Cloning a disk within Windows 7

[Tetsuron]

I know there's a lot of bootable programs that let you clone your entire hard drive, but is there one that'd let me do it within the Windows environment? One of my biggest fears is accidentally putzing it up and cloning the empty drive over the old one so I'd prefer to know exactly which disk is which.



Unless, of course, someone has a better suggestion.

 

[samuria]

Most wontclone in widows as it locks files but you can create an image then write the image to a drive all in windows

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Most wontclone in widows as it locks files...

Horsefeathers! I've done it many times, using Macrium Reflect (both free and paid versions). There are other programs others here have used, such as AOMEI Backerupper, that also can do it.

(edit: did a clone on a new machine yesterday)

@ Tetsuron To avoid cloning the wrong direction, you just have to pay attention to the drive letters when setting up the clone, something that isn't difficult to do.

 

[Pete4]

I use Mini partition Wizard home version and DriveImageXML. While Mini partition will clone disk, partition or migrate OS from HDD to SSD, DriveImageXML will backup your partition bit by bit to files, to restore later. Both are portable, so will run from memory stick without installation, but need computer to be booted into Win. Since DriveImage copies everything, it will need restore disk at least as big as original and will create exact copy, Mini partition can resize restored disk/partition to fully populate new drive. If you buy new HDD or SSD from larger maker, like Samsung or Seagate, you can download and use their free software.
Forgot to add: both will copy active C: partition from which they run and Driveimage can save files to partition it is backing up, no problem (of course later you need to copy those files outside, because during restoration, backup files would be erased)

 

[JMCLAY]

My desktop says my C: drive is 32GB in size. I tried to clone it using Acronis, Macrium, MintiTools, etc and had ZERO success using a 125GB USB memory stick. I got all sorts of problems, ranging from boot-up error messages to Blue Screen Of Death until I changed the target drive to an external USB hard drive. Then Casper 10 worked flawlessly in one pass.


It seems to me that Windows 7 has some sort of grudge against memory sticks, but I haven't seen anyone posting any statement to this effect.


My 3/2-d worth.


Jim