WhatÂ’s the best way to ghost my C drive?

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Tue Aug 17, 2010 6:28 pm

I have an older 30 gig Raptor and I’d like to use my newer 70 gig Raptor instead and still have the extra space usable.

Do I just tap my pencil three times and say alla gazam or do you know a better way?

:EDIT: On second thought maybe this belongs in the software forum.

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Tue Aug 17, 2010 7:32 pm

WD should have software on their site to clone.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Tue Aug 17, 2010 7:36 pm

i love acronis true image, works great for me.

this thread reminds me to image me C-drive this weekend

Sava700 · Post by **Sava700** » Tue Aug 17, 2010 7:37 pm

Mark wrote:i love acronis true image, works great for me.

ditto

24giovanni · Post by **24giovanni** » Tue Aug 17, 2010 8:03 pm

Sava700 wrote:ditto

ditto the ditto.

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Tue Aug 17, 2010 8:41 pm

I think WD has a crippled version of Acronis on their site.

http://support.wdc.com/product/download ... dc_lang=en

Easto · Post by **Easto** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 1:36 am

Very timely info for me. My raptor appears to have a problem and I'd like to clone it. Has anyone used the WD program? Easy?

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 8:00 am

Most of the hard drive brands out there have free tools you can download from their site...often yes an stripped version of Acronis, which will check to make sure one of your pair of drives is their brand before proceeding. And yes easy.

For other software....pay for, Acronis, or Paragon Software are two examples.
For "free" 3rd party software, I also like P.I.N.G. (Partimage Is Not Ghost), there are others like Macrium Reflect, Euseus Disk Copy, DriveImageXML, Clonezilla, amongst others.

And if you're using Windows 7....it's built in for free!

Easto · Post by **Easto** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 11:33 am

YeOldeStonecat wrote:
And if you're using Windows 7....it's built in for free!

Please explain

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 11:46 am

Easto wrote:Please explain

Off your Start button type in "backup" without the quotes. This brings up the Back and Restore wizard.

Two choices on the left..one of which you haven't seen in prior versions of Windows..."Create a system image". The other one is Create a system repair disk.
Windows 7 now supports making disk images with its own backup utility. You can even backup the images across a network. You also don't need partition management software to resize your partitions..it can be done natively now.

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 7:07 pm

YeOldeStonecat wrote:
And if you're using Windows 7....it's built in for free!

That f'n rocks!

I love it.

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 9:14 pm

Thanks for the help. Acronis True Image is what I think I’ll be using.

Shinobi · Post by **Shinobi** » Thu Aug 19, 2010 7:38 am

On some of my systems, I've used Macrium Reflect Free. As long as the bootable recovery CD/DVD works in your system, the program is awesome, even across a LAN.

Shinobi · Post by **Shinobi** » Thu Aug 19, 2010 7:40 am

Mark wrote:i love acronis true image, works great for me.

this thread reminds me to image me C-drive this weekend

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Thu Aug 19, 2010 7:19 pm

EASEUS TODO backup.

A colleague swears by this.

terrancelam · Post by **terrancelam** » Wed Aug 25, 2010 12:36 pm

just adding my two cents:

Depends on what HD company you buy from buy they usually provide some ghosting software on their site. My personal favourite is acronis (usually comes with non-oem drives).

maroon · Post by **maroon** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 11:49 am

Is there any limit to how many times you can clone a drive? Does it create extra overhead on the copy or anything like that?

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 1:45 pm

maroon wrote:Is there any limit to how many times you can clone a drive? Does it create extra overhead on the copy or anything like that?

Some cloning software is limited in the amount of times it can be used...but most aren't, such as the freebies and most of the standard retail products you have in the long selection.

There's usually not anything "added" to each clone that adds overhead.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 1:48 pm

CableDude wrote:EASEUS TODO backup.

A colleague swears by this.

Easeus is great for compatibility with lots of newer hardware, it's fine "if you have the time"...but for a tech doing an onsite, it's not practical. If you're using to Ghost or True Image...the cloning operation is usually under 30 minutes on most modern hardware. However with Easeus...it's at least a several hour affair. I love the software, I'll use it when I can do the image overnight..because it can take overnight.

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 6:39 pm

YeOldeStonecat wrote:Easeus is great for compatibility with lots of newer hardware, it's fine "if you have the time"...but for a tech doing an onsite, it's not practical. If you're using to Ghost or True Image...the cloning operation is usually under 30 minutes on most modern hardware. However with Easeus...it's at least a several hour affair. I love the software, I'll use it when I can do the image overnight..because it can take overnight.

never used it.

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WhatÂ’s the best way to ghost my C drive?

What’s the best way to ghost my C drive?