How To Make A Carbon Copy Of A Hard Drive

This is on a Windows 7 i7 950 build. Basically, the 60 Gb SSD is running out of room and I've already done as much cleaning up as I can. If I get a new SSD with a larger capacity, is there a way to make an exact camera-copy of the 60 Gb unit onto the new drive?

Thanks.

 

You can use these programs to make an image of your current drive and when you get the new SSD, transfer it .

The first two are free if you have a Seagate, Maxtor or WD hdd:

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=d9fd4a3cdde5c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119

The Seagate and WD programs use the Acronis Trueimage.

This program is free for all hdds:



Easeus - http://www.filehorse.com/download-easeus-todo-backup/

Make sure you decline any offers ( browsers, etc - unless you want them)

 

Basically, the plan would be to insert the new drive into an open bay/SATA plug, copy the stuff from the old drive onto the new one, and then make the new one bootable.

Then the old drive will just be extra space for whatever. Hopefully I'm on the right track here? Hopefully it'll be this easy to do?

 

You could clone it, but I prefer to make an image on a different hdd(internal or external.)

You create a bootable cd from the program instructions and when it boots, it will ask you where the image is.

You then click " recover" and pick the new SSD and the new SSD is fully bootable.

Don't forget to go into the BIOS and select the new SSD as the first drive.

 

I tried to upload some pics to help you but for some reason could not.

They are in this link - post # 30.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=275801&page=2

 

-> PCSO2007 - What's the difference between 'image' and 'clone' ? I've always used them synonymously.

->JohnnyGalaga

Easeus will make an identical copy of your 60GB disk onto a target disk. The target will then be bootable. I made a back of my system disk this way, the only difference being that the disks (source and target) were nominally the capacity.

With Easeus you make a bootable CD from the download and change your BIOS set-up to option 'try CD first on Boot', then go through the image making process, and change things in the BIOS to boot from whichever source you choose.

I can't speak for Acronis because I never used it, but a lot of MG members speak highly of it.

As PCSO2007 says, be careful not to select any options you don't want, the boxes for 'install such-and-such' are often not obvious and pre-ticked.

I'm sure I don't to say be careful that you don't make an image of your blank disk onto your original ! and test your new image thoroughly before overwriting the old one, if that's what you're going to do. Making another image onto a HD as a back-up in case isn't a bad idea (in my humble opinion)

Dumb_Question
19.August.2013

 

The reason I make an image is because you will have a way of getting back to original OS if you have a crash, virus, etc.

I make an image once a week, or after any important updates or programs I recently installed.

 

Interesting that the link talks about Macrium Reflect. It's what I use and I imaged my "C" drive to an external USB drive AND cloned it to another IDE HDD which sits in a modular bay caddy. Should my "C" drive fail (it's a WD Scorpio Blue that's over 5 years old), I can simply swap drives OR restore the image to another IDE drive I have.

Macrium Reflect is an excellent program.

 

Thanks to all for the repliis. So let me understand this right. An IMAGE is bootable so you don't have to reinstall Windows and other programs and re-do all your settings?

A CLONE is just copying-and pasting files but is not bootable?

 

They are both bootable.
A clone is an exact copy of the OS.

An image (also an exact copy) is transferred to the hdd and is also bootable.

The reason I use an image is to always have a way to get back to a drive that has become infected ,etc.

Make a bootable cd from the program instructions and see my previous post

All your updates, programs and OS will be as it was after you do the reecovery.

 

Sounds good, thanks for the advice. This'll make for a little weekend project.

 

The process is very easy and you will be surprised at how easy it is once you have done it a few times.

Good luck!!

After you create an image, you will notice that your 60gb hdd, will show about 30gb in backup.

This is because it is compressed and is normal.

 

One more thing:

After you make the backup , you can open it to see what is there.

In Acronis, you go to Tools, and click mount image.
Go to my computer and you will see it as a separate hdd,

 

That's not correct. An image is only bootable AFTER it's restored to the destination hard drive. In it's compressed form, it's not bootable.

A clone is a bootable bit-for-bit copy of the source drive. If you put a clone of a hard drive where the original hard drive was (for instance if the hard drive you made a clone of should fail and you replaced it with the drive you cloned TO), it would be bootable.

 

Which is why I said to use the image and recover to the hdd in question.

Post # 12.

 

In Post #11 he believed the image itself was bootable before restoring to the drive in question and cloning was "copy/paste" and was unbootable which, we both know, is not how imaging and cloning work. "Copy/paste" would be unbootable.

Interestingly enough, AOMEI Partition Assistant and MiniTool Partition Wizard both use the "Copy Disk" function to clone the source drive.

So, AOMEI Partition Assistant, MiniTool Partition Wizard, AOMEI Backupper, Acronis True Image and Macrium Reflect all have the capability of cloning the source drive.

It could be quite confusing to a novice to the task. :confused