Can I clone the disk on my laptop so I have two identical bootable disks?

Avoriaz

Hi, I want to clone my laptop disk so I can quickly and easily switch between disks.

I have a four year old Dell laptop with an 80gb drive. I never bothered reinstalling XP in those four years so it has all got a bit slow and clunky.

I have finally got around to installing XP and all my applications from scratch onto a second 80gb drive. I kept the original drive intact in case I screwed up. However everything went well and the new drive is working fine and most things are working faster. I've copied all my data files to the new drive too.

I plan to use the original 80gb drive for backups, but it would be nice to keep it as a mirror image of the new drive so that I can revert to it if the new drive ever fails or has a problem.

I don’t want to have to go through the rather lengthy and tedious installation and tailoring process again.

What is the best way to clone the disk so that each is identical?

Also, what is the best way to keep them in sync so that every time I do a backup, the reserve disk is identical to the disk in use?

I assume that just copying the full contents from one to the other won’t work even if I select all the system and hidden files.

A few weeks ago I used Copy+ to clone the disk in my Sky+ box.

I need something similar for my laptop disk.

The disks are not in use at the same time. The laptop has only one drive bay. The disks are in a caddy that slots into the bay on the side of the laptop. It only takes a few minutes to power off, swap the drives and reboot.

Thanks

buglawton

Acronis TrueImage 8.0 I think might do the job, I recently took one off an old magazine cover disk. When I tried to enable the free license the original offer was gone...so I found another online.

This link
http://www.megaleecher.net/Acronis_True_Image_Serial
should give you all you need; burn a bootable CD with it for rescue and install purposes. Not Vista compatible I would guess.

[Deleted User]

What brands are the hard drives? The manufacturers usually have programs you can download to mirror one disk to another available for free..

sysadmin

Hi, First post here, long time lurker.

unfortunately what you want to do wont work with only 1 drive bay. You will need to buy a USB drive caddy for your second drive so that you can have both in use at the same time.

The software the poster above mentioned will clone one hard drive to the other but both must be accessible to the laptop at the same time.

Another note, there are free alternatives, just google free imaging software, as the link the previous poster has linked too is actually illegal, as it breaks copyright.

buglawton

The link breaks copyright... how?

weegie.geek

buglawton wrote: »

The link breaks copyright... how?

The page the link links to doesn't, it simply tells you how to get a legit free license through a deal with PC Pro, but the deal's expired now so it's a bit pointless.

The site itself does link to a lot of stuff that DOES break copyright. Even on the site itself there are direct links to warez on rapidshare, torrents and the like.

Avoriaz

buglawton wrote: »

Acronis TrueImage 8.0 I think might do the job, I recently took one off an old magazine cover disk. When I tried to enable the free license the original offer was gone...so I found another online.

This link
http://www.megaleecher.net/Acronis_True_Image_Serial
should give you all you need; burn a bootable CD with it for rescue and install purposes. Not Vista compatible I would guess.

Thanks.

I will have a look at that.

Don't shop me to the Police please.

Avoriaz

be_alright wrote: »

What brands are the hard drives? The manufacturers usually have programs you can download to mirror one disk to another available for free..

Thanks for the suggestion.

I will check that out.

Avoriaz

sysadmin wrote: »

..unfortunately what you want to do wont work with only 1 drive bay. You will need to buy a USB drive caddy for your second drive so that you can have both in use at the same time.

The software the poster above mentioned will clone one hard drive to the other but both must be accessible to the laptop at the same time.

Another note, there are free alternatives, just google free imaging software, as the link the previous poster has linked too is actually illegal, as it breaks copyright.

Thanks for that.

I already have the USB caddy so there is no problem there.

buglawton

Yup, seems I was lucky, just when I needed a copy of Acronis the free license was still open, now gone.