PC cloning software

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soundbase

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I am wanting to clone my system drive onto a new drive as my system drive is getting full.

What software do you guys recommend? I have used Norton's Ghost previously, but was wondering if there was a better solution, and if possible a freeware solution.
 
Not freeware, but I swear by Acronis True Image - it's never let me down and it's very easy to use. :)
 
Try Clonezilla Live. It's a text based interface which can be scary, but apart from that it has worked well for me in the past. Worth a look, it's open source and free.
 
I have used xxclone to clone my system drive. I did not have a floppy so I did not make the Quick Boot Diskette. Now when I start my machines it comes up with two operatings syetms to boot up from. My old system drive and the new system drive from XXClone. How do I get rid of this so that it only shows the new system I have cloned. I read up that I have to go somewhere in my Bios, but I am not sure of exactly what I need to change.
 
soundbase said:
I have used xxclone to clone my system drive. I did not have a floppy so I did not make the Quick Boot Diskette. Now when I start my machines it comes up with two operatings syetms to boot up from. My old system drive and the new system drive from XXClone. How do I get rid of this so that it only shows the new system I have cloned. I read up that I have to go somewhere in my Bios, but I am not sure of exactly what I need to change.
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know eye deer really.

Try boot up in recovery mode and type fixmbr. Perhaps that will help? You shoulda gone Acronis :D
 
I started using xxclone, but it was going to take 17 hours, so instead got Casper and used that to clone the HD. It took 1,5 hours to clone my 100GB Windows drive. I am very happy with Casper. Would recommend it to others who want to clone their system drives. Really easier and simple interface
 
Can Casper work with Linux and BSD file systems like Acronis can?

Thats what I love about Acronis.. multiple OS`s on one PC? 5 different file systems on one PC? no worries, acronis > all.
 
Casper is Windows only. But the best thing about it is its simplicity. A few clicks and you're away
 
Both Vista and W7 have a handy backup tool that creates a "system image" in a .vhd (virtual hard disk) format. That could be used to restore the system on a new hard drive from the Vista/W7 recovery tool, available on startup with a Vista/W7 DVD.

The .vhd file can also be mounted from within Computer Management/Disk Management under the action menu, which you can use to access individual files off the image, should there be a need for this.

There are some tricks with restoring a .vhd file, you cannot "move" the file to another destination as the restore tool would then for some reason not recognise the image, and would abort the restore process. Eg if the VHD file is created in h:\backup, do not rename the "backup" folder. I learnt the hard way :)

Of course, if you have XP imho the best tool is Acronis, have used it back in the day when I ran XP, it works really well and is fast too.
 
w1z4rd said:
Can Casper work with Linux and BSD file systems like Acronis can?

Thats what I love about Acronis.. multiple OS`s on one PC? 5 different file systems on one PC? no worries, acronis > all.
Click to expand...

Acronis doesn't work very well with certain brands. Its version of Linux wasn't able to boot up my Panasonic PC.
 
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Acronis Partion Manager (I have 2 of their products) (actually 2 licenses even) - the thing couldn't do a NTSC to FAT32 conversion and vice versa. Partition Magic 8 was able to do that.
 
PeterCH said:
Acronis doesn't work very well with certain brands. Its version of Linux wasn't able to boot up my Panasonic PC.
Click to expand...

Unlucky. I used TrueImage 9 and created 300 Novel/XP duel boot notebooks.

Ive cloned Reiser, EXT3, EXT4, FAT32 and NTFS partitions with no problems at all.
 
Acronis True Image is the best you can get. We use it at work on some of the servers. Norton Ghost is good too I got that here at home.
 
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