Duplicate everything on HD

Ryan077 · 27 Oct 2011

I've had a good look around google but I can't seem to find what I'm looking for - I'm kind of having trouble describing it. What I basically want to do is copy my entire installation of windows (all my files, settings, everything) onto my external hard drive so I can then install a fresh copy of windows on my build in HD, but I still want to be able to access the copy of windows I have put on my hard drive, as I can now. I'm kind of wanting to make two separate computers in a sense. Like when I start up my laptop I can choose if I want to boot from my fresh copy of windows or go to the copy of windows on my external HD.

It's just my current copy of windows is filling up my hard drive and has just turned into an unorganised mess and I've got stuff in there that I need but I can't be bothered to sift through it all; there's too much!

Any help is appreciated!
Cheers

Mark Phelps · 27 Oct 2011

I don't think you can RUN Win7 from an external drive -- but others know more about this than I do.

To access your files, you could do an image backup to the external drive, using something like Macrium Reflect, and then "mount" that image as a drive. That will not allow you to RUN it, though.

whs · 27 Oct 2011

This can be done if your external drive is attached via eSata - or if you have a second internal drive. Then you just switch the systems with the BIOS boot order.

You do, however, need 2 seperate license keys for that.