PC hard drive cloning sw

[Turdus]

Need to upgrade drive. Not looking to reinstall. Anybody have exp with cloning share ware?

[mathman]

Windows? Mac?

Which OS?

[Turdus]

Needed for XP.

[mathman]

I haven't done this much with pc but when I did I used Ghost.

http://www.amazon.com/Symantec-Norton-Ghos...C/dp/B002SRNS7A

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of...loning_software

[Jimbilly]

I've used Apricorn with my windows XP laptop a couple of times. It's so easy I can do it, I am not a good computer tech. For the laptop they have a little cradle that you put the blank HD in, and when the software is installed, a couple of easy steps and it makes an exact copy of your existing HD.

I need to order another blank HD just for a spare. I imagine they would have kits for non-laptops too, my kit was in the $129 neighborhood; cradle, cable, software, and blank HD, everything needed. www.apricorn.com Both times I ordered from them I wasn't comfortable that I'd found the right HD on their website, so I called and ordered over the phone, -easy-easy-easy.

[ZR]

Depending on which brand of HD you have you may be able to go on their site and DL their own version of software. I have a Western Digital drive and they offer a free version of Acronis which makes clones, backups, etc. Great software for free! I believe other brands may have something similar. Usually you must have at least one WD (for instance) drive for it to work with their software, other companies may be similar. I just backed up everything and now I need to backup the backup - seriously. Hopefully that works for you.

[mathman]

Depending on which brand of HD you have you may be able to go on their site and DL their own version of software. I have a Western Digital drive and they offer a free version of Acronis which makes clones, backups, etc. Great software for free! I believe other brands may have something similar. Usually you must have at least one WD (for instance) drive for it to work with their software, other companies may be similar. I just backed up everything and now I need to backup the backup - seriously. Hopefully that works for you.

Good idea, it might be included with the new drive purchase.

[Turdus]

Thanks for the replies.... Best Buy has a 500G Western Digital drive for $50, and looks like Acronis might be the ticket. Going to give that a try. I'll report back after the experience.

[tomteriffic]

A retail WD should have their cloning software included. Otherwise it can be downloaded from their site. I've used it under XP before with no problem.

[alantig]

I think WD is doing all downloads now - my brother-in-law bought our mother-in-law a new hard drive and I had to download the software. Had to do a bunch of other stuff, too, but that's a whole different story (hardware related - always make sure you buy the cables you need, kiddies!).

Alan

[Turdus]

Update: paid $50 for a WD 500G drive. Had to download Acronis. Added the new drive to the PC. Ran the SW, and selected "clone". Does check that one drive is WD. Took less than an hour to clone, and the drive was bootable.

This was simple. Being a UNIX guy, I will state that I am impressed.

[Kev]

Update: paid $50 for a WD 500G drive. Had to download Acronis. Added the new drive to the PC. Ran the SW, and selected "clone". Does check that one drive is WD. Took less than an hour to clone, and the drive was bootable.

This was simple. Being a UNIX guy, I will state that I am impressed.

I would use Ghost, but whatever you use be sure to run a checkdisk afterwards to repair any errors and then test before dumping the old drive