Drive cloning

[shrimply]

I'm wanting to make a drive clone to protect all my data, but quite honestly I've completely confused myself.

 

I read through the list of free drive cloners on this site and am pretty much sure I want to use the recommended EaseUS drive cloner. But I'm trying to work out exactly what I need to do. Hoping you can make sure I actually understand what I need to do.

 

So I download the program and burn the image to CD.

This CD is then bootable, so I boot from the CD

Then I can select the original drive and where I want to write the clone to

 

Is that right.

 

Also, how would I go about restoring the clone and how big a partition do I need, if I'm cloning a 80GB hard drive do I need a 80GB partition for the clone or is it reduced.

 

Sorry, even reading this post I suspect that I've got the whole thing completely wrong, so hopefully you'll not think i'm a complete idiot.

[Seth]

I'm wanting to make a drive clone to protect all my data, but quite honestly I've completely confused myself.

 

I read through the list of free drive cloners on this site and am pretty much sure I want to use the recommended EaseUS drive cloner. But I'm trying to work out exactly what I need to do. Hoping you can make sure I actually understand what I need to do.

 

So I download the program and burn the image to CD.

This CD is then bootable, so I boot from the CD

Then I can select the original drive and where I want to write the clone to

 

Is that right.

 

Also, how would I go about restoring the clone and how big a partition do I need, if I'm cloning a 80GB hard drive do I need a 80GB partition for the clone or is it reduced.

 

Sorry, even reading this post I suspect that I've got the whole thing completely wrong, so hopefully you'll not think i'm a complete idiot.

 

I've had the best luck with Acronis's Migrate Easy. You can use the trial one time, but then it would have to be purchased.

 

The program doesn't need any boot disks, and is very simple to use. It will also automatically account for hard drive size differences. Remember though, it's not the free space on either drive that matters, but rather the amount of data that needs cloning.

[AdvancedSetup]

I would highly recommend doing some reading and using this great FREE piece of software

Clonezilla-SysRescCD

 

It already includes CloneZilla which is quite similar to Norton Ghost - all on one CD/DVD

Clonezilla

 

 

You need either another internal hard drive or an external USB hard drive to place the clone image onto. Once it's there then shut down your computer, remove the current hard drive and install the new one, start back up with the CloneZilla CD and choose the USB and clone it back down onto the new hard drive you put in your PC.

 

 

.

[Seth]

Thanks Ron. I'll check it out.

[Dalo Harkin]

IMHO - in terms of safety for backup purposes - RAID (Mirrored) is by far the best way.

I know it is not suitable for everyone as you need to buy an addition drive (of the same size and make and model number)

but if one goes bang, it's just a simple case as boot the other in the BIOS.

[shrimply]

Thanks for the suggestions,

 

Advanced Setup, I really am not capable of making head or tail of that link,lol. I have no idea what any of it means.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Have a read of this Shrimply mate.

 

Beginners Guides: Cloning WindowsXP - PCSTATS.com

 

I know it mentions XP but the same scenario applies to Vista.