To clone or not to clone

I have an HP system. I want to clone my system to another internal drive. Have a hitachi 1 tb installed now. Will install a seagate 1tb. Couple questions.
1. Since hp has some proprietary bs if I need to use the cloned drive due to my primary drive failing will windows and all work properly or will it look like I am trying to rip windows for use on another machine and not work?
2. When you clone a drive do you have to use the entire drive (1tb to 1tb) or can you partition it and only use the amount of space which is in use in the primary drive you are cloning?
3. I want to create a cloned drive so I can be up and running immediately in the event of a drive failure. Is this the best way?
Help appreciated.

Please list the size of each partition on your windows disk (the physical drive you wanna clone)
in elevated command prompt:
DISKPART
SEL DISK 0
LIST PART
EXIT

=============
something like this
DISKPART> lis part
Partitie ### Type Grootte Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partitie 1 Primair 113 GB 32 KB
Partitie 0 Uitgebreid 352 GB 113 GB
Partitie 2 Logisch 352 GB 113 GB
DISKPART>

Please post output

use clonezilla to clone Disk to disk clone
with this the MBR is saved as well.

BTW do you need the HP recovery partition and HP_tools partition? tools are useless I think. and for recovery you use windows system image backup.

I read your post again... both drives are 1TB. So do a simple disk-to-disk copy using clonezilla livecd and wait a few hours. After that detach the source disk from computer and modify startup in bios to new disk. Both are sata disks?

There shouldn't be any problem

Kaktussoft said:

I read your post again... both drives are 1TB. So do a simple disk-to-disk copy using clonezilla livecd and wait a few hours. After that detach the source disk from computer and modify startup in bios to new disk. Both are sata disks?

There shouldn't be any problem

Yes both are sata disks. I also have a 300 gb disk. Can I clone the 1tb to that assuming all partitions fit. Only have about 200 gb programs and data on primary disk. Don't have other info. Partition sizes etc as the computer is on its way back from hp after mb replacement. Thanks for your reply.

NoelDP said:

I hope you backed up, as HP will almost certainly have reformatted the drive!

I backed up data only. Not a big problem as I only had the computer a week. Know I will lose all my settings and clean up of hp garbage. Reason why I want to clone in case this or something like it happens again.

tex50 said:

Kaktussoft said:

I read your post again... both drives are 1TB. So do a simple disk-to-disk copy using clonezilla livecd and wait a few hours. After that detach the source disk from computer and modify startup in bios to new disk. Both are sata disks?

There shouldn't be any problem

Yes both are sata disks. I also have a 300 gb disk. Can I clone the 1tb to that assuming all partitions fit. Only have about 200 gb programs and data on primary disk. Don't have other info. Partition sizes etc as the computer is on its way back from hp after mb replacement. Thanks for your reply.

Read clonezilla docs and found answer. Can't do it. Need same size disk.

clone to smaller disk is possible. But I don't know how to do that in clonezilla. Do you ever need "recovery partition" and hp_tools or something like that? If yo make a backup you never need them. What hp_tools or recovery options from hp do you use or are expecting to use in case of emergency?

Drivers are build in in windows 7 install dvd. And you canb download from hp site as well.
Please repond.

Give me a layout of the disk please. partitions and its sizes and whre it's for

Kaktussoft said:

clone to smaller disk is possible. But I don't know how to do that in clonezilla. Do you ever need "recovery partition" and hp_tools or something like that? If yo make a backup you never need them. What hp_tools or recovery options from hp do you use or are expecting to use in case of emergency?

Drivers are build in in windows 7 install dvd. And you canb download from hp site as well.
Please repond.

Give me a layout of the disk please. partitions and its sizes and whre it's for

Expecting to just use the cloned disk for recovery depending on the situation. Data is backed up to cloud based server. Dont have disk to give you specifics on disk layout as I dont have system back from hp yet. If I recall it had 2 partitions hp recovery and then my other programs and data. Hp recovery was small about 15-20 gb. I think I can clone to a smaller disk if I resize the partitions first. Might try that and see if it will work. Dont have win 7 disk as it is preloaded from hp on the drive.