smithyandco Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 Ok... I'm not in need of a guide. Just decent software (Freeware if possible) I'm wanting to make an exact copy of my current hdd (80GB sata) to then move to a new hdd (160GB sata) The plan is to make an image of the current disk and have that image file placed onto my storage HDD, Then write that image to the new HDD from the image on the storage HDD. So...Old HDD->Image file (placed on another HDD)Image file->New HDD Or Exact copy from one HDD to another directly using a boot disk (CD/DVD/USB Only... No floppy disk drive) Old HDD->New HDD Bare in mind both HDDs will be NTFS formatted (which pushes some older software and boot disks out of the question) The result should be a fully functional, bootable windows installation on the new HDD from the old without needing to re-install. Most would suggest a reinstall but I don't want that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 Use an ntfsclone based live boot cd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smithyandco Posted October 9, 2009 Author Share Posted October 9, 2009 Use an ntfsclone based live boot cd.I'll give that a go NTFSClone is capable of Disk->Disk copies?And it copies only used space? So no partition tool required to extend the 160GB HDD to full capacity? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caled Posted October 16, 2009 Share Posted October 16, 2009 DriveImage XML will do what you want Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeeWee Posted October 26, 2009 Share Posted October 26, 2009 DriveImage XML will do what you want Except Vista & win7??? Q. What Operating Systems are supported? A. With the software installed on a PC, supported file systems are Windows XP, Windows Media Center, and Windows Server 2003. However you can create a BartPE CD with our software on it and boot from any of the Windows 9x or Windows 2000 machines and back them up as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gadge Posted October 26, 2009 Share Posted October 26, 2009 The Acronis software is very good. I tend to keep a backup on a hidden partition so that I can just remover quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeeWee Posted October 26, 2009 Share Posted October 26, 2009 The Acronis software is very good. I tend to keep a backup on a hidden partition so that I can just remover quickly. I need to do similar to smithy you see, from 40gig laptop to 160gig new drive for the laptop using an external 160 drive in between to save the image? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caled Posted October 26, 2009 Share Posted October 26, 2009 DriveImage XML will do what you want Except Vista & win7??? Q. What Operating Systems are supported? A. With the software installed on a PC, supported file systems are Windows XP, Windows Media Center, and Windows Server 2003. However you can create a BartPE CD with our software on it and boot from any of the Windows 9x or Windows 2000 machines and back them up as well. I have no idea where you got that from, "DriveImage XML runs under Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Vista and Windows 7 only. The program will backup, image and restore drives formatted with FAT 12, 16, 32 and NTFS." taken from http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeeWee Posted October 26, 2009 Share Posted October 26, 2009 DriveImage XML will do what you want Except Vista & win7??? Q. What Operating Systems are supported? A. With the software installed on a PC, supported file systems are Windows XP, Windows Media Center, and Windows Server 2003. However you can create a BartPE CD with our software on it and boot from any of the Windows 9x or Windows 2000 machines and back them up as well. I have no idea where you got that from, "DriveImage XML runs under Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Vista and Windows 7 only. The program will backup, image and restore drives formatted with FAT 12, 16, 32 and NTFS." taken from http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm From the FAQ's http://www.runtime.org/driveimage_faq.htm#os Maybe its just the free version? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smithyandco Posted October 26, 2009 Author Share Posted October 26, 2009 Using Macrium ReflectUsing the free version. Seems to save the image in the same size as the used space (ie... not 80GB for an 80GB hdd if only 10GB is used... Image size will be 10GB)I'm lead to believe it support writing images to larger hdds than they were created from without having to use a partitioning tool to expand the partition to full hdd capacity... This was the major issue here. I've written the hdd image to file on my storage hdd... now it's time to put it to the test via BartPE, Hirens or NTFS support in a Linux Live setup... (it will help burn the Live CD of choice) Macrium Reflect utilises Microsoft Volume Shadow copy Service (VSS) so it can write a hdd image of the drive you've booted from while in Windows... I'll let you know how I get on Just need to find an hour or so spare to test this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caled Posted October 26, 2009 Share Posted October 26, 2009 DriveImage XML will do what you want Except Vista & win7??? Q. What Operating Systems are supported? A. With the software installed on a PC, supported file systems are Windows XP, Windows Media Center, and Windows Server 2003. However you can create a BartPE CD with our software on it and boot from any of the Windows 9x or Windows 2000 machines and back them up as well. I have no idea where you got that from, "DriveImage XML runs under Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Vista and Windows 7 only. The program will backup, image and restore drives formatted with FAT 12, 16, 32 and NTFS." taken from http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm From the FAQ's http://www.runtime.org/driveimage_faq.htm#os Maybe its just the free version? They probably just didn't update the FAQs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smithyandco Posted October 27, 2009 Author Share Posted October 27, 2009 Well Macrium Reflect worked perfectly...Resized the partition image on the fly and wrote it to the new HDD... Booted with a forced CHKDSK (default option in Macrium) but everything was perfectly fine! New HDD is quicker than the old one... So I've gone from a 80GB to a 160GB... Didn't take long either... 234MB/s adverage transfer speed between the 500gb storage drive (where the image file was placed) and the new 160GB Windows Boot HDD... Had 32.1GB of data to move. Very easy software to use as well! I made a BartPE (PEBuilder) disc to write the image to disk... The Linux option sucks ass... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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