Solved Cloning software - what app are you using?

[teckneeculler]

For years I used Acronis Migrate Easy to do full drive-to-drive clones on my own and other 32-bit machines.

Sadly, it won't work on 64-bit computers, unless it's done in DOS, which I don't want to bother with.

I've cloned a couple of drives recently with AOMEI Backupper, but the results were less than stellar. On one occasion it did the clone but also created a virtual drive that I had to delete. Even the people on the AOMEI forum couldn't explain it.

On another occasion it cloned a 320GB drive onto a 1TB drive and instead of simply apportioning the 320GB onto 1TB of space, it created two partitions. One was 320GB and the other was 600-odd gigs of 'unallocated' space.

So I need a reliable replacement for Acronis Migrate Easy, which never faltered.

I know Acronis True Image can do the job, but I don't want to install all that bloat just to clone a few HDDs.

Recommendations?

 

[Golden]

Macrium Reflect

 

[teckneeculler]

Thanks, mate.

It does a proper clone? Not just a disk copy?

Easy and reliable?

Full version or Free?

 

[Ranger4]

I also use Macrium Reflect. Mine is version 5 & is the paid version. The latest version is version 6, but version 7 is nearly here.

It does a proper clone from one hard disc to another.

Yes, easy & reliable, both for cloning & imaging.

Both versions are available. This Macrium website might be useful for you.

Macrium Reflect Free | Macrium Software

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

X3 for Macrium Reflect Free. It is a true clone. A System disk cloned with Macrium Reflect will be bootable.

 

[teckneeculler]

Thanks, guys. One handy thing that Migrate Easy did was to clone disks from big source to small target and vice versa. Not all cloning apps do that.
Does Macrium?

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Thanks, guys. One handy thing that Migrate Easy did was to clone disks from big source to small target and vice versa. Not all cloning apps do that.
Does Macrium?

Yes, as long as there is enough space on the target disk to accommodate the data on the source disk.

 

[CADesertRat]

Personally, I paid for "CASPER" back in the XP days and have upgraded the versions over the years. It has saved my butt a few times by just exchanging the clone HDD for the problem HDD. I've never had a bad clone with casper. They are up to version 10 now but my version 8 works on my W7 computers and also W10 laptop so I haven't upgraded to the latest version yet.
Good luck.

 

[johnhoh]

you won't beat macrium as it does it all, for free, is easy to use, works every time, doesn't care what brand drives you have.

 

[teckneeculler]

CADesertRat, thanks. I've used Casper myself when I was an XP guy. Haven't tried it since but I'll check it out.

Thanks everyone else who posted. I got me a copy of Macrium, seeing as it came so highly recommended, so I'll try that, too.

Cheers, all.

 

[CADesertRat]

you won't beat macrium as it does it all, for free, is easy to use, works every time, doesn't care what brand drives you have.

Glad you like Macrium. Casper does it all very well also and it doesn't care what kind of drive you have either.
IDE, SATA I-II-III, SSD ( any brand ). Another thing I like is that Casper support is good if you ever need it.