Options for migrating to a new disc

[bobland]

I'm outgrowing my boot disc. I'd like to migrate the image to a new disc. I will not use anything from Symantec so that eliminates Norton. On Amazon, the negative reviews for Acronis run 2 to 1 so that leaves that out too.

Suppose I install W7 on a new disc and run an image restore. Would that give me back my current image with all programs installed?

Thanks,
Burt

 

[strollin]

If you install Win 7 then do an image restore the image will completely overwrite your Win 7 installation so it would be pointless to install Win 7 on the new disk. However, you should be able to restore the image to the new, blank disk. There are free tools to do this such as Macrium Reflect.

You could also clone the disk where you connect both the old and the new disk to the computer at the same time and clone the old to the new. Simply copying won't work since the MBR won't be copied.

 

[archie123]

negative views for acronis? I downloaded the free trial , ran it , selected a few options for cloning rebooted and after 10 minutes i have my entire hard drive copied and working on another bigger hard drive , everything workes flawlessly , id go for the acronis trial , its free and easy

 

[Wishmaster]

I cant say about Nortons, but Acronis works very well under 7.

At least Acronis 2010 does. I have never had a issue with it.
Keep in mind, sometimes bad reviews are simply user error, or possibly another issue such as hardware, and not knowing any better. This of course isn't always the case, but many times it is.

Your WD drives should also have a free version of Acronis for moving to a new drive. You just need to register them to get access to it.

If it were me, I would use Acronis and make a full disc image. (Be sure to copy the entire disc as is, not just partitions)

Install the new HD and just boot from the Acronis rescue disc. point it to the location of the image you made and it will restore it to the new drive and your good to go.


Win7 Image restore should work as well as Macrium Image or Paragon Image.
Although Im not very familiar with any of these. hopefully someone with more experience can help more in regards to these.

 

[bobland]

I used Acronis with Windows 2000 and it worked fine. But that was about 5 years ago. All my drives are WD but I never look at the literature. Maybe I'll just give the trial a whirl.

 

[DeaconFrost]

You could either use Macrium Reflect Free, or since you have WD drives, they offer a free version of Acronis on their website that would handle the cloning for you. In the future, don't base your views of a product on reviews from a retail site for two reasons:

1. Most people who complain are the problem...due to a lack of knowledge or understanding.
2. Most people only write a review to complain...rarely to praise a product.

 

[archie123]

I used Acronis with Windows 2000 and it worked fine. But that was about 5 years ago. All my drives are WD but I never look at the literature. Maybe I'll just give the trial a whirl.

its so easy even i didnt screw it up

 

[bobland]

Deacon,
Point taken. I often read the reviews as a reference. In this case, and being away from Windows for a number of years, I wanted to get a sense of where things were at. I should have started with this post before looking at Amazon.

 

[DeaconFrost]

I only use WD drives as well, and can personally vouch for the WD version of Acronis. When you download and install it, it includes a wizard to make a boot disc for you. You can boot from that and clone one disk to the other.

 

[Snakeyeskm]

Another positive vote for Acronis. However be careful when restoring or cloning to an SSD. Can easily screw up the alignment unless the proper precautions are taken.

 

[stormy13]

since you have WD drives, they offer a free version of Acronis on their website that would handle the cloning for you.

So does Seagate in their Seatools, WD's is data Lifeguard Tools. In either case all it takes to use either is that at least one of the drives in the computer is a Seagate or WD.

Also another vote for using it for cloning. Used it a few times and it did just as advertised.