Best way to CLONE "C" drive Windows 7

lew

I wish to clone my c drive to another drive, so that if this one becomes faulty all I have to do is replace it with the cloned one. I would like FREE software and EASY to use please. Many thanks

Toxteth_OGrady

http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/

http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

paddyrg

Casper is also worth a look - or was when I last used it many moons ago now!

Remember you may not be able to image the active drive (ie if you boot from C: you possibly can't create an image of C: as it keeps changing whilst trying to image), so you will boot into some linux live disk to do the cloning.

Also remember a clone is just that - so make sure the replacement drive is the exact same size and frankly I'd go for same make too. Be aware of disc formats too (eg NTFS/FAT32)

Alternatively you could try creating a compressed virtual disk image (VMWare, possibly virtualbox allow this) which is then effectively one huge file representing your hard drive partition.

Hopster_2

Toxteth_OGrady wrote: »

http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/

http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

So who had the worlds stickiest bogey??

Big shout to Easeus, easy as pie to use and has never let me down..

Toxteth_OGrady

paddyrg wrote: »

Remember you may not be able to image the active drive (ie if you boot from C: you possibly can't create an image of C: as it keeps changing whilst trying to image), so you will boot into some linux live disk to do the cloning.

You can create an image of the in-use Windows OS partition if the imaging app makes use of MS' Volume Shadow Service which I believe the 3 programs I listed all do.

Toxteth_OGrady

Hopster wrote: »

So who had the worlds stickiest bogey??

Clearly a rhetorical question but more info in my profile. :rotfl:


"That'll be Toxteth again."

Toxteth_OGrady

Toxteth_OGrady wrote: »

http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/

http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

Also forgot to mention that Windows Backup & Restore in Win 7 will allow you to create a disk image.

LucianH

I found this contained useful info

lew

many thanks to all who replied. I have found my answer and hope to clone successfully.

GunJack

paddyrg wrote: »

Also remember a clone is just that - so make sure the replacement drive is the exact same size and frankly I'd go for same make too.

no, as long as the replacement drive is larger than the used space on the cloned drive, it's fine...e.g if you use 50GB out of 500GB on the drive to be cloned, as long as you reinstate the image onto a 60GB drive, it'll be fine (if slightly crowded )