Tell me more ×
Super User is a question and answer site for computer enthusiasts and power users. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 2 down vote favorite
1

I cant see it as a drive in Norton Ghost15. When I go to the "Backup my computer" option, no drive is displayed for the drive I am trying to clone/backup.

But I see the harddrive in the BIOS. I can boot into that harddrive and it loads into MSDOS as expected. I am unsure what my options are to clone it.

Edit: More Details. The entire capacity of the harddrive is atleast 100 megs(I have to check for the exact number). MS DOS 6.22 I believe. IDE 40 wires. I really need to clone this harddrive. I can't start over from scratch.

share|improve this question

2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

The best way to clone something like that is a bit for bit copy. Do you have another IDE drive to clone to?

Hook up another drive to clone to and boot to a Linux Live CD (Knoppix is great) and see if it picks up both drives. Once you're in the Live CD console you can check to see if the drives were both picked up with an fdisk -l.

If so, then use something like dd_rescue to clone the drive at that point.

share|improve this answer
will try asap Thanks! – Philip Nguyen May 22 '12 at 14:59
dd_rescue is awesome, just be sure to quadruple check your command before running :) – jmreicha May 22 '12 at 15:01
+1. This is pretty much the simplest way of cloning the drive. Just be careful with dd :) – Renan May 22 '12 at 15:01
is it built into linux live cd knoppix? knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html – Philip Nguyen May 22 '12 at 15:02
Yep, built into all LiveCDs! (lol know when my answer is outclassed) – WindowsEscapist May 22 '12 at 15:04
up vote 1 down vote

You might just want to take it out, put it in a caddy, and clone from another computer to see whether the prob is with your disk or your computer. (Caddies are around $10, depending on the type of disk.)

If (unlikely) you don't need the OS, just .bat's and such, you might just want to copy off your files (again from a caddy).

What is it formatted as; FAT, FAT16, FAT32, etc? What type of drive is it; IDE or SATA?

Try other programs as well (e.g. Clonezilla).

share|improve this answer
Thanks for the reply, I believe it is FAT16. and IDE. Nothing is wrong with the computer, I just want a backup of the harddrive incase it fails. I didn't think of doing the MSDOS command to copy all the contents to another drive, which I'll try. – Philip Nguyen May 22 '12 at 14:54
Well, IDE caddies are fairly cheap and easy to set up (no external power apart from USb required). I assume you have another computer, but in any case FAT16 should be recognised. I would try other cloning programs if the bootable OS is needed. (And I would upgrade ^_^ try Ubuntu!) – WindowsEscapist May 22 '12 at 14:56
any clue on why I can't see the drive in windows? Thanks alot! I'll try everything you recommended – Philip Nguyen May 22 '12 at 14:59
In Windows? I thought you couldn't see it in Ghost? – WindowsEscapist May 22 '12 at 15:06
couldn't see it in either – Philip Nguyen May 22 '12 at 15:08
show 3 more comments

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.