PC guys: Best way to clone/mirror a HDD?
 

Looking for options on cloning/mirroring a hard disk drive on an XP Pro laptop. I'd like to do so without spending $70+ on Norton Ghost, etc., but will do so if that is the best route. I know there are a few freeware programs out there, but I get a bit nervous with their function/reliability. I've got an external 250G (USB) drive that I'd like to save my current drive/settings/etc. on. The laptop drive is making noise, and is probably on it's last leg. Any input would be much appreciated!
SmileWavy

Check your PM.

Free product from MS called "imagex" it can do it, part of the Windows AIK kit.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c7d4bc6d-15f3-4284-9123-679830d629f2&DisplayLang=en

very, very, easy to use.

Eric,

If it lasts that long I will be back on Friday and have all the USB cables and adapters that you need to plug into a laptop and clone the drive. I used Drive Image, or Clone or something like that, it was free and worked great.

Glad to loan it to you but am going out of town early tomorrow. Unless you want to email me and I can take it with me to Sky Harbor and leave it there for you...

Joe

Try a free product tried Acronis. I just did this myself, changed from a 5400 RPM drive to a 7200 RPM drive in my laptop. Maybe took an hour for 100G. I have a 2.5" external USB drive case, popped in the new drive, fired off Acronis, rebooted and it was off. Popped the new drive into the laptop, powered it on and fired right up. I was out 70 bucks for the cost of the new drive.

Brad brings up a good point. I did the same 5400 to 7200 swap a few months ago (thats where I got the adapters) and it made a real big difference in the boot time and access speed on the laptop. Well worth getting the faster drive.

Ghost for Linux, comes as a bootable CD. You may need to spend a little $ on an adapter to etiher put a laptop drive in a desktop system or a USB cage for the laptop drive. I'd go the USB cage route, that way you can use the (now) old drive as a backup device. Just ghost back onto it :)

http://freshmeat.net/projects/g4l/

Acronis is the best by far, however its BIG money.

Scott, they have a free, fully functional trial version, which is good for 15 days ;)

Also, if you want to upgrade to a 7200 RPM drive, there are fewer and fewer choices for the IDE/PATA versions. I went with the Hitachi Travelstar 100G drive. Not the biggest, but unless you have a SATA interface, you're pretty much limited for that speed. As Joe indicated, my system is a lot faster now. XP Pro is very happy with 2GB memory and a fast drive and a 7mb DSL connection ;)

Oh, cool, I had no idea, I wanted them as an enterprise solution, however I was voted off the island due to cost. :)

+1 for Acronis (True Image Home) though they don't always update drivers for new pc's, should be OK if your LT is older

My wife works for Symantec, and I am a Premier Symantec partner (I only mention this because I can get the software for free), and we use Acronis.

Acronis is fast, simple, and works. We have images of our systems stored on the house NAS server. Every once in a while, when the OS's get slow, (other than Vista, which is slow all the time), we reload.

Hmm...I've got a few drives I need to clone. I'm going to give Acronis a try.

Thanks for the heads up on the trial version!

OK, To clone my laptop drive, (I would like to increase the size and speed) I first need an external drive to copy too? then back to my new laptop drive? I am used to working with desktops where I have two HD's already installed but not a laptop..Whats the process exactly?

you can get edge connectors to plug it into your desktop, and if its a newer drive you can plug a SATA cable directly to it.

Buy an inexpensive 2.5" external hard drive case, either firewire or USB. Buy a new 2.5" drive, either SATA or PATA/IDE depending on your laptop configuration. Install the new drive into the new case. Connect it to your laptop to make sure you can see the drive, you may need to install drivers for the hard drive case, but probably not. Download and install a trial version of Acronis, ghost, etc. Select the utility to clone a hard drive. Your internal drive will be the source, the external drive will be the target/destination. With Acronis, your system will reboot and begin the cloning process. Once complete, remove old laptop drive, install new laptop drive.

We created an Acronis boot disk. You boot to it, point it to the image and let er rip.

How would you do it from one laptop to another without putting the target drive in an enclosure? thanks

By creating a Windows PE boot cd that has the acronis application on it, then use a USB cable.

By using the adapter cables as I mentioned above. They are USB and connect to any sort of hard drive.