clone drive

[Al Pollock]

When using a manufactures hard drive utility to clone a drive does the new drive have to be the same manufacture

[MaxRat]

you have to use the utlity of the new drive....or other freeware...you can do a search here on the recomended..

EDIT: Acronis true image is mentioed alot around here....

[glc]

I believe you can use the utility from either the old drive or the new drive.

[Al Pollock]

Had a maxtor 160 gig HD(XP) ....wanted to clone it to Western Digital 160 gig.........used the maxtor utilities ....went through the whole process said it was coping watched it copy (took some time) when it finished I couldn't boot from the WD and it looked like it copied itself on to the Maxtor....went to use the maxtor utilities again just to check and just see what would occur if I formated it said there was a operating system on the drive ...

[alfie2]

hd not bootable?
read this:
http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=145660&highlight=making+cloned+hd+bootable

[Al Pollock]

Alfie ,I found that whole link just a bit confusing with the drive letters etc...I was under the impression that you could just clone a hard drive and it coppied everything and once you made it the master it would boot .....Guess not

[glc]

Al, when you clone a drive you have to remove the old drive after cloning and prior to booting to the new drive for the first time. You also need to clone it using the DOS bootable (floppy or CD) utility, not the Windows utility.

[Al Pollock]

Thanks GLC but I am not quite sure what you are saying........after I clone the hard drive I remove the original setup the clone as the master then I'm cloning the new "C" or master drive????? with a start up floppy???

Ouch ! my brain hurts I think I sprained it.........
:confused:

[Al Pollock]

:D Sorry about that glc now I understand what you are saying ....I think ...Your suppose to make the floppy from the cd then use that software to do the clone ....Yes?????

[glc]

http://websupport.wdc.com/rd.asp?p=sw23&t=120&lang=en&s=http://support.wdc.com/download/dlg/dlg11_dos.exe

Download and run it. It will make a boot floppy. Boot with it and do a drive to drive copy - Maxtor to WD. Shut down, disconnect the Maxtor, and set the new WD to primary master. Boot it into Windows.

[MaxRat]

Basically what he's saying is....

You download the appropriate tool to clone the drive....The tool has an option to make a boot floppy or boot cd....You make this....

restart the pc and boot to the floppy or cd (whichever you made) clone the drive in dos mode (before windows boots)

After the drive you wish to use is successully cloned you shut down the pc....remove the old drive completely...jumper the new drive as master and reboot....if done right it will configure and boot no problems....

EDIT: Argh...he beat me to the punch....;)

[Al Pollock]

Thanks guys :D

[jfk]

Do you need to format the new drive BEFORE you set it up to clone, or is formatting done during the cloning process? Sorry, not trying to hijack the thread, but I'm getting ready to do this as well. Thanks.

[MaxRat]

I think the utility will format and clone all at once... it's pretty simple and straight forward if done by the steps...

[Al Pollock]

What about partion:)

[jfk]

Thanks Max, that's what I needed to know.

[Al Pollock]

I know the utility will format but the only way that I know of to partion is using the overlay (CD that comes with HD) or the bootable floppy you make from the manufacture

[glc]

I don't know about partitioning with the WD software, but I do know with 3rd party cloning apps, you can create and resize partitions as desired as part of the cloning process. It's been a while since I've used any maufacturer's setup software - I use a rebranded version of Acronis True Image (came with my Apricorn external drive housing) to do my drive cloning and it has an advanced setup.

[Louds3]

would it be possible to boot the new drive with an XP CD, have it set up the correct size system partition you want and then do the clone to that partition, or does the partition size transfer over as a part of the clone?

steve

[glc]

It depends on the cloning software you use. Check advanced options, you should be able to set the partition size as part of the operation.

[Louds3]

just for the record, I used WD's Data Lifeguard cloning tools and there was an option to select partition size if you go into advanced options. I believe this option only came up because the software detected that it was a totally new/blank drive.

steve

[Louds3]

I believe this option only came up because the software detected that it was a totally new/blank drive.

steve

as it turns out I did it again and it wasn'[t a blank drive and the option was still there.

steve

[gsiplaj]

i have cloned my fair share of drives in my career as a technician. here are my best thoughts for you.

WD or Western Digital software will only clone a old harddrive,(it doesn't care what brand)to a new Western Digital Drive.
unless you can find an older version of the software .
with version 6 you could clone any drive to any brand of drive but that would only work for upto 30 gig drives. now after version 6 they are propreitary(i think i spelled that correctly)

now most other drive manufaturers have also become propreitary, they will only let you clone another drive to thier target drive.

now you can use PARTITION IT 8 which i use especially since it handles drive cloning, drive segments, partions , and ntfs file systems.

NOW FOR YOUR HOMEWORK

YOU HAVE TO WRITE BACK ON HERE WHEN SOMEBODY TRIES TO CLONE A XP OPERATING SYSTEM AND EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN TELLS YOU IT COPIED, BUT IT WON'T BOOT.
YOU'LL EVEN BE ABLE TO BOOT ON THE OLD DRIVE AND SEARCH THE NEW DRIVE UNDER MY COMPUTER, BUT IT WON'T BOOT ON ITS OWN.
WHEN YOU'VE HAD ENOUGH AND YOUVE TRIED TO FIX IT.
LET ME KNOW AND I WILL FILL YOU IN, IT TOOK ME THREE DAYS TO FIGURE OUT WHY IT WON'T BOOT, AND HOW YOU CAN CLONE TO MAKE IT BOOT.
GOOD LUCK AND HAVE FUN

[glc]

How about filling us in now - and not in all caps? Thank you!

By the way, I now use Acronis to do all my cloning, but it's not free. The manufacturers' utilities are free, and do have some limitations. It's these limitations we need to be aware of here to be able to help people. I can understand that now you must use the utility for the target drive, it makes sense. I do remember in the "old days" WD's utility would clone anything to anything as long as there was at least one WD drive in the computer - I used to cheat when I was using WD's utility and temporarily slave an old WD drive in just so it would be seen - even if I were cloning a Maxtor to a Seagate, for example.