Who has successfully Cloned Win7 with no issues?

I'm trying a new posting approach....rolleyes
Instead of asking a barrage of questions, I'd just like to hear from a few smarter people who have successfully cloned a Windows 7 drive, had the fresh drive boot right up, with no activation issues.

Please speak up, and tell us truthfully how you went about it. I imagine we'll attract a few inquisitive folks with need to know.

 

This is the clone v. image thing again Halo. They are completely different things, and it's cloning the OP is asking about.

 

hi Halo again.
you make a good point... what do I do with the eventual 'target' drive? Do I keep it in the system, discovered in Disk Management, tagged, lettered and so forth BEFORE making an image? my friend who religiously uses I4W in his IT shop indicates it shouldn't matter, but you have Acronis credentials: does it matter in Acronis? Does it matter which one is Zero and which is 1 etc? any other options advice?

 

yep, like the title reads. But I'm so punchdrunk :confused I'm not sure I even know what "clone" means anymore.

 

OK, now this, in a perverse sorta way, gives me hope... faint, but hope it is. This is a real message from one of the popular "imaging program" makers, the name of which I shan't reveal for their own sake. I just got this like two minutes ago. I'm going to paste it, then offer a scant comment, but I would like one of you successful cloners to interpret it for me. I had written to whine that I could not get a good image with the package despite the fact they claim it works 'fine' with Windows 7. Here's the paste:

"This is a problem with the way Windows is installed. When you install Windows 7, a small 100mb partition gets created in front of the boot drive. When you image the boot drive, it is does not include this 100mb partition, so when you restore, it fails. You can remove the is partition on install, but after the install, there is nothing that can be done." By "hope" above, I meant ... maybe its not just/only me...