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My Asus M51AC desktop PC has a 500MB HDD with pre-installed Win 8 (upgraded to Win 8.1), so I also installed a 1TB HDD with OEM WIN 7 Pro SP1. Can I copy/clone both HDDs to one backup 2TB HDD, so I can swap it with one of my internal HDDs (if only one fails)? Can I then simply uninstall the "surplus" duplicated version of Windows?

For clarification: my internal 1TB HDD has Win 7 installed in C: [Disk 0] and my internal 500MB HDD has Win 8.1 installed in H: [Disc 1].

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  • It is not something that I've experimented in but logically my mind would say you should clone your OS HD and make a disk image of the 2nd HD. So if its C and D clone C drive so you can restore this then create a new partition of D on the 2TB HDD and restore the disk image to this drive. However it will most likely mean you need to store these backups in another location not on the 2TB HD you plan to use in this situation.
    – CharlesH
    Jan 27, 2015 at 10:33

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Use a specialized live linux like Clonezilla

OR, your external hard drive might have it's own cloning software available, that could copy the first/main drive onto the backup, then use other tools to copy the data-only drive.

I'm not positive on how picky Windows 8 is about being moved to a different HD, it should work since people buy new bigger HD's all the time. Apparently Windows 8 likes to have a separate boot partition, recovery partition, and maybe a few others.

If I were to make a backup copy of a partition, I'd use linux, and could string together a few programs to:

  • read from the /dev/sdxn partition (x being the drive letter, n the partition number)
  • compress - could use gpg's -z 9 and leave out gzip, or could replace it with a slower but smaller option likexz`)
  • and encrypt the data to a single file (optional)

with this line:

dd if=/dev/sdxn bs=1M conv=noerror,sync | gzip -9c | gpg --no-use-agent --passphrase="somepw" -z 0 --output sdxn-dd.gz.gpg -c

That would leave the partition's data in the file sdxn-dd.gz.gpg, once for each partition.

Or save the entire disk using /dev/sdx instead of /dev/sdxn.

To recover, you can do a:

gpg --no-use-agent --passphrase-file=/home/mint/RAM/sesame -d sdxn-dd.gz.gpg | gunzip -c | dd of=/dev/sdxn

To recover it to another hard drive's partition (a different /dev/sdy, and making a same-sized partition on /dev/sdyn - use a program like fdisk/parted/gparted):

gpg --no-use-agent --passphrase-file=/home/mint/RAM/sesame -d sdxn-dd.gz.gpg | gunzip -c | dd of=/dev/sdyn

Or, skipping the encryption, just these:

dd if=/dev/sdxn bs=10M | gzip -9c > sdxn-dd.gz # create
gunzip -c | dd of=/dev/sdyn # recover

Or, with both drives could skip the compressed archive file and just do (after creating a same-sized new partition /dev/sdyn):

dd if=/dev/sdxn of=/dev/sdyn bs=1M conv=noerror,sync

See archlinux's wiki page on Disk cloning for more info/examples.

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  • Why would you be using GnuPG?
    – user
    Jan 27, 2015 at 11:56
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    Encryption. Old established tested encryption, should still be working years from now (in case of someday wanting something interesting from a backup, I think it's been around since 97, so 18 years and still going). Could certainly be left out, replaced with > outfile.gz
    – Xen2050
    Jan 27, 2015 at 12:04
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    I know exactly what GnuPG is and what it does, I just don't see why you are adding that complexity when I see nothing in the OP's question that calls for it, and more so that doesn't (because as I read the question, OP wants to be able to simply swap out the original drive for the backup drive in case of failure).
    – user
    Jan 27, 2015 at 12:07
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    The "as a backup" part of the title, in case there's potentially sensitive data. I'll edit in an option without it for people uninterested in it.
    – Xen2050
    Jan 27, 2015 at 12:09
  • The "so I can swap it with one of my internal HDDs (if only one fails)" part of the question.
    – user
    Jan 27, 2015 at 12:12
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I also have an ASUS M51AC PC, and I have done exactly what you were asking, which is to clone additional drives as backups, so that you can plug one in, at a moment's notice, in case of drive failure. In fact, I have done it many times over the past two years and always have a fresh install hard drive and an updated hard drive (with all programs installed, that I pop in and update periodically).

I also purchased a new Samsung SSD (528GB) and used the cloning software that came with it, to transfer everything over to the new drive perfectly. No problems whatsoever. I am sorry to add the extra info, if its not needed. I just thought it might be helpful to someone upgrading this motherboard.

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