Copy hard drive

[Spliffcat]

Hello Guys
I want to copy my ssd drive, 120 gig of which I am using 60 gigs. Now I have an 80 gig external portable drive. When I try to copy the drive win 7 can't do it. All I want to do is mirror my 60 gigs of data in case of a wipeout.Any ideas?

 

[DrJohnZoidberg]

Use backup software. Windows has a backup tool preinstalled.

 

[Spliffcat]

Tried that, no go, says the target drive is too small. Thanks.

 

[i.got~issues]

Tried that, no go, says the target drive is too small. Thanks.

Your total size of your SSD is larger than the total size of the external... you can use an imaging tool such as Macrium Reflect to create an exact image of your used data of the SSD on the 80GB external.

Macrium Reflect can then restore this image onto another drive if needed.

Otherwise, you will need to shrink the SSD partition size to 80GB, clone the drive to the external, then resize the SSD back to 120GB... perhaps not worth the risk of data loss if anything bombs during the partition resize process.

 

[Spliffcat]

Thanks. Will try Macrium.

 

[i.got~issues]

Drive cloning software from Acronis and the like, will clone used partition space and ignore total drive size... the built-in Windows one seems to not do this, or I could never get it to do this... Acronis and such are not free tho'.

Macrium is free, but I have had issues with its cloning capabilities... its imaging works hundreds and the free version is fine.

 

[LaraC]

Paragon backup has a free version and it works on active partitions.

 

[Spliffcat]

Thanks.