Copying a hard drive.

[Repulse]

Okay so im in a lazy mood at the moment and cant be bothered to go search google for answers :-P.

A few weeks back my systems psu decided to go bust, i got a new one and replaced it, no components seemed damaged except the hard drive that has recently decided to mess me about a little, so i bought a new one of those too.

Im wanting to copy my current hard drive over to the new one including operating system minus an older OS partition. My question to you wonderful people is how would I go about doing this and with what software?

Thanks .

[camper.]

Are they the same capacity? If so add the old hard disk to the PC, and boot using a linux cd, and type:

dd if=/dev/hdX of=/dev/hdY

Where X is the first hdd, and Y is the blank hdd. Verify that you're doing the CORRECT hdd first

[TheHeartSmasher]

That will do it :)
But if you want an even easier way with the ability to do backups, etc. I would recommend getting Acronis True Image Echo Workstation or Acronis True Image Home. If you need more disc control you can purchase Acronis Disc Director Suite 10.

Best thing you can purchase for yourself to keep good backups, etc.

[Vreki]

I bought Norton Ghost 9.0 for just that purpose.
Worked like a charm, and the ability to work with disk images is a great benefit too. Combine it with a separate partition for your games, and you can clean your windows completely in a matter of minutes.

[TheHeartSmasher]

Only problem with Norton Ghost is over time you will end up with this. I used to use hundreds of times at a previous job I had a long time ago and does some serious damage to the drive overtime. As Acronis is gentle, faster and more reliable over time.

[Vreki]

Only problem with Norton Ghost is over time you will end up with this. I used to use hundreds of times at a previous job I had a long time ago and does some serious damage to the drive overtime. As Acronis is gentle, faster and more reliable over time.

I must admit that I haven't done it a hundred times.
But there was no hammer included in the package

[Stormy{CAN}]

Great suggestions by one and all, too bad they all cost $$. How about this, if the new drive is either a WD or Seagate, both have the necessary tools available for download free that will do exactly what you want to do.

In Seagate's case it is DiskWizard and WD it is data Life Guard tools.

[TheHeartSmasher]

Yep the tools provided work along with the linux trick. The hammer is what we used when the drive was completely unusable even after hundreds of ghost sessions and then running spinrite.

I enjoy the linux trick it just feels so advanced.

[AllFoamNoBeer]

Why not try a RAID? And let the drives do their work?

[Warhawk]

Why not try a RAID? And let the drives do their work?

Thats what I was thinking. Maybe if you set it up in Raid 1 it will just start to mirror the other drive. Only problem I can see is that sometimes Raid needs to be enabled from the very beginning when both drives were clean.

[AllFoamNoBeer]

Thats what I was thinking. Maybe if you set it up in Raid 1 it will just start to mirror the other drive. Only problem I can see is that sometimes Raid needs to be enabled from the very beginning when both drives were clean.

That could be the issue, because you don't want the empty HD to clean up the used one. That would be painful.:dead:

Eitherways, I don't know how RAID works, but I am pretty sure it is a feasible method.

[Repulse]

Thanks all, shall give some of those a try :).

[Repulse]

Excuse the double post.

Acronis True Image Home worked a treat, only took about an hour and a half to copy 300gb worth of hard drive over to the new one!

:)

[TheHeartSmasher]

Acronis also makes copying data from one workstation to another server/workstation an easy task that's not only fast but reliable.

RAID 1 is ok but it's not what you would use to do a good copy of data to another drive after you have everything setup and running, only good for a fresh setup at times. Also keep a backup on tape or external USB drive (unplug when your not using.) so if your system decides to write a bad sector your raid configuration won't be that much of a loss. Expecially the unwanted message of "RAID ARRAY HAS BEEN LOST!!!", which means you have to rebuild or start fresh.