Cloning a Hard Drive Questions

GamerKingFaiz · 16 Jul 2010

No, no, no. I'm not messing with any imaging, partitions, or the like. I'm simply going to clone the drive exactly over to the RMA'd drive, meaning it WILL have the OS on launch, right?

Phone Man · 16 Jul 2010

Yes if the cloning works properly (and it should) you will have an exact copy with OS and everything in place. Just keep everything on your old drive for a while until you are sure the new drive is OK.

Jim

Night Hawk · 16 Jul 2010

I wouldn't even bother trying to use the 80gb for a storage but set it aside and grab a summer deal on a larger capacity drive for long storage. The prices on drives have come down considerably over the last few years now seeing 2tb drives for under $200 and smaller 500-650gb models for less then half that.

The 160gb will provide a larger OS drive while packing the 80 for a consideration on increasing storage capacity for the external is something to consider as well.

GamerKingFaiz · 16 Jul 2010

I do understand that, but at the moment I am actually putting my money towards my first PC custom build.

So I'm just going to use the 160 GB for internal storage and the 80 GB as external storage on my laptop, and just leave my laptop alone. And focus more on my future PC.

Night Hawk · 16 Jul 2010

Agreed!

Once you get into a desktop you will find that even far more interesting for a variety of reasons as far and including options for increasing storage.

For the time being you may still want to keep the present working copy of Windows on the 80gb intact in case the replacement runs into more problems for some reason. At least you still will have a working drive and an OS to work with.

If the cloning succeeds you may still want to create a backup with the Window Easy Transfer tool to store on a second partition if you do end up splitting the 160gb just in case you end up needing to perform a clean install at some point. Removable media of course is another option to back things up just in case.

JonM33 · 16 Jul 2010

GamerKingFaiz said:

Hey guys, I have a 160 GB Samsung external HDD that I sent into RMA, and I was thinking when I got it back I'd replace it with my notebook's 80 GB Seagate HDD.

My question is, can I simply use the enclosure (which connects via USB) and some cloning software (such as Seagate's DiscWizard software) to transfer over all the data (files, applications, OS, etc.) to the external HDD and then simply put the external inside the laptop, and use the old HDD as an external?

Is this possible, and if there are any better options (such as better cloning programs), please let me know.

Yes, Seagate's DiscWizard is an OEM version of Acronis TrueImage. You can use it to clone your Samsung to your Seagate drive.

GamerKingFaiz · 17 Jul 2010

The only thing I'm worried about is that I'm going to be going from a Seagate to a Samsung.

Meaning a Samsung drive is the destination drive instead of a Seagate, that wouldn't pose any problems, right?

ignatzatsonic · 17 Jul 2010

I've wondered about that type of thing myself.

At one time, I thought the requirement was that the destination drive had to be a Seagate.

Now, I think the only requirement is that you have at least one Seagate drive installed--whether source or destination.

If you had no Seagate drives at all, I think the application would not install or would not start.

drum4life2death · 17 Jul 2010

Sorry to but into this guys. I just got done doing all that transfer/merge/copy the partitions on my notebook after wiping vista clean off everything. I started getting in a hurry and put my Windows 7 on the wrong hard drive. Which made my D: a C:...it was all backwards. And the drive is only a 30gig logical just for all the back up from my main 260gb drive. Anyway...This is the tool that kicks
**S for anything you'll ever want or need in ur tool for the job. I bought the pro version just to support the makers, but the free one is the exactly same except a couple things. Use it. Here is the link. And it's called "Partition Wizard." You'll thank me later........BEST FREE Partition Manager Software for Windows supports all 32-bit & 64 bit Windows No-server OS.........no more worries mate.

Night Hawk · 17 Jul 2010

ignatzatsonic said:

I've wondered about that type of thing myself.

At one time, I thought the requirement was that the destination drive had to be a Seagate.

Now, I think the only requirement is that you have at least one Seagate drive installed--whether source or destination.

If you had no Seagate drives at all, I think the application would not install or would not start.

The problems would more likely be trying to create an image from a drive made by a different manufacturer if that's the case with the 80gb drive not being Seagate. The image or backup created is later restored to the same brand of drive at least following the rule of thumb there.

Images and backups from and restoration to would be how that works since their verson of Acronis is suited only for that brand of drive while images and backups made can be stored on other brands. The same as what is seen with one brand's drive diagostics tools intended for that brand only.