How do a clone a PC Harddrive?
 

I've got a 10 year old PC and the hard-drive is going out.


Stays in a state of 100% read/write utilization even when PC is at idle.


I recently lost some sector/tracks and some software application I cannot access anymore .



How can I clone the installed software over to a new hard-drive? I've got installed software that I no longer have the installation disks for, such as CAD programs and Photo Editing.


am I screwed ? I figure if this was easy, it'd be all over software piracy violations.


hate to lose some app's.

Try ezgig from apricorn

https://apricorn.com/notebook-hdd-upgrade-kits/

I bought one of these over a decade ago and it never failed me.

$29

Depends on the individual application.

Often times we tie licensing to a hardware ID.

Every component in your PC, hard drive, network card, cd-rom, etc... has a unique identifier that the licensing is tied to.

When the software boots up it looks for that piece of hardware and if it does not find it assumes the software has been moved / copied outside it's EULA.

Most commonly it's the hard drive but hey they sometimes fail so if we want to be nice we can tag multiple devices and say if 2 of 3 are present then it's all good.

That let's you replace a hard drive and not worry about the license.

So, are you screwed, probably but not completely.

To answer the cloning question, the new drive *might* have cloning software included. I bought a Samsung SSD drive and it had a free version of Macrium Reflect, which is what I would suggest anyways.

1) Buy a 500GB to 1TB SSD drive.
2) Max your RAM (you probably did with CAD)
3) Buy a $40 graphics card
4) ?
5) Profit from a much faster computer.

Macrium Reflect...easy

Or, for under $30 you could get one of these. Also works as an external enclosure. I use our a lot as we upgrade machines. Put a 6TB drive in the HTPS, use the old 3TB drive in my gaming computer, use my old 2TB in the boy's unit, etc. Only had one issue where I had to re-clone and that was because the power went off.

https://www.newegg.com/wavlink-wl-st334u-dock/p/0VN-0069-00001?Description=clone%20hard%20drive&cm_re=clone _hard_drive-_-9SIA6PF3NA0586-_-Product&quicklink=true

I have one similar to that one. I love it. It makes cloning a push a button simple thing. And great for changing your boot drive from a spinning drive to a SSD. And if I have a hard drive to off load data, just ply it in, and it is just a USB drive. Just be sure to plug it into a USB 3 port or it will take forever to copy much.

I use Acronis True Image - I think it came with a Kingston drive a few years ago.

To recover files from a damaged disk/filesystem, PhotoRec/TestDisk, ddrescue.

To simply clone, CloneZilla.

All free downloads; boot from a USB stick or burn a CD.

Ultimate Boot CD packages a bunch of those and many other free utilities. https://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

That actually might have been what came with my Samsung drive as well, instead of Macreum.

Does OP know what to do?
You buy a 2nd drive, connect both to the same PC
and then use one of the tools mentioned above to do a drive copy.
Then you only leave the new drive plugged in.
Swap complete. YouTube should have tutorials