Copying old (failing) boot drive to new exact same drive

[wedoe21]

Ok so my boot drive (WD1200JB) is finally going bad after 3 or 4 years, i think the bearings are going. I just removed all the data of one of my storage drives (same model) and formatted it. On the boot drive i have an 8 gig partition for the os and a 106.5 gig partition for programs. Is there an easy way to just clone the boot drive, partitions and all? I tried using the WD data lifeguard suite but that was no help as it would only copy one partition. All your ideas are most appreciated. Thanks
Wedoe

[PixPirate]

Install a copy of Acronis True Image home. It'll clone the partitions for you, and has a 15-day trial. Or buy Norton Ghost, or Casper, or Drive Image, or any of the other utilities.
PP

[BurntToast]

If you use Acronis True Image make sure to verify the image before you do anything with it or the data you imaged. Acronis True Image is NORTORIOUS about creating bad images. Norton Ghost on the other hand rarely ever creates a bad image in my experience. I prefer Acronis True Image over their features, but Norton Ghost is easier to use and is more reliable.

[wedoe21]

i had an old copy of ghost 2003, so i thought id use that. Long story short, ghost 2003 creates a virtual partiton on your boot drive and then it crashes because it cannot work with XP. You hit restart and it still boots off that virtual partition in a never ending cycle of stack overflows. The only way to fix it is by using a file on the win 98 cd or fiund elsewhere on the net to change the partition boot order. Sigh, iv always hated symantec. Im gunna try acronis

[Bones]

I'm an advocate for open source stuff, so here's what I would do: Place both drives in a machine, boot a linux livecd and use this command to clone the entire drive, MBR, partition table and all:

dd if=/dev/olddrive of=/dev/newdrive bs=1b conv=sync,noerror

Then toss the failing drive, and boot on the new one. Run a thorough checkdisk to fix filesystem errors from the old drive, and you're done.

<edit> The ntfsclone utility would also work great, possibly better than the straight dd, but you would need to manually copy over the MBR and parition table. The dd command can do that, too. </edit>

[linderman]

fellas:

if you guys arent using xxclone.com then you are not using the easiest cloning tool seen in my life !! I have suggested it to hords of people and never has anyone ever failed to clone a drive or get it to work >>>>> its kindergarten easy

only two gui windows >>>> the main console >>> all self explanatory and cluick the advanced button >>> put three chck marks in the bootable options boxes >>> that it !!

free test drive for 30 days !!


if you cant do this one >>>>> throw the computer away its as easy as using AOL

[davidlem]

fellas:

if you guys arent using xxclone.com then you are not using the easiest cloning tool seen in my life !! I have suggested it to hords of people and never has anyone ever failed to clone a drive or get it to work >>>>> its kindergarten easy

only two gui windows >>>> the main console >>> all self explanatory and cluick the advanced button >>> put three chck marks in the bootable options boxes >>> that it !!

free test drive for 30 days !!


if you cant do this one >>>>> throw the computer away its as easy as using AOL

OK but does XXclone automatically resize your partitions if you clone to a larger drive? (i.e. 120GB -> 250GB) Norton Ghost sure does.

[drizzt81]

driveimage XML is freeware, so you may want to give it a spin?
http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

[linderman]

xxclone can clone both ways a 120 gig drive to a 250 aqnd visa versa >>>>> providing of course the amount of actual data does not exceed the size of the smaller drive

i.e. clone a 250 gig (source drive) with 100 gigs of info >>>> it can clone that to a 120 gig drive

it can clone a Fat32 drive to a NTFS target etc and xxclone will also clone scsi drives.

[davidlem]

xxclone can clone both ways a 120 gig drive to a 250 aqnd visa versa >>>>> providing of course the amount of actual data does not exceed the size of the smaller drive

i.e. clone a 250 gig (source drive) with 100 gigs of info >>>> it can clone that to a 120 gig drive

This is false information. Data on the HD is not stored sequentially as one would tend to think. There's no reason 100GB of current data couldn't reach into the 180GB 'region' of the 250GB drive.

i.e. The drive is not filled sequentially from 0-200,000,000 LBA with 100GB of data. Run a simple Windows Fragmentation Analysis to see for yourself - 'free space' is everywhere.