Clone a hard drive

cerebus

cerebus

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Hey, so I found a fantastic deal on a 2ndhand PC for my brother in law - E8500, 500GB HDD, 2gb, 9800GT OC, 585w Gigabyte PSU, 19 inch CRT all for R5000. WooT!!

Only problem is that it turns out that all the software on it is cracked, and my BIL doesn't want to use illegal software. So what I was thinking was to take his old IDE drive and clone it, license and all, into the new PC then chuck away the old drive.

Does anyone have experience with this? What do I need to be careful of? Will it reformat the new drive when it writes over it? Will it take all the licenses over with no trouble? And primarily which (freeware) app would you recommend for doing it?

Thanks for the help.
 
well that image may not work the hardware is different and it may not boot at all.
bluescreen of death hell methinks.
 
http://www.runtime.org/shadow-copy.htm
You can easily copy the content of an entire hard disk to another disk. If you copy, for example, C:\ to D:\, you will even be able to boot from that drive. Since Shadow Copy is capable of tranferring all the system files you will have an almost exact clone.

Tips:
* You need to make the new partition active (in Windows Disk Management).
* You also might need to set a new Disk ID using DriveImage XML.
* You will probably have to reactivate Windows and some other copy-protected programs.
Click to expand...
 
Hm ok......thanks for the info, I've never tried it before. The main thing is that he wants to keep his licenses for Office and stuff, he doesn't want to pay for another copy, so I figured that might be a way of doing it legally. Am I right about that, is it worth trying?
 
Since the hardware is completely different, dont think it'll work so well (or at all?).

Nevertheless, you can use a open-source Linux/Unix tool called "Partimage" to backup and restore 1:1 image of the drive. You can find Partimage in SystemRescueCD or Parted Magic (both LiveCD's, require no installation).
 
What about the hardware differences would be a problem? Is it the chipset?
 
Assuming your running windows? Depending on the version, it might crash, or might not. Best would be to delete all the drivers when its cloned (do this on the old PC, then when you reboot switch drives over)

You might also have to re-license windows, If it doesn't accept, phone the number and tell them you replaced the CPU on your existing machine (which you pretty much have done) Legally of course, he wont be allowed to use the other machine anymore

EDIT: boot up into safe mode on the old machine with the cloned drive and delete everything in device manager
 
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Ah the drivers, i see how that might be a problem. Ok I'll go in there and delete all the drivers first. This is setting up to be quite a task. I'm not worried about re-licensing Windows, the old machine is dead anyway.
 
I can do a clean install, that's actually a lot easier. But then he'll have to buy a new copy of Office. Oh well it's not like it'll break him to buy Office - I could even give him OpenOffice and he'll probably be happy with it. He's pretty easygoing - trusts me to take care of his computer stuff.
 
Why go through all that hassle of cloning or copying blah blah blah.

Just use a programme like keyfinder, to just extract the license keys for the software and reinstall on the new pc using said licenses.

My 2c
 
Not sure he has another disc, and the license key is only good for a few copies anyway. And he definitely doesn't want to pirate - that's why we're going this route.
 
Preparing for a re-format and re-installation by backing up your drivers and keys!

A) Back up your Old Registry

1) Click on the Start Button and choose run
2) type regedit.exe and press enter to run the Registry Editor
3) When it is open scroll all the way to the top of the tree and select "My Computer"
4) Now click on the File Menu and choose "export"
5) Export the entire registry twice, once as a TXT file and once as a REG file.
6) Give it name like regbackup.reg and regbackup.txt
7) Move those files to a backup drive or burn to a CD (Can be up to 100 MB depending on how many programs you have installed).

NOTE: You can actually browse through your Registry looking for program keys by browsing these two folders... You might find a lot of installation keys by looking in each folder for all the software you have installed. Do NOT change anything you see there!!!! Just copy and paste the keys or back up the REG files.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER / SOFTWARE or...
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE

B) Back up your Software Keys and Windows Activation Files...
(You can use one of these FREE programs or ALL of these programs)
NOTE: Some of these programs might be flagged as malware or spyware by your Anti-Virus because they reveal system passwords and keys. Don't worry they are safe to use for your personal use and you can safely add them to your anti-virus "exception list". Obviously you should guard the password and key information in a safe place.
Some of these programs do more than others. They all have their benefits. Read more about them here... and find links to download them!
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/productkeysactivation/tp/topkeyfinder.htm

1) Magic Jellybean Key Finder...
2) WinKeyFinder...
3) RockXP
4) KeyFinder Pro
5) KeyFinder Thing
6) WinGuggle

C) Backup Your System Drivers
These FREE programs will list and back-up (and restore) system drivers. Useful to do, even if you plan on installing FRESH drivers. It is good to have a record of all the drivers you had installed before for the off-chance that you cannot locate a driver again after re-installing! You can use one or both of these programs!

1) Double Driver...
http://boozet.org/dd.htm
2) DriverMax
http://www.innovative-sol.com/drivermax/

D) Don't forget to back-up your User Files as well. Check this list to make sure you have not missed anything...

1) My Documents Folder (including Docs, Pics, Vids etc.)
2) Shared Documents Folder
3) Your e-mail (Outlook or Outlook Express... etc.)
4) Your program User Files (eg. TurboCash, Quicken, AutoCAD, etc.)
5) Your Downloads folder or wherever you keep your Archives.
6) Your Firefox Profile...
C:/Documents and Settings/{User Name}/Application Data/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/...
Your Profile name will look something like "k13xy5k6.default" and that folder contains all your extensions, passwords, bookmarks, etc.

Good Luck! :)
 
Ok after putting the HDD into my PC it seems that it might actually be broken. I thought it was the memory in the old PC, but it's giving me BSOD. I might have to give them some bad news. eish.
 
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