Hello all I have a failing HDD in an enclosure and I was wondering if there is away I can image it and save the image on my laptop then put a new HDD in enclosure and put image onto it. I know this is not the usual way to do it or if it is even possible. The failing HDD is from my sisters laptop and she does have recovery cds BUT when she got her new HDD in the mail she went to boot to cd and her cd drive failed completely and wont boot to cd. Any help or advice you can give would be greatly appreciated thank you in advance
HDD cloning question
- Thread starter ameservey
- Start date
Yes, imaging software will work.
Imaging software basically creates a file that is an exact copy of your hard drive. You can save the image to any disk, CD, or usb drive. What ever you have available.
When you are ready to image the new hard drive, just point to the new hard drive and copy the image over to it.
There are many imaging softwares out there. I have experience with Clonezilla, but it's for linux and rather complex. I have also used Norton Ghost, but an older version with very good results.
Imaging software basically creates a file that is an exact copy of your hard drive. You can save the image to any disk, CD, or usb drive. What ever you have available.
When you are ready to image the new hard drive, just point to the new hard drive and copy the image over to it.
There are many imaging softwares out there. I have experience with Clonezilla, but it's for linux and rather complex. I have also used Norton Ghost, but an older version with very good results.
nukemaster
Titan
- Nov 23, 2004
- 19,626
- 6
- 74,965
You can image the drive them restore the image you make to a new drive.
If it is a boot drive, you may need to edit the drives BCD(sometimes changing drives messes with windows loading) if it has a system reserved partition(take care to ONLY edit that drives BCD).
EasyBCD can be used to do this. A more extreme option would be to write the BCD entry to the drive it self(on its windows partition). I have tested it and it does work. It even makes the partition active. Again, make sure you select the proper drive or partition.
If it is a boot drive, you may need to edit the drives BCD(sometimes changing drives messes with windows loading) if it has a system reserved partition(take care to ONLY edit that drives BCD).
EasyBCD can be used to do this. A more extreme option would be to write the BCD entry to the drive it self(on its windows partition). I have tested it and it does work. It even makes the partition active. Again, make sure you select the proper drive or partition.
Most cloning software, Clonezilla and Norton's Ghost in my experience, will take care of copying the MBR of the drive. They will copy everything needed from the original drive to make the clone completely bootable.
If done properly, it will be simply copying the old drive image to the new one and that's it. Your system will boot as if nothing has changed.
Basically it is a bit for bit copy. From very first sector to the last.
Michael789
Honorable
- Mar 25, 2013
- 6
- 0
- 10,510
I also think disk clone software could give you a hand:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disk_cloning_software
Or, you may prefer to know more data about disk cloning at first:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_cloning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disk_cloning_software
Or, you may prefer to know more data about disk cloning at first:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_cloning
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