HDD Swap - in general

I'm swapping HDD's over on my Aspire 9300 for larger capacity / faster speed.

I've used Easeus Todo Backup to make a 'clone' of my C: disc but upon checking I noticed that the file number totals and folder sizes aren't quite the same. Now, I know certain files are in use by Windows and so canot be copied - which is why I was skeptical at first - but the software does say it creates a 'clone'.

Is it possible this disc will have essential files missing?

What's the best way of creating a clone other than removing the disc and copying while Windows is not in use? Are there any trusted DOS utilities that can do this prior to Windows loading?

Many thanks in advance.

 

I wouldn't trust any Windows based utility to create an exact clone!
The best utility I've found is "Acronis True Image" which you need to boot with and it creates a perfect partition or drive clone for no time

 

Great I'll have a look at that, thanks for the recommendation.

 

OK done, using Acronis - thank you Gracy.
I did get a few errors during the last few seconds of the copy operation (I'm guessing the boot sector copy) but these seemed to get fixed when I tried to boot and it failed so ran the Win Vista recovery disc which 'fixed startup errors'. It then booted fine and all seems well so far.

One question if anyone can help;

Why is it that the Windows Experience Index value for "Primary Hard Disc: Disc Data Transfer Rate" hasn't improved even though I've upgraded from a 5400 RPM 80GB 8MB Cache disc to a 7200 RPM 320GB 16MB Cache disc?

Many thanks on advance.

 

Your WEI is probably 5.9?

This is because you went from a very good 5400 drive to an even better 7200 RPM drive - but, WEI doesn't differentiate HDD's past 5.9 'scores'.

Only an SSD will 'show' better - and even then, that is not a 'given' (Samsung SSD shows 5.9 even though it is noticeably faster than the 5400 RPM HDD it replaced).

 

No, it's not the WEI I'm querying, but the actual score for Disc Data Transfer Rate - previously it was 4.8 yet now, after the upgrade, it is still 4.8 despite a larger, faster hard drive.

(incidentally, my overall score is only 3.0 as my onboard graphics are really poor and cannot be upgraded as it's a soldered chip)

 

We're talking about the same thing (WEI = Disk data transfer rate, in this discussion).

4.8 for a Scorpio Black is indicating another issue: drivers, BIOS setup and/or possible limitations of your chipset.

The 'proper' score is 5.9 for almost any modern HDD.

Try deleting all the files from this folder and re-run WEI:

C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\DataStore\


You are running Windows 7, correct?

 

Will do.

No, Vista HP.

Added:
That did it, the value has indeed now changed to 5.9

Many thanks for your help.

 

Strange how the Graphics rating dropped with the introduction of the new HDD, although I didn't clear the DataStore folder after installing the new CPU so it could well have dropped then.

 

Don't worry about the WEI score, your computer is running fine (frequently running WEI will show some variance); also vista's WEI score tops out at 5.9 for all scores (I think)

 

OK, understood. Shame about these damned graphics but never mind, I'm happy with the way it's running.

Many thanks