How to create an image of my hard drive?

[Deleted User]

I've only ever done a 500GB drive in that device. and that took about an hour or so.

The larger drive won't matter, it will be happy cloning a smaller drive on to a larger one.

I'd go with the option somebody mentioned above about using Clonezilla instead connected to a PC, you haven't wasted anything buying the double dock because you can use Clonezilla instead to image from drive 1 to drive 2.

Langtang

[Deleted User] said:

I've only ever done a 500GB drive in that device. and that took about an hour or so.

The larger drive won't matter, it will be happy cloning a smaller drive on to a larger one.

I'd go with the option somebody mentioned above about using Clonezilla instead connected to a PC, you haven't wasted anything buying the double dock because you can use Clonezilla instead to image from drive 1 to drive 2.

OK, I've come upon a problem - possibly self-inflicted. I tried to clone drive A, but it seemed to be taking forever without a change to the lighting system on the docking station. 36 hours later, I aborted the cloning process.

I hadn't formatted the drive before starting the cloning process and, as a result, now it will not format! Any ideas on a way forward with this?

I checked out clonezilla, and it seems complex on how to use the programme, and which way to use it - HDD, USB or CD!. I'm not sure I'm up to that. The destructions seem to have been written by a non-English speaker. Either that, or I am really thick.

Laz123

[Deleted User] said:

Laz123 said:

What I do which may help you in the future is I use Macrium Relect which is a free image/cloning program. It's a great bit of kit and has got me out of the mire a few times. I image my 'c' drive once a week and keep it on an external hdd. If I can't boot for any reason I reinstall the backup.

Do you keep multiple versions of this image or just the current one?

The reason I ask is that I wouldn't consider a drive image to be a backup. If you have deleted a file or a file has become corrupted and you haven't yet realised when you take the image of you c drive then you will then over-write the backup copy.

Worst case some ransomware encrypts your data files in the background without you noticing and then you make a copy of the ransomed files to backup.

I back up 'c' drive (an ssd 128gb) once a week onto an external drive 'f' (2tb) but before doing so I copy any vital files onto dive 'd' (an internal 1tb hdd). I do keep several backups and as the dive 'f' fills up I delete the oldest ones. This is handy in case, in the very unlikely event of being hit by ransomware, I can quickly recover. I also run several scans weekly which would pick up any lurking nasties like ransomware.

[Deleted User]

Langtang said:

Deleted_User said:

I've only ever done a 500GB drive in that device. and that took about an hour or so.

The larger drive won't matter, it will be happy cloning a smaller drive on to a larger one.

I'd go with the option somebody mentioned above about using Clonezilla instead connected to a PC, you haven't wasted anything buying the double dock because you can use Clonezilla instead to image from drive 1 to drive 2.

OK, I've come upon a problem - possibly self-inflicted. I tried to clone drive A, but it seemed to be taking forever without a change to the lighting system on the docking station. 36 hours later, I aborted the cloning process.

I hadn't formatted the drive before starting the cloning process and, as a result, now it will not format! Any ideas on a way forward with this?

I checked out clonezilla, and it seems complex on how to use the programme, and which way to use it - HDD, USB or CD!. I'm not sure I'm up to that. The destructions seem to have been written by a non-English speaker. Either that, or I am really thick.

You've not done anything wrong - you don't need to format a drive before the cloning process.

I'm sorry my suggested solution in the dock didn't clone as expected, I can only go off my own experience where this has worked several times with different drive sizes and types and in fairness is so easy if it works that it was the best starting point. Also the dual dock can still be used for other cloning methods so not wasted.

Maybe worth one more try? Can you confirm you did not have the dock plugged into your computer when trying the clone? It will only clone via the button if it is not connected to a PC.

There are some other suggested applications above that might help with the clone process such as Acronis True image that might be easier to use and I'm sure @Laz123 can help you with that?

As an aside, if you want to format the new drive for use with Windows, then you need to use Disk Management to create a partition before you can format it - just make sure your original WD drives are all unplugged before doing anything like that so you don't accidently format them.

I can talk you through that, but for now you don't need to format the new disks if your mission is just cloning.

CoastingHatbox

Cloning disks.
The Linux `dd` command is my preferred tool for this.

1. Boot Linux
2. Open a terminal
3. `ls -l /dev/disk/by-id | grep -v wwn | grep -v part` and use the results to work out what disk I'm cloning where

Example output:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Aug 26 22:05 ata-Samsung_SSD_860_EVO_250GB_S3YJNF0K262671L -> ../../sda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Aug 26 22:05 ata-Samsung_SSD_860_EVO_250GB_S3YJNX0K518290K -> ../../sdb
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Aug 26 22:05 ata-TOSHIBA_DT01ACA300_Z3FHG9SGS -> ../../sde
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Aug 26 22:05 ata-TOSHIBA_DT01ACA300_Z3FHGA0GS -> ../../sdf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Aug 26 22:05 ata-WDC_WD40EFRX-68N32N0_WD-WCC7K0PP3J31 -> ../../sdd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Aug 26 22:05 ata-WDC_WD40EFRX-68N32N0_WD-WCC7K0VPA9V9 -> ../../sdc

4. So if I want to clone the Western Digital disk with serial number WCC7K0PP3J31 to disk WCC7K0VPA9V9, I would do:

`sudo dd if=/dev/sdd of=/dev/sdc bs=1M` and wait.

As a side note, I've partitioned/formatted disks for some operating systems (usually BSD) and found Windows machines unable to partition/format them. My work around is to jam the drive into a Linux machine and run:

`sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc count=100M bs=1M` which zeroes out the first 100 Megabytes of the disk, essentially destroying any old partition tables.

Langtang

[Deleted User] said:

You've not done anything wrong - you don't need to format a drive before the cloning process.

I'm sorry my suggested solution in the dock didn't clone as expected, I can only go off my own experience where this has worked several times with different drive sizes and types and in fairness is so easy if it works that it was the best starting point. Also the dual dock can still be used for other cloning methods so not wasted.

I don't think it was that it didn't work, it was maybe just that I got anxious when none of the lights on the caddy went out - signifying how far along the process you are.

When all lights were still flashing after 30+ hours, I decided to abandon (by this time I'd realised that I'd not formatted the drive first) When I looked at the drive in Disc management, I noticed that 1.62Tb had been used on the drive, so the process must have been working after all!

When I now try and format the disc, it says that it can't complete the task. I've tried quick format & full format. Nada. I've now got a drive I can't use.

[Deleted User] said:

Maybe worth one more try? Can you confirm you did not have the dock plugged into your computer when trying the clone? It will only clone via the button if it is not connected to a PC.

I didn't have the dock plugged in to the PC. According to the pamphlet, all the blue lights should be flashing. As each third of the clone is completed, one blue light goes solid. This didn't happen.

[Deleted User] said:

As an aside, if you want to format the new drive for use with Windows, then you need to use Disk Management to create a partition before you can format it - just make sure your original WD drives are all unplugged before doing anything like that so you don't accidently format them.

OK, well I've formatted one of them, the other would appear to be borked now.

Can I still clone one of the disks on the formatted drive?

Langtang

CoastingHatbox said:

Cloning disks.
The Linux `dd` command is my preferred tool for this.

1. Boot Linux
2. Open a terminal
3. `ls -l /dev/disk/by-id | grep -v wwn | grep -v part` and use the results to work out what disk I'm cloning where

Example output:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Aug 26 22:05 ata-Samsung_SSD_860_EVO_250GB_S3YJNF0K262671L -> ../../sda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Aug 26 22:05 ata-Samsung_SSD_860_EVO_250GB_S3YJNX0K518290K -> ../../sdb
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Aug 26 22:05 ata-TOSHIBA_DT01ACA300_Z3FHG9SGS -> ../../sde
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Aug 26 22:05 ata-TOSHIBA_DT01ACA300_Z3FHGA0GS -> ../../sdf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Aug 26 22:05 ata-WDC_WD40EFRX-68N32N0_WD-WCC7K0PP3J31 -> ../../sdd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Aug 26 22:05 ata-WDC_WD40EFRX-68N32N0_WD-WCC7K0VPA9V9 -> ../../sdc

4. So if I want to clone the Western Digital disk with serial number WCC7K0PP3J31 to disk WCC7K0VPA9V9, I would do:

`sudo dd if=/dev/sdd of=/dev/sdc bs=1M` and wait.

As a side note, I've partitioned/formatted disks for some operating systems (usually BSD) and found Windows machines unable to partition/format them. My work around is to jam the drive into a Linux machine and run:

`sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc count=100M bs=1M` which zeroes out the first 100 Megabytes of the disk, essentially destroying any old partition tables.

Thanks for the info. I'm afraid that all the info coasted above my hat...... Never used linux in any machine, wouldn't know where to start. Although, my hunch was that Window$ couldn't format it because the clone - or part clone - was in a linux format, as I think @Tallmansix alluded to.

[Deleted User]

Langtang said:

OK, well I've formatted one of them, the other would appear to be borked now.

Can I still clone one of the disks on the formatted drive?

Yes, the clone process totally ignores the disk format and writes at a low level replicating the exact structure of the original disk so it will work regardless of whether the disk is formatted or not.

Really puzzling why you haven't seen the progress lights after 1.6 TB and why it is taking such a long time though but kind of good that it did appear to have worked to some extent, however the 1.6TB in disk management could be misleading because it only reads the partition information at the start of the disk to see how much is allocated and that might be the only bit that had cloned so far - really hard to tell.

Don't worry about the "borked" drive, all is not lost, many ways to get that reformatted but we can tackle that later, however that disk is still good to be used for cloning same as the formatted one.

Langtang

[Deleted User] said:

Langtang said:

OK, well I've formatted one of them, the other would appear to be borked now.

Can I still clone one of the disks on the formatted drive?

Yes, the clone process totally ignores the disk format and writes at a low level replicating the exact structure of the original disk so it will work regardless of whether the disk is formatted or not.

Excellent, I'll sort that out at the weekend.

[Deleted User] said:

Langtang said:

OK, well I've formatted one of them, the other would appear to be borked now.

Can I still clone one of the disks on the formatted drive?

Really puzzling why you haven't seen the progress lights after 1.6 TB and why it is taking such a long time though but kind of good that it did appear to have worked to some extent, however the 1.6TB in disk management could be misleading because it only reads the partition information at the start of the disk to see how much is allocated and that might be the only bit that had cloned so far - really hard to tell.

Yes, it seemed strange to me. I'm not sure if I read the pamphlet correctly though, it was in some kind of English. All 3 blue lights were constantly flashing (1 third, 2 thirds & completed) throughout the process.

Am I correct in thinking that one light should go solid and stop flashing for every third that has been completed? As I say, the instructions are not that clear?

I think it had started to work, I'd just assumed something was wrong when the lights were all still on.

[Deleted User] said:

Langtang said:

OK, well I've formatted one of them, the other would appear to be borked now.

Can I still clone one of the disks on the formatted drive?

Don't worry about the "borked" drive, all is not lost, many ways to get that reformatted but we can tackle that later, however that disk is still good to be used for cloning same as the formatted one.

Great, thanks. I'd hate to waste a perfectly good, brand new, drive. Think I will use it for disk B, and the formatted one for disk A.

[Deleted User]

Langtang said:

Yes, it seemed strange to me. I'm not sure if I read the pamphlet correctly though, it was in some kind of English. All 3 blue lights were constantly flashing (1 third, 2 thirds & completed) throughout the process.

Am I correct in thinking that one light should go solid and stop flashing for every third that has been completed? As I say, the instructions are not that clear?

I think it had started to work, I'd just assumed something was wrong when the lights were all still on.

So I've just done a test clone on mine with a small disk to confirm the process

1. Press clone button for 3 seconds
2. Starts with 1st of the 3 lights flashing all other lights off
3. Progresses to 1st steady and then number 2 flashing, 3 still off
4. Then 1st and 2nd are steady lights and 3rd one flashing
5. When all completed, all 3 lights are steady.

Took 15 mins to clone a 120GB SSD to a 500GB HDD so scaling that up I'd say for your 3TB drive about 8 hours.