Use Macrium Reflect (free) or other to clone a Win7 hard disk

Just now I am running Seatools tests on a 1tb Seagate after the old Noron Ghost program failed twice to
complete and issuing an error which aborted the program.

Crystal Disk info reports the HD in the 'blue as good with no errors or warnings.

Seatools short test says Smart atributes have not triggered.

The drive is just two years old and the company told me warranty expired just in March 2018.

I am running the whole suite of Seatools Dos version including fix all on the advice
of Seagate staff which has been very helpful.

Is there perhaps an alternative with Macrium or Acronis? I've stuck with Norton Ghost
because frankly it's easier and less complicated: Select a source drive, select a target drive-- Go.

I've tried Acronis and Macrium in the past. Also unrelated I've had disastrous results with Linux based
cloners.

What's the latest and the simplest to do this task?

Thanks for the reply.


The old Ghost 11 I think always works for me from a cd until
recently it failed to complete doing a Seagate 2tb (700Gb filled) to a recent Seagate 1Tb Baracuda but no longer in warranty. The program works slower it seems with anything involving this 2tb Seagate Baracuda. But the old Ghost completes with other 1 tb drives I have.

I have begun testing the problem Seagate Drive. Seatools came back passed no errors in Short and Long test. In Win7 I have the Check Disk and Repair bad sectors routine running now.

I'm not trying to restore or create disk images-- just copy through from source to target.

I even have the Macrium instructions printed out someplace but have not looked at that lately.
This is just an inquiry about any new developments in programs for backup. From what you say
Acronis and free stuff -- what? -- does not work in lieu of pay- for versions?

What you say about SSD is valuable too. I will be moving to an SSD or M.2 boot drive at some point.

I see some screen shots at least from one support site and there's the PDF which I have to print
selectively. As a simple disk to disk transfer there should be one volume showing, yes?

From scratch, then, can I make a bootable cd rom to run the program for the clone job?

Yesterday I download ReflectDLHF.exe from Macrium site.

That's as far as I am. Also can I verify some way that this is the 'good' V7?

I don't want to run the exe immediately since, of late, I've had problems getting rid of
unwanted programs once installed.

Some progress.
I ran the installer program.
I selected Macrium from the desktop Shortcut.
The screen that opens shows the one HD I currently have connected.
That screen has an option to clone the disk.

But I've always understood that an HD can't copy itself. For this reason
I want to be able to run the Clone program from what the Linux users call a Live Cd or
ISO.

I'll connect up a spare HD to see how far I get but have all these questions.

In my toolbox from ages ago I have some cds called Reflect but those are
that backup image or whatever-- not indicating a bootable clone program to run from
CD like Ghost, Clonezilla etc.

Any tips appreciated.

I'll report any progress and mark solved when completed.
Thanks for the answer.