Drive cloning from within windows

WolfByte

WolfByte

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Hi all

Just wondering if anyone knows of any freeware drive cloning software that runs within windows? The reason i need it to run from within windows is i'm trying to save a laptop here, and i don't have a secondary machine to do a normal ghost with otherwise i would've done that already.

The laptops drive is working for now, and i have an external drive of the same size i want to clone to. I know generally it might give an error trying to clone the drive the program is running from, but at the moment i don't really have any choice. :(

Anyone have any recommendations or suggestions?
 
usually not within windows since it wont let you get to certain parts of the disk required to image it. Also some OS's do not like being moved to other disks if they werent cleanly shut down. In fact Ghost complains if you ghost an NTFS partition not properly shut down and with open journals.
 
rurapente said:
usually not within windows since it wont let you get to certain parts of the disk required to image it. Also some OS's do not like being moved to other disks if they werent cleanly shut down. In fact Ghost complains if you ghost an NTFS partition not properly shut down and with open journals.
Click to expand...
Not true for Acronis True Image. It images a live system. I have done innumerable images and retores, and often changed from WinXP to Vista to Win7 in a single day, all without a single hitch, ever. It's good practice to run a chkdsk to clean up pt data before imaging.

The corporate version has an optional add-on called Universal Restore for both server and desktop systems, which allows the image to be restored to dissimilar hardware. It is used by large companies to migrate their servers to new hardware. Works beautifully. Forget Ghost - it's antique compared to Acronis.

For desktop or laptop at home/soho - Acronis True Image Home 2010. $49.99 (under R400) but well worth it (buy online here). Proven. Widely reviewed. Often Editor's Choice. This is not the type of software I'd leave to unknown people with unknown support and development capabilities (ie freeware). It works well under Win7. Does live imaging without having to exit system or apps. I use it daily.

The corporate version has been renamed to Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, with versions for desktops, servers, Linux.
 
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rurapente said:
i have no faith in anything imaging a currently running OS :)
Click to expand...

Repent and believe. If you understand how a storage controller works, and how the operating system file handles lock and un/latch, you'll see this is not only feasible, but reliable, powerful and used daily by hundreds of thousands of systems in organisations of all sizes.

Try it yourself and see. Just this past weekend I restored the Vista64 image on my Win7-64 Pro machine, did the MS updates, imaged that, converted that image to a virtual machine drive, and then put back Win7-64 Pro. Seamless. All is fine.
 
we have over 7000 servers in my company. I'll give it a "try" one day, see? :) For the time being i want them imaged when shutdown and offline. (i dont even work in that dept anymore but anyway lol)

I have nothing against something that works, just havent seen it work properly yet. granted that was a long time ago.
 
Ps - does it create image files from online OSs too i assume? been wanting to get my laptop imaged for a while so maybe I'll pick up a copy of Acronis and try it.
 
Get free trial verisons of Acronis Backup & Recovery here. I know some of SA's largest orgs image and backup with Acronis, including real mission-critical areas like plant control servers for power stations, aluminium smelters, at least one major bank, a major media conglomerate, and many medium and small businesses. Live server and workstation imaging - no shutdown, boot to DOS, closing SQL or Exchange Server or whatever. It works, and works well, so it's worth a try.
 
Acronis is great - I use the free version for Seagate drives, DiscWizard. Never had a problem with it yet.
 
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