How to create an image of my hard drive?

Langtang

[Deleted User] said:

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.

Thanks for doing that, and for the explanation.

OK, that's drastically different to my scenario. Again from the pamphlet, it says to press the clone button for 5 seconds. Do you think it would trigger another type of function if pressed for more than 3 seconds, or 5 even?

I have some old drives in the cupboard, I think I'll try one of those first, then move onto the harder stuff.

Laz123

I'm sure the other suggestions are of equal value but as I've already mentioned Macrium Reflect is the simplest way of cloning/imaging. Like you I was not au faux with this type of procedure but quickly learned how to do it. Download https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree the Reflect 7 Free version and install. select which drives you want to clone/image. I actually image my drive/s as this has some advantages over cloning. Select the image's destinatiion. An external hdd is best instead of a secondary drive (which I have). As you have several tb it is going to take several hours (as someone mentioned) so you can leave it to work its magic overnight. After selecting next, then next, then finish, make sure you tick the 'save backup and schedules as an XML.

It's also best to create a Windows PE Rescue Environment on a USB stick, cd or dvd if your system fails to boot: http://reflect.macrium.com/help/v5/how_to/rescue/create_a_standard_windows_pe_rescue_environment.htm This has saved my bacon a couple of times after the Windows updates crashed my system.

Come back if there's anything else you need to know.

Good luck.

Langtang

Laz123 said:

I'm sure the other suggestions are of equal value but as I've already mentioned Macrium Reflect is the simplest way of cloning/imaging. Like you I was not au faux with this type of procedure but quickly learned how to do it. Download https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree the Reflect 7 Free version and install. select which drives you want to clone/image. I actually image my drive/s as this has some advantages over cloning.

Thanks, this sounds more do-able.

What's the difference for me between cloning and imaging?

I'm not sure if you read my OP, but I'm trying to clone/image a couple of NAS drives before sending them off to WD to be interrogated and, hopefully, data recovered from them. These are going to be backups, as they're not sending the drives back to me whether they recover the data or not.

I'm also going to try and recover the files myself, if this won't harm the images/clones.

Laz123 said:

Select the image's destinatiion. An external hdd is best instead of a secondary drive (which I have). As you have several tb it is going to take several hours (as someone mentioned) so you can leave it to work its magic overnight. After selecting next, then next, then finish, make sure you tick the 'save backup and schedules as an XML.

OK, all the drives are external, so could I use the double caddy to do this - original drive in one bay, target in the other?

Laz123 said:

It's also best to create a Windows PE Rescue Environment on a USB stick, cd or dvd if your system fails to boot: http://reflect.macrium.com/help/v5/how_to/rescue/create_a_standard_windows_pe_rescue_environment.htm This has saved my bacon a couple of times after the Windows updates crashed my system.

Do I need to do this, as it isn't my Windows disc I am cloning? Is there the likliehood of this programme crashing my system?

Laz123 said:

Come back if there's anything else you need to know.

Great, thanks for that. appreciated.

Laz123 said:

Good luck.

Thanks!

Laz123

Cloning is the one-to-one transfer of the entire contents of a hard drive to another hard drive. ... By contrast, imaging is the process of creating a byte-by-byte archive of the contents of a hard drive as a compressed (albeit still very large) file and placing it on another drive.
Cloning is great for fast recovery, but imaging gives you a lot more backup options. Taking an incremental backup snapshot gives you the option to save multiple images without taking up a lot more space. This can be helpful if you download a virus and need to roll back to an earlier disk image.

OK, all the drives are external, so could I use the double caddy to do this - original drive in one bay, target in the other?

I can't see any reason why you shouldn't do this.

Do I need to do this, as it isn't my Windows disc I am cloning? Is there the likliehood of this programme crashing my system?

This is used only when a Windows system won't boot up. It's a well respected program but like all things computer there's always a buggeration factor cropping up. There's no guarantees on my recommendations so it's up to you if you want to take the plunge. It might be worth doing further research. Google is your friend as they say.

CoastingHatbox

Langtang said:

Deleted_User said:

So you will need to buy 2x 3TB internal drives to do a proper recovery:

Just purchased 2 x 4Tb ironwolf drives from ebuyer. Arrive Monday. I'll let you know when I'm ready for your next installment ;-)

Hangabout. Which Ironwolf drives did you get? Need the exact model number.
Hopefully they are not SMR (shingled magnetic storage). But it might explain your cloning issues.

Ironwolf NAS drives, AFAIK are not SMR (the term CMR has been coined, for conventional magnetic storage)

This reddit comment highlights how confusing the situation is:
https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/ewwkll/are_the_seagate_ironwolf_nas_drives_pmr_or_smr_im/fmqweo6/

But in short, SMR bad (as in very slow) for things like disk cloning. Hopefully you haven't bought SMR drives.

[Deleted User]

CoastingHatbox said:

Langtang said:

Deleted_User said:

So you will need to buy 2x 3TB internal drives to do a proper recovery:

Just purchased 2 x 4Tb ironwolf drives from ebuyer. Arrive Monday. I'll let you know when I'm ready for your next installment ;-)

Hangabout. Which Ironwolf drives did you get? Need the exact model number.
Hopefully they are not SMR (shingled magnetic storage). But it might explain your cloning issues.

Ironwolf NAS drives, AFAIK are not SMR (the term CMR has been coined, for conventional magnetic storage)

This reddit comment highlights how confusing the situation is:
https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/ewwkll/are_the_seagate_ironwolf_nas_drives_pmr_or_smr_im/fmqweo6/

But in short, SMR bad (as in very slow) for things like disk cloning. Hopefully you haven't bought SMR drives.

Yes, Ironwolfs are all CMR type drives:

https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/internal-hard-drives/cmr-smr-list/

SMR isn't inherently bad when used for the correct purposes and certainly not an issue with sequential writes used on cloning, the problem occurs with modifying existing blocks of data that require a whole block (eg 256MB) to be re-written. Akin to write amplification in SSD's.

I've got 4x4TB WD Red SMR drives in my NAS because my data is rarely modified, written once, read many (WORM) and they are a good budget NAS drive for this purpose and lower energy consumption.

The WD Reds I use are "hybrid" drives with a several gigabytes of CMR tracks that are used for buffering before modifying the data on SMR tracks if needed and have a large RAM cache.

Performance wise they can max out the dual gigabit ethernet connection on both sustained reads and writes so they aren't slow by any means.

Langtang

CoastingHatbox said:

Langtang said:

Deleted_User said:

So you will need to buy 2x 3TB internal drives to do a proper recovery:

Just purchased 2 x 4Tb ironwolf drives from ebuyer. Arrive Monday. I'll let you know when I'm ready for your next installment ;-)

Hangabout. Which Ironwolf drives did you get? Need the exact model number.

ST4000VN008 

Langtang

[Deleted User] said:

CoastingHatbox said:

Langtang said:

[Deleted User] said:

So you will need to buy 2x 3TB internal drives to do a proper recovery:

Just purchased 2 x 4Tb ironwolf drives from ebuyer. Arrive Monday. I'll let you know when I'm ready for your next installment ;-)

Hangabout. Which Ironwolf drives did you get? Need the exact model number.
Hopefully they are not SMR (shingled magnetic storage). But it might explain your cloning issues.

Ironwolf NAS drives, AFAIK are not SMR (the term CMR has been coined, for conventional magnetic storage)

This reddit comment highlights how confusing the situation is:
https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/ewwkll/are_the_seagate_ironwolf_nas_drives_pmr_or_smr_im/fmqweo6/

But in short, SMR bad (as in very slow) for things like disk cloning. Hopefully you haven't bought SMR drives.

Yes, Ironwolfs are all CMR type drives:

Phew......

Langtang

Laz123 said:

I'm sure the other suggestions are of equal value but as I've already mentioned Macrium Reflect is the simplest way of cloning/imaging. Like you I was not au faux with this type of procedure but quickly learned how to do it. Download https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree the Reflect 7 Free version and install. select which drives you want to clone/image.

Come back if there's anything else you need to know.

Good luck.

Thanks for the recommendation. Downloaded the prog. It’s pretty straightforward. Managed to clone the first disc. The 2nd one wouldn’t clone to the blank drive I had - I think that’s due to the formatting issues I’ve had with this drive. I’ve got another drive arriving today. We’ll see how we get on with it. 

Langtang

[Deleted User] said:

When you get to recovery stage, come back here for some more advice. They are Linux formatted drives so you will need a bit of technical know-how but I guess you will only do that if WD don't manage to recover anything. 

I’ve managed to clone drive A from the NAS using the macrium prog that was recommended. 

I was actually going to try and recover the files myself, regardless of sending the drives back. 

What do I do now?