[ihrsetrdr]

I have a 5+ yr. old WD Raptor that I really would like to replace; am concerned of failure in near future as the HDD is "rumbling" when writing to disk. I've seen posts about cloning drives and creating drives images as backup, but I have not done this myself. I'm not fond of paying a pile of money so I'm more interested in either a free(or low cost) Windows app, or an Open Source app to get this done. Any suggestions?

[macroman]

when I got a new WD it came with install software that did the cloning for me and all I had to do was change it from slave to marster and the old one to slave and reformat it ,have a look on the WD site for the software

edit heres the link WD Site

[gangaskan]

you could use bart PE and the drive image xml on it.


that is a free alternative, but if i recall, it does not keep the boot sector can someone confirm?

[flameup]

Download.com - do search there. That is the biggest guide for different applications I know. I think that there you will find something not expensive even free

[juane414]

Does the Western Digital tool actually "clone" or image the drive, or does it just transfer files? I'm actually looking for some software that will clone a partition on my primary drive to my external drive.

[borito4]

Norton Ghost does a image of the drive that you can restore to a new 1. I have personally used it and it works GREAT. Drive Image XL also works great, just NG is allot easier to use personally.

[ihrsetrdr]

Thanks for reminding me of the disk manufacturer's utilities, I had forgotten about them having such capabilities. I was thinking that I'd have to use something like Acronis or Gparted-Clonezilla to get the job done. I'll try the WD and/or the Maxtor utilities on a dummy install on another rig to see if I get it down pat, before doing the clone of the system I'm trying to avoid a re-install of.

[juane414]

Let us (in particular me) know how the WD disk manager tool works for copying. I want to copy the recovery partition on my laptop to my external drive in case things go bad installing Vista 64-bit

[ihrsetrdr]

Originally Posted by juane414

Let us (in particular me) know how the WD disk manager tool works for copying. I want to copy the recovery partition on my laptop to my external drive in case things go bad installing Vista 64-bit

I didn't get around to trying the WD disk tool, but I'm happy to report that the trial version of Acronis True Image Home 2009 worked absolutely perfect. On my test machine I now have an identical clone of the Windows install. After disconnecting the original drive and booting the clone-drive, the system went through the "found new hardware" bit, but since the driver cache was intact, all went fine.

[juane414]

Great, thanks for the info. I might give Acronis a try myself in that case. How does the free trial work? Do you get a certain number of uses or does it block some of the features?

[gangaskan]

the free version IIRC is limited to 30 day's


i think the older versions you could uninstall and re install and get another 30 day's, but i'm not sure how that works now.


you could be limited to ceritan features the full blown does that the trial does not keep in mind

[ihrsetrdr]

Originally Posted by juane414

Great, thanks for the info. I might give Acronis a try myself in that case. How does the free trial work? Do you get a certain number of uses or does it block some of the features?

Acronis is set up and run within Windows, then once configured as to the source and the target drive asks for a system reboot. It then does the actual cloning while in a pre log-in environment(much like chkdsk does). I don't know how many uses are available, I think the average user just needs it to migrate their system to a new drive....of course, none of us here are just "average users".