How to perfectly clone my HD...HELP...

Thanks nitroman84, for posting the screenshots. 2009 is working great, but I may have to check out 2011.

James

James Colbert said:

Thanks nitroman84, for posting the screenshots. 2009 is working great, but I may have to check out 2011.

James

No problem

I've used Acronis True Image a few times, works perfect! The clone was absolutely 100% same, even the fragmentation was same (I guess it allocated the cloned data in the same order...)

SIW2 said:

Did you try plugging in only the cloned HD and running startup repir?

Might take 2 or 3 runs.

Yah I did try that problem still exits

I've used Windows Imaging, Macrium, Paragon.
I now use Windows imaging primarily, Macrium as a precaution and for partition specific operations.
I decided to have a cold standby disk so that when my HDD fails it will take me 10 minutes to install the copy.
If MS imaging is normally working for you then
Here's how to make a copy disk:
1) Windows image the HDD you want a copy of.
2) Put in the new HDD (by itself on same sata port)
3) Boot from System repair, reinstall image.
DONE.

mjf said:

I've used Windows Imaging, Macrium, Paragon.
I now use Windows imaging primarily, Macrium as a precaution and for partition specific operations.
I decided to have a cold standby disk so that when my HDD fails it will take me 10 minutes to install the copy.
If MS imaging is normally working for you then
Here's how to make a copy disk:
1) Windows image the HDD you want a copy of.
2) Put in the new HDD (by itself on same sata port)
3) Boot from System repair, reinstall image.
DONE.

I used Windows built in tools religiously in the beginning, but I began getting errors complaining that no Windows image could be found (and yes they were in the same location as when created and not re named). It was just a little too hit and miss for me. Acronis has yet to let me down, I would recommend it to anyone.

Core7 said:

SIW2 said:

Did you try plugging in only the cloned HD and running startup repir?

Might take 2 or 3 runs.

Yah I did try that problem still exits

What program did you end up using? It should have made a perfect bootable copy. I had a small issue when upgrading from Acronis 2010 to 2011 as it has more options. You now have to switch from partition mode which is the default to Disk mode otherwise the MBR will not be restored and you will end up with a non bootable image

nitroman84 said:

Core7 said:

SIW2 said:

Did you try plugging in only the cloned HD and running startup repir?

Might take 2 or 3 runs.

Yah I did try that problem still exits

What program did you end up using? It should have made a perfect bootable copy. I had a small issue when upgrading from Acronis 2010 to 2011 as it has more options. You now have to switch from partition mode which is the default to Disk mode otherwise the MBR will not be restored and you will end up with a non bootable image

All software I tried was HD Clone I am going to try out the Acronis later today

Core7 said:

nitroman84 said:

Core7 said:

Yah I did try that problem still exits

What program did you end up using? It should have made a perfect bootable copy. I had a small issue when upgrading from Acronis 2010 to 2011 as it has more options. You now have to switch from partition mode which is the default to Disk mode otherwise the MBR will not be restored and you will end up with a non bootable image

All software I tried was HD Clone I am going to try out the Acronis later today

So you didn't even bother trying the MS imaging solution............

nitroman84 said:

mjf said:

I've used Windows Imaging, Macrium, Paragon.
I now use Windows imaging primarily, Macrium as a precaution and for partition specific operations.
I decided to have a cold standby disk so that when my HDD fails it will take me 10 minutes to install the copy.
If MS imaging is normally working for you then
Here's how to make a copy disk:
1) Windows image the HDD you want a copy of.
2) Put in the new HDD (by itself on same sata port)
3) Boot from System repair, reinstall image.
DONE.

I used Windows built in tools religiously in the beginning, but I began getting errors complaining that no Windows image could be found (and yes they were in the same location as when created and not re named). It was just a little too hit and miss for me. Acronis has yet to let me down, I would recommend it to anyone.

If this happens to me then I will devote considerable effort to attempting to find the problem because MS imaging has been so reliable up to now.
As I type I'm using the new disk I made using the 3 steps above with MS imaging.