hard drive cloning software options for dual boot

I have a 120gb 5400rpm hard drive that I would like to replace with a larger 7200rpm hard drive, however I don't know which software I should use to clone the entire drive. I am currently using a dual boot set up with Vista Premium 32-bit and XP Pro 32-bit. I have used Ghost many times with XP, but I have never cloned a Vista drive, let alone one set up for dual boot. Since the laptop came installed with Vista there is a also a hidden partition. My old copy of Ghost won't work on Vista.

What do you guys recommend that I use to clone the whole dive intact?

I have been reading that this may not be possible, so if the above does not work what should I do to clone the drive partition by partition?

I want to keep everything as-is just clone to a larger and faster hard drive, so I am open to any procedure and buying new software. I would like to use the simplest solution, but if that's not possible anything will do.

 

Check out Drive Snapshot http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/

 

acronis true image
http://www.acronis.com/promo/ATIH/t...oogle&ad=ati&gclid=CJON3cKltJgCFRwDagodGQTMUg

drive snapshot only creates images which are not bootable and used for backup and restores. you need to do a bit for bit exact clone of one drive to the other which is what acronis will do

 

You can use Clonezilla here http://clonezilla.org/

 

I have looked at Clonezilla before, but will there be a problem keeping my dual boot setup intact? Same question for the Acronis software.

If there is some difficulty in maintaining the dual boot on the cloned drive, how do I resolve it?

Thanks everyone for the quick responses.

 

Any other suggestions?

 

Windows PE is the way to go, but you need to learn command line. Used it to deploy more than 500 PCs with 15 minutes each.

 

As a previous poster has tried to explain already, Acronis can restore every single active bit on your hard drive, in the exact place within the partition it was in before. After the restore, your computer will act in exactly the same way it did before.

 

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Thanks Pirx and jcovelli for the recommendation, I'll give Acronis a go. I usually don't take a recommendation on a single post. I like to hear that more than one person has tried something successfully before I dive in.

 

Acronis has been proven for me. I am sure that others have her/his own preference. Try everything (if you have time) and determine for yourself.

cheers ...

 

Acronis is very easy to use and I find the UI to be very clean.

Also, if you can't boot into windows, you can boot directly into the Acronis interface and restore from there.

 

acronis definately the way to go will clone entire drive "as is" and put it back on the new drive

 

My vote's for Acronis as well (although I've heard good things for gparted, too; I've just never used it).

 

If I understand correctly Acronis will work well if someone wants to replace a drive with a new one. But can it do the following thing?

I ordered a new laptop and I would like to split it in 2 partitions. One will have Vista (it came preinstalled with) and at the other I would like to put the "image" of my old laptop who runs XP. At the end I would like to be able to dual boot Vista and XP and when I boot with XP I would be able to find all my settings, software etc as it is at my present laptop.

So is this possible? What about driver compatibility and such?
Tnx!

 

Acronis can be used to create two partitions on your hdd; basically, you take some of the free space on the existing partition and split it off as a new partition.

Drivers and whatnot are your responsibility, not Acronis' - they should be on the installation disk, or can be downloaded from the manufacturer's website; however, depending on the make and model, you may have to hunt quite a bit for some of them.

 

acronis true image is the "one" !!!!


their "disk director suite" is also an excellent program for partition a hard drive, etc.

 

Tnx! (ten chars)

 

I'd like to hear how Acronis worked out for you. I am also trying to clone a drive using a laptop but after a previous disaster with Acronis (likely my mistake) I am taking it very slowly.

I have a DELL XLS laptop and am attaching a 2.5" drive in a USB enclosure. My understanding is that you cannot clone to an external drive and make it bootable. Is it safe to take out the source internal drive and put that in the USB enclosure, then put the target drive in the laptop and clone to that ? Will the source drive remain bootable ? Will the target drive then be bootable ?

 

I've actually managed to clone several drives to external drives and had the resulting clone be bootable; if you're using a utility that does a sector-by-sector clone, I can't see why it wouldn't be bootable, other than through an error or mistake, or possibly bad sectors in the boot area of the drive being cloned.

FWIW, I did that cloning with Acronis. I've also recently been playing around with the Partition Master 3.0 software from EASEUS (the personal use license is free, which is a really great touch on EASEUS' end). This app includes disk copying.

I've been reasonably impressed with this software, although it did muff up a rather complicated partition swap-around I did that involved a hidden Acronis recovery partition; however, I was able to repair the problem quite easily using EASEUS' Partition Table Doctor ('though I did have to pay for a license on that one - perhaps it was a conspiracy to cause problems with the free app that would force me to buy a license for the non-free app?? ). All in all, I've found EASEUS' product to be as useful as Acronis'.

 

I have done that with my present setup twice. I was using Spotmau Power Suite to do this. It is better than other cloning apps. My vote Spotmau...

Cheers...

 

The big thing you need to be careful about with cloning one drive to another is the hidden partitions. Often times (at least on Sony machines) these partitions don't start on a "normal boundary". I found that out the hard way, when trying to swap the contents of two drives via an external drive. I copied the hidden partitions and regular partitions of each drive to a large hard drive and then diligently copied one drives content back to the opposite drive. I then tested the built in F10 booting from the hidden partition, but it would not boot.

Hmmm. On went the proverbial thinking cap. Why would this not work. The clone reported no errors at all. I then put the original drive back in (I was cautious enough to NOT overwrite BOTH drives. Been there done that, got the tire tracks on my back...) I then booted up good old BootIT NG and poked around at the partition tables noting the geometry of the hidden partition. I noticed that the partition didn't actually start at the first spot on the drive where I would have expected it. I put in my newly cloned drive and sure enough it DID start at what should be the typical first spot on the drive. Long story shortened, I used a Sony recovery DVD to recreate the hidden partition and voilà it was on the correct boundary. (Well correct for the BIOS F10 trick anyway). Then recopied the other partition form the big external drive. I did the same to complete the swap to the second drive and all was well.

My point here is if you truly are trying to clone the drive and the drive has a "hidden recovery partition", clone the drive... not the partitions. Had I done that in the first place the hidden partition would have started on the proper boundary, because cloning the drive just does a complete sector by sector copy of the drive. A clone of a partition also does a sector by sector copy of the partition, but it does NOT allow for control of the precise placement of the partition on the target drive.

This is also why some folks have had unbootable machines when they move the boot partition on a machine. The boot loader is looking for the partition at a particular spot and if it isn't there it won't boot. That, of course, can be easily fixed with a simple repair. However the same is NOT true with hidden partitions as the boot loader for them is in firmware in the BIOS. The only recourse for an unbootable HIDDEN partition due to a move, is to move it back to where the BIOS expects it.

Gary

 

I haven't bought Acronis yet, but from what everyone has said it does have the ability to clone the entire drive. Any step by step instructions to do this with Acronis, moving from a smaller harddrive to a larger one?

 

Not wanting to hijack the thread, but I have need for a similar function. I bought a new Dell 1737 with 250gb hard drive and Vista. One of my software packages won't run on Vista, so I'd like to have a dual boot with XP. There is plenty of free space on the drive (its a new machine!).

Can I partition off unused space with Acronis or Partition Magic?
Can I then install XP on that partition?
How do I then set up the dual boot thing, as opposed to just having another partition?
I assume I will be able to access files on either partition?

 

As someone will likely say "search is your friend". I found the instructions to shrink the Vista partition, and set up dual boot. Don't need any more tools.