Best HDD Copy Software

I have a HDD that is failing and I need to install it as a slave and copy all the data over.

Instead of puling each file individually I'd rather be able to just drag and drop the entire drive over to a folder on the new system and pick through it that way.

Is there an app that will do a single C: > Folder copy?

Thanks!

 

If either the old or new drive is a Seagate, you can download DiscWizard free at Seagate's support site. It's basically a stripped down version of Acronis True Image and works well.

One caveat: If any of the data or system files on the failing disk are corrupted, they'll copy over as corrupted onto the new drive. If this a boot drive, I'd err on the side of caution by doing a fresh OS and programs install on the new drive.

 

HDClone works great, but the free edition has a slight limitation: if you copy an 80gb to a 250gb drive (for example), the new 250gb drive will have a single 80gb partition with the remaining 170gb unallocated. For those of us with experience dealing with partition resizing, it's not a problem, for others, it can be a bit of an ordeal. You can either create a new partition in the allocated space as drive D:, or you can use a safe partition resizing app (personally, I like booting to Boot IT NG for my safe partition resizing needs) to 'stretch' the main C: partition to the full size of the drive. If you use the free version of HDclone to copy from one drive to another and they're the same size, then you're golden. It will NOT copy if the source drive is larger than the destination drive (if drive C: is 120gb with only 20gb of data, it will NOT copy to a 40gb drive or an 80gb drive regardless of how much actual space is in use on the source drive; if the overall capacity of the source drive is less than the destination drive, you're SOL).

 

I have used Seagate Disc Wizard to clone to either an equal or greater capacity drive.

If both drives are equal size, the process normally goes off without a hitch and is relatively fast. When doing multiple identical builds for a single client, I can set up one copy Windows (without the activation code), client software and do any user/policy tweaks (example: workstations or point-of-sale). From there, clone enough for each PC (plus a spare in case one crashes). When the cloned drives are installed in each workstation, it only takes a few minutes to enter activation codes and (if needed) set static IP. This saves up to an hour per unit versus loading Windows, Office and anti-virus individually.

There is an option to clone a smaller drive to a larger one. My experience has been this *usually* works; however there is a possibility you'll have to use the Win 7 DVD to perform a quick "repair" function on the clone to make it boot properly.

DiscWizard is free for download at Seagate's support site. Just remember at least one of the drives (old or new) must be a Seagate or the program will not work.

 

As Gman863 has said Seagate Disc Wizard is very good- usually to be sure, one of the hard drives should be a Seagate , but I have used it to copy a 1.5tb hard drive to a 1tb hard drive, and it does copy just as well to a smaller hard drive, and makes any partitions proportionately to the original- So a great tool to keep around (I had XP, VISTA, AND windows 7 PARTITIONS, (TOTAL OF 8 PARTITIONS), AND IT COPIED PERFECTLY , PROPORTIONATELY TO A SMALLER HARD DRIVE- BUT ONE WAS A Seagate hard drive.
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=d9fd4a3cdde5c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD