11

I subjected my hard disk (C drive) to a disk scan and found that there was 12 KB of bad sectors. I now consider that disk to be unreliable, and am looking forward to transferring all my data to another file.

The problem is, I want to clone the complete drive (including the apps, OSes, files and everything, verbatim) to another drive. I know there would be some crazy software activation issues, like Windows Not Genuine problem and so on. But I wonder whether is there a tool powerful enough to do the cloning and at the same time maintain the OS and apps?

2

6 Answers 6

6

Did I understand you correctly, that you want to use the same PC but just change the harddrive? In this case, you shouldn't get "crazy software activation issues".

You can simply use a backup software like

Acronis TrueImage

Acronis True Image Home 2011 assures that all your important data, including photos, videos, music, documents and applications, are fully protected and can be recovered quickly in the event of any disaster.

Or if you're looking for a free alternative:

Macrium Reflect

The only free XP, Vista and Windows 7 compatible disk imaging software with BartPE and Linux based recovery options.

  • Create a disk image whilst running Windows using Microsoft Volume Shadow copy Service (VSS).
  • Image to Network, USB, FireWire drives and DVD.
  • Built in scheduler.
  • 32 bit and native 64 bit versions.
  • Industry leading compression levels and speed.
  • Linux based Rescue CD with Network access and full GUI. Only 6.5MB in size!
  • Built in CD/DVD packet writing engine. Supports packet writing to DVD DL media with Windows Vista.
  • HTML log files.

Create a clone of your harddrive, use the Rescue CD to copy the backup to a new drive. Everything will be copied 1:1. Most programs really just give you a hard time with the licenses if you change multiple aspects of your hardware at once.

1
  • 2
    Acronis's free trial version does not allow cloning.
    – AgA
    Jan 30, 2014 at 4:59
7

Clonezilla

I'm a fan of clonezilla which will do copy disk to disk and disk to image. It's free to use but the only thing it can't do is clone to a smaller drive.

As the others have said you may be unliekly to boot first time, unless you use it in the same computer with the same hardware.

3
  • I think it is not for Windows.
    – AgA
    Jan 30, 2014 at 4:59
  • 1
    @AgA, I have successfully used Clonezilla in the past for Windows syestems.
    – tombull89
    Jan 30, 2014 at 9:01
  • @AgA As tombull89 says, it works just fine for cloning a Windows drive. I transferred data from a platter to a SSD drive no problem just a couple of months ago.
    – Heptite
    Mar 5, 2020 at 4:43
4

I' ve used EASEUS Disk Copy (free) in the past. It worked very well, even with a disk that was so corrupted that it could not be recognised by Windows.

1
  • it does not detect two SATA disks in my Windows 7 but Acronis trueimage works fine.
    – AgA
    Jan 29, 2014 at 15:02
3

Macrium Reflect Free

Make sure you create a boot CD so you can get the image back onto the new drive.

0

Cygwin is one of the solutions - if you want to do that from inside the backed up system. There are dd and pv commands which would help you. Also you can use live CD/DVD of unix-like system and then also compress the image. But you also have some trash from the disk (deleted files) in the backup.

1
  • 2
    The problem with that kind of backup is, that you have to have the same volume of new hard drive as the old one. If the new would be larger then you will have to expand the partitions.
    – pbies
    Nov 15, 2012 at 0:44
0

ddrescue

Currently I would (1) make a bootable linux USB and boot from it, (2) to recognize input (old) and output (new) units, use gparted or sudo fdisk -l. (3) install gsmartcontrol and make the long analysis of the old hard disk (sudo gsmartcontrol opens the GUI). (4) Then, install ddrescue

Alternatively, you could use a gparted live USB, which already comes with gsmartcontrol (GUI) and ddrescue, (1) run sudo gsmartcontrol - long analysis of old drive -, and then:

sudo ddrescue -f -n -r0 /dev/[olddrive] /dev/[newdrive] /root/recovery.log

-f, --force              overwrite output device or partition
-n, --no-scrape          skip the scraping phase (preventing the utility 
                         from spending too much time attempting to recreate heavily 
                         damaged areas of a file) 
-r, --retry-passes=<n>   exit after <n> retry passes (-1=infinity) [0]

See also: https://datarecovery.com/rd/how-to-clone-hard-disks-with-ddrescue/

enter image description here

When cloning to a smaller drive

(some details correspond to Dual Boot systems, the example uses an HDD as old drive (internal) and SSD as new drive connected by USB in a beginning, and a linux bootable USB as above):

In gparted loaded (bootable USB) shrink the right most partitions, i.e. Linux partitions when Dual Boot (internal old) unit. If you have Windows, it is not recommended to move the C: partition (start) to the left, or if you do, try using a Windows bootable USB to accomplish that, instead of gparted.

Having unallocated space to the right of the old drive, that accounts for the difference of sizes of the old (HDD) vs new drive (SSD), continue with:

Try restarting your PC as usual (just to check), but before: If you use Linux (HDD) or if your system does not start correctly, use boot-repair (same bootable USB), to fix the modified Linux partitions, specially in a Dual Boot in which Windows is to the left, and you moved Linux to the left or shrank it (old drive).

(bootable USB:) Having a working HDD (all OS load correctly), copy contents as explained above with ddrescue, you have probably a HDD inside de PC, and a (smaller) SSD connected by USB.

Check the SSD status (bootable USB):

sudo gdisk -l /dev/[SSD unit]

Now we will repair the Partition Table of the SSD, which is damaged because of the original GPT type of the SSD vs the probable MBR type of the HDD, and the differences in sizes.

Fix problems: Consult each command in the gdisk manual; e and n are used because of the error message that we saw in the status, initially.

sudo gdisk /dev/[SSD Unit]
x
e
n
w

Replace the old HDD inside the PC with the new SSD, start again from the bootable USB, run boot-repair and follow correctly all instructions.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .