Cloning or copying a hard drive Forums

teemyob

Hello,

After giving up on trying to get an old PC to connect to Novell Server....

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I might try making a copy of another pc.

Question is how easy or difficult is it?

Do I need special software?
Would I be better asking a specialist?

Trev.

Melly

When you say "make a copy" Do you mean all the contents including the operating system?
There is a program called norton ghost which will copy an entire drive to a backup but this is really only for restoring that hard drive in that computer should the data corrupt for any reason.
If you try to put it onto another system all the hardware settings stored in windows will not then match and windows will probably fall over in the end.
If its just data then you can just zip the files and copy them to the new drive.

teemyob

No Exact Copy I was looking for.

Trev.

geraldandannie · Moderator

We've used Norton Ghost too. It works very well.

I don't know what would happen when Windows tries to update itself using the Genuine Advantage thingee, and there's two identical copies on different machines. I don't know if Microsoft can tell, or whether it will interfere with the updating. Not a problem if it's not connected to the internet.

Gerald

artona · Moderator

Hi Trev

Have a look

doug_

i use casper xp, you put the new hard drive in as the slave drive on the same cable as the master disc, drive c.

then run the program in windows.

it copies the entire system. change the new hard drive to master and boot up.

doug.

teckie

Hi... have a look at this site HDClone is very good and FREE I have used it a few times...

zappy61

Hi,
Not exactly sure why you want to clone another pc. Remember you will transfer all the rubbish that machine has to the new pc. Better, if possible to install the operating system from the cd drive (assuming you have the os on disk) and then copy all the contents of 'my documents' and any other files you have created to the new HDD. Do this by setting the old HDD to slave and connect to the new machine via the IDE ribbon and boot up. Through explorer you will now see the 2 drives probably as C & D just copy all the files from old My Documents to new My Documents plus any other files you have created. Once this is done you can format the old drive via control panel/admin tools/computer mgmt/disk mgmt, (choose ntfs file type) and you have an extra storage.

This is a lot quicker and cleaner than cloning but you do need os disks.

teemyob

Hello folks,

Thanks for the replies. No OS discs though Zappy, I guesss ebay may be an idea. Trouble is, as technology moves on, not sure what type of hard drive will work in what machines!

Trev

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