Drive image question!

Not sure you can clone a single partition as it is a direct copy HD>HD. Imaging is a better solution as you have a stored copy rather than having to keep the old HD as storage of itself.

You can image your choice of partitions although WIn7's backup imaging will require you to include the partition which contains the System MBR. Others give you that choice. I use Win7 Backup imaging for 6 home computers, with image stored in a primary partition on each backed up to external. No probs so far.

Also have Acronis for my XP/Vista imaging. It has a lot more choices but not ones I need for my Win7 images.

I like having the built-in imaging. The 100mb System Reserved partition places the Repair console on F8 Advanced Boot Tools menu, so I can reimage from stored image partition without the DVD/CD if there is enough RAM to load image into memory using F8 Repair tools. This means I could reimage my laptop on the beach if needed, but might need to use my stick to boot repair console if image wouldn't load into memory using F8.

Try shrinking the source drive partition leaving the rest Unallocated, just to see what happens with cloning. Others may know.

Good point on keeping a clone-source HD backup, if you dont' need the HD. Why not?

You desire to backup your drive to restore, possibly to a larger size drive.

Is this correct?

And will you then be using another dirve, that is, a third drive as the "clone" drive?

You really need a place to back up your files more often, unless you plan to regularly clone your HD as backup.

Alsenor said:

gregrocker said:

You can make the image smaller by putting your User folders on a separate data partition (also backed up - I drag and drop to external). This also keeps your data safe in its own "vault" in case of irreparable OS failure.

I just ran a backup image on Acronis, aand there is so much room left on my 500GB second drive that for now it's no problem at all.
I will look for an external enclosure and take that drive out of the tower, so it won't be running all that time for nothing.

With Acronis you can schedule several types of images. Full for the once a week. libraries for other times, whatever you need.

BTW their images are double click-able so you can view, or restore a single file.