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Cloning a drive

Discussion in 'Computers & Technology Forum' started by exscentric, Dec 7, 2006.

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  1. exscentric

    exscentric Well-Known Member
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    Does anyone know how to clone a hard drive, system and all? Without software, or free software?
     
    #1 exscentric, Dec 7, 2006
  2. Magnetic Poles

    Magnetic Poles New Member

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    I think you could probably use a live Linux CD and use the "dd" command from a command prompt.
     
    #2 Magnetic Poles, Dec 7, 2006
  3. LeBuick

    LeBuick New Member

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    Look for a program called ghost...

    However, if you can put both drives together you can just copy all the files, one that is done you just make the one you copied to bootable.
     
    #3 LeBuick, Dec 7, 2006
  4. ccrobinson

    ccrobinson Active Member

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    In a former job, I used Ghost all the time and I've used it to clone the boot partition of my laptop. Are you looking to make a backup with Ghost?
     
    #4 ccrobinson, Dec 8, 2006
  5. exscentric

    exscentric Well-Known Member
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    I was going to try ghost but when I set it up to copy it all on a laptop it said it was going to take several days to do it. I wasn't sure it would take the hidden system files with it either.
     
    #5 exscentric, Dec 8, 2006
  6. ccrobinson

    ccrobinson Active Member

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    Ghost will clone both hidden and system files.

    How big is the partition you want to clone? It took about an hour to ghost my laptop's boot partition, which was in the neighborhood of 20GB. The biggest problem I had was copying the ghost files, 8.8 GB total, to my desktop. I think it took a couple of hours to copy those files.
     
    #6 ccrobinson, Dec 8, 2006
  7. David Michael Harris

    David Michael Harris Active Member

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    Just buy a new hard drive and install then boot to your choice.

    Or just back up what is important to you.

    DVD writers are great.

    David
     
    #7 David Michael Harris, Dec 8, 2006
  8. exscentric

    exscentric Well-Known Member
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    The one I tried was about 20 gig of info on a 30 gig drive.

    The one I'm wanting to do now is 200 gig on a 250 drive. It is running quite nicely for a change and I really hate to have to reinstall everything.

    May did ghost out and give it a try on this machine.
     
    #8 exscentric, Dec 8, 2006
  9. Trotter

    Trotter <img src =/6412.jpg>

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    I used Ghost to move everything from my wife's old hard drive (40 gig) to her new hard drive (160 gig). Ghost performed perfectly, and even resized the partition for me.

    Make sure that you tell it to copy the MBR or it won't be bootable.
     
    #9 Trotter, Dec 9, 2006
  10. LeBuick

    LeBuick New Member

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    Thanks guys, I couldn't think of MBR or boot partition. I don't know why ghost would say it will take days except to set an expectation that you won't keep messing with it while it does it's thing.
     
    #10 LeBuick, Dec 9, 2006
  11. El_Guero

    El_Guero New Member

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    You could always add the new big drive and move all your big files over to it . . . keep your bootable partition fairly small for speed.

    ;)
     
    #11 El_Guero, Dec 9, 2006
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