How Can I Successfully Clone a Hard Drive?

[042012]

Hi everyone,

i'm new here.
i want to know how to clone the hard drive of computer.
which software is the best? i heard about norton ghost but is an alternatives?
And is it possible to find a step by step procedure to do this.

Than you very much
042012

 

[phinds]

there are various forms of ghost software. Do an internet search for reviews.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

What you want is imaging software. Norton Ghost is a pretty good one. In the past it was pretty clunky, but the new versions are slick. There are some bad reviews, but they are for specialized circumstances.

Look at it here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002SRNS7A/?tag=pfamazon01-20

For a free bare bones approach DriveImage XML is good.
http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

 

[042012]

Thank you.
in fact i have a computer which is running 24h and creates files every 2 hours, it's runnin with windows xp.

the goal for me is to duplicate the hard drive C: with the windows xp completely.
In the future, i want to replace the old hard drive by the new.

do i need the windows xp serial numbers etc...

What can i do with just an image of a hard drive?

Thank you
402012

 

[Routaran]

I'd use a knoppix live cd (linux) and use the dd program to make an image of your hard drive.
you can google the specific steps but basically you boot using the live cd, use fdisk to find out information about your hard drives and partitions and then use the dd program to make an image of a specific partition or the drive itself

 

[hotvette]

I use this:

http://www.apricorn.com/sata-wire-3.html

to clone 2.5" and 3.5" drives (extra cabling and power supply needed for 3.5"). It solves a problem I had using Ghost where I had identical drives and cloned the wrong direction (user error), thus wiping out everything I'd done since the previous clone operation. With Apricorn, the drive attached to the cable is identified as 'SATAWIRE' which makes it much more difficult (but not impossible) to clone the wrong direction. Downside is that cloning a large capacity drive can take a while via USB.

 

[Chronos]

The big problem with cloning is getting a clean registry file - which windows aggressively defends from copying. Apricorn is very good, but, there are other options.