"Manually" clone my OS

What I would like to do is use a currently running PC to manually move the W7 OS from a USB connected HD to a separate empty HD that is internally mounted in the PC. I have tried several of the programs to do this and they all have failed as the HD has problems and is probably on its way out. It has about 80 total GB of OS, other programs and personal files. What is funny is that I seem to be able to read it fine and I have already backed up my personal files. Since it stopped booting I assume that some of the W7 files are corrupt. I would like to try and see if system repair will fix that after a clone job. I don't want to be doing a reinstall just clone this all.

True Image was able to get as far as making the system reserve partition and seeming to do that file properly. It leaves the rest as one partition but fails after a while when cloning the rest of the HD. I was thinking of allowing that to be performed and then I will manually transfer the rest of it to that main partition.

I'm tired of the frustration of installing and spending way too much time on software that will not do this and will not run any others unless someone is sure that it will work for this. I would just like some help on transferring this manually before the HD goes completely belly up. Such as will there be anything that wont transfer and what to do if so and the best ways to repair any corrupt OS files so this will work again. I know how to make protected system files viewable. Thanks for any help.

helpful55 said:

the W7 OS from a USB connected HD

Regarding this OS on an external USB drive----is it now or has it ever been capable of booting any PC?

What I mean is that the HD started going bad Very suddenly and I would get a disk read error and constant reboots. I took it out and I have a way to connect it through a USB adapter to a different PC for this operation. This working PC has an empty HD I would like to transfer this complete HD to. Yes, it worked great until this read problem and it is a legal W7. Thanks.

I'd try imaging instead of cloning, using Macrium.

How about this:

Divide the internal hard drive into 2 partitions.

Use Macrium to make an image of the external. Save that image to one of the 2 partitions on the internal.

Boot from the Macrium Recovery Disk.

Restore the image to the second unused partition on the internal.

May or may not work, but it avoids any cloning-related issues.

At some point, you have to give up and go to plan B--a clean install on the internal, rather than continuing to try to get the external drive system onto an internal. Up to you to decide when that point is reached.

You might spend 50 hours fiddling around with this when you could instead do a clean Windows install and reinstall all apps in a fraction of that time.

helpful55 said:

I like that idea you gave me if I run into this ever again, hopefully just for someone else. I am just not real knowledgeable, no experience with how the image gets re setup like original, and cloning sounded like exactly what I wanted. I do see that apparently imaging will allow options other than needing to clone the whole HD space, used and unused.

I admit I do things in a more difficult way sometimes, but I like to learn and sometimes the tougher way may teach me more.

Yeah, there's usually more than one way to skin the cat, but the fact is that they can all fail for no apparent reason and you're forced to do a clean install. Just don't get yourself in a position where you can't do the clean install if it comes to that--and keep backups at the top of your to-do list.

Imaging is most commonly used to recover from disasters and bad situations, but cloning is more often useful when simply moving to another drive when the existing installation is in good shape. Imaging is done on a partition basis, not necessarily the whole drive.