users tried their free products?

They have very recently added Acronis Migrate Easy, which seems to be a dumbed-down version of True Image. It's linked from that page, and here is the PDF on it:
http://www.seagate.com/support/discwizard/MigrateEasy7.0_ug.en.pdf

Also curious if there is a way to uninstall only Windows and other program files from my old drive after I've completed the clone? I'd like to leave all my data on the old drive as a backup.

Or, if I completely wipe the old drive (after successful clone), is it possible to set up a small partition on each drive for RAID 1? Something like 10GB for very important personal files (school, work, business stuff). That way I'd have automatic data redundancy for critical stuff.

Thanks!