2nd Internal Hard Drive - Clone to New Drive - Use Old Drive as Backup

Hey there, wickland!

You should keep in mind that two drives working in one computer system is not a backup solution! I mean what happens if your laptop dies? What you are planning to do will not protect you from data loss.
You don't really need a clone of your OS on the other internal hard drive. What you can do instead is: have an external backup storage device and use a backup software. There are software tools that will provide you with a system image of your OS and data. Every time you plug the external HDD using such a software (even if it's Windows Backup and Restore utility for the OS), it will update the data and system files.
As for your laptop configuration, you can simply use the faster drive as your boot and software HDD and the other one - just for storage of your file. Afterwards, if you have an external hard drive and a backup software, you'd be more than pleased having the peace of mind that your data is safe, even if your laptop fails.
I'd also suggest you a couple of links to look over:
http://www.andyrathbone.com/2010/02/19/system-image-vs-regular-backup-in-windows-7/
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2029832/backing-up-your-entire-drive-cloning-vs-imaging.html
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/back-up-files#1TC=windows-7

Let me know if you have any questions!
SuperSoph_WD

SyncBack is a good program for automatically keeping a second drive sync'd to your primary. It took a while to get the hang of it, but it's been reliable for me. I have it do a daily incremental sync and then when I feel like it, I have it do a full clean sync. It's the easiest back up when you accidentally delete a single file and need to retrieve a replacement.

BTW, it's considered to be a bad idea to have two bootable drives with the same operating system in one computer. That is a recipe for getting confused and making a real mess of things -- applications looking for Windows folders and so forth. A safer approach would be to clone the system drive to a disk image that is stored on the backup drive. If disaster strikes, you just reclone that drive to a new boot drive.

The syncback program I use is handy backup for an accidental file deletion or a corrupt driver file or something. It wouldn't work to restore the system as it's not bootable and couldn't be used to generate a bootable drive (at least the way I use it).

I use Acronis back up to make a disc image backup of my C: and D: drives. Restoring the C: drive would create a bootable drive.

First, a note to help understand. The letter name by which you label a HDD is NOT part of the HDD unit itself. It is assigned by Windows. And Windows ALWAYS assigns the name "C: " to the HDD unit it just booted from. Then it assigns letters to other storage devices.

As several have said, having two bootable units in the same computer can be confusing (and you've proven that!) especially if they have the same OS and data.

OP, you want a full backup of your C: drive, including the OS and bootable, so that you can recover from disaster by simply transplanting that backup unit into your computer. So you do NOT need it to be mounted inside the computer most of the time. In fact, as many have pointed out, keeping the backup unit inside it a terrible idea - it leaves that unit vulnerable to all kinds of trouble! Really, what you should be doing is make a backup of everything onto the old HDD, then disconnect it from everything and put it in a safe place - preferably in a different location, even - until you need it again.

The "normal" way to do backups is to have an external storage device and backup software. Then you make an initial backup of everything, followed by periodic incremental backups. These latter hold ONLY the files that have changed since last time. If you need to restore, you start from the original full backup and then update with the incrementals. But eventually, that chain of multi incrementals gets long, so you start over with a full backup, etc.

A really good backup system has enough space to keep old backups as well as the most recent. That way, if you find your problem goes back several generations of backup, you can still recover the correct files from an old backup.

In your case, OP, there is a way you could do this even though it is NOT as good as the best backup system. Buy an external enclosure for your old HDD. In choosing it, you need to take into account three things:
1. What is the method of connecting the external unit to your computer? The most commonly used is USB2. However, it is also slower than other interfaces. So IF your computer has either USB3 , IEEE1394a (Firewire 400), or eSATA ports, get an enclosure with that interface. (They often come with more than one interface, but you only use one at a time.)
2. What is the internal interface between the enclosure and the HDD unit you will mount inside? This thread indicates your old HDD is a laptop-size (2½" form factor) SATA unit, so your enclosure would need to accept that.
3. You should get an enclosure that comes with its own power supply module. Although there are lots or external drives sold for laptops that plug into a USB2 port and need no other power, they are designed with slower low-power HDD units inside that can work that way. Your HDD unit may not. And if you are using eSATA or Firewire, they don't provide power from the port and require the enclosure has its own power.

So you get the enclosure and remove the old HDD from your computer. Mount it in the enclosure instead. Wipe it clean. Now you can set up a backup system. If you don't do the "right way", you can do this. Use that cloning software to make a clone of your computer's C: drive on the external unit. Set that aside in a safe place. You can copy lost files back from it any time. Periodically re-do the cloning operation. The weak part of this is that, while you are re-making the new clone, the old one has already been destroyed. So you won't have space to keep old clones as well as your new one. Plus, a full clone takers longer to make than an incremental backup.

Finally, if you go the cloning route, you can do what you originally wanted. If ever your new HDD crashes disastrously, you can remove the faulty unit, then remove the old HDD from the external enclosure and transplant it back into its original computer.

SyncBack is a file by file mirror of one drive to another. It is great for having easy access to one or two particular files, in case you delete something or have a corrupted driver or whatever. It's nice because you can actually poke around it with Windows Explorer. It's just duplicate set of files. Can also be used to synch a laptop and a desktop.

However, it's not really the ideal backup solution to a situation where an entire boot drive has crashed and burned. For that, you are better off with a real backup or disk cloning app that backs up everything including boot files, hidden files, etc. I use Acronis Backup, but there are many options. Windows Backup, Norton Backup, etc.

Hi again, wickland!

I totally agree with hwc1954 on the backup!
Having two identical drives in your computer is not really a backup solution.
I also use Acronis for backup and cloning. As I already mentioned, it's going to be much better to have an external backup with a system image of your OS, the setups of the software apps and your files and other data.
Most programs will need re-installation and won't integrate with Windows by themselves, even if they do, some will give you a lot of errors when trying to launch the program. That's why having the setups somewhere safe is going to come in handy in such a situation.

SuperSoph_WD

1. My understanding is that your Dell Studio 1737 supports two (2) HDD/SSDs. Is that right?
2. If so, your idea to install two drives, using your SSHD as the primary (bootable) HDD/SSD (and your old 300 MB HDD as a secondary HDD is eminently sensible. You can clone the contents of your primary (source) drive to your secondary (destination) drive. I'm going to give you some detailed information about the disk cloning program I highly recommend together with the reasons for my preference.
3. One caveat - the program I will recommend has the capability of creating a bootable destination drive, however, we have come across a number of laptop/notebooks which support two internal hard drives such as your Dell machine but the BIOS will not support a boot from the secondary drive. But bear in mind that even if the cloned secondary drive is not bootable while connected as a secondary drive it will be bootable if either connected as a primary drive or even installed in a USB external hard drive enclosure. Also, keep in mind that the cloned secondary drive can be used (while still connected as a secondary drive) as the source disk and its contents can be cloned to the existing primary drive (or a new drive should the primary drive prove defective). Incidentally we have rarely ever run into the same problem with a desktop PC. In virtually every case where the user had installed an internally-connected secondary HDD and used that drive as the recipient of the clone, i.e., the destination drive, the drive was bootable when booted to in the system.
5. First of all let me say at the outset that I have no financial or any other commercial interest in the disk-cloning software I'm going to recommend. I mention this because I have often been accused of being a zealot for that program so I must have some financial interest in the product. I assure you I'm simply a satisfied (very satisfied!) user of this software.
6. The program I strongly recommend is the Casper disk-cloning program. I have been using various versions of this program for about 10 years or
so. (The current version is Casper 8). During that time I have probably used the program thousands of times cloning hundreds of hard drives (HDD) and SSDs. My experience has been solely with the various MS OSs primarily with XP, Vista, Windows 7 & 8.
7. The basic point of a disk-cloning program such as the Casper program is that by cloning the contents of one's day-to-day working HDD or SSD to another HDD/SSD (internal or external), the user creates a precise copy of his or her "source" HDD/SSD. Thus, a comprehensive backup of one's system has been accomplished in one fell swoop, i.e., the user has backed up his/her entire system including the operating system, all programs & applications, registry, configurations, and of course, all user-created data. In short - *everything* that's on the source drive. So that the recipient of the cloned contents - the
"destination" HDD/SSD - will be, for all practical purposes a precise copy of the source HDD with all data immediately accessible. What better backup system can one have?
8. While there are other disk-cloning programs, e.g., Acronis True Image, that can perform this operation, Casper has a rather extraordinary ability to create "incremental clones", using what Casper refers to as its "SmartClone" technology. Understand that the "incremental clone" thus created is a *complete* clone of the source disk, not an "incremental file". The result of this incremental clone process is that it takes the user only a fraction of the time to create subsequent clones of the source HDD/SSD than it would otherwise take using the typical disk-cloning methodology.

9. As an example...
When a typical disk-cloning program undertakes its disk-to-disk cloning process it does so without regard that the source and destination drives involved in the disk-cloning operation are the *identical* drives that were involved when a prior disk-cloning operation had been undertaken. It doesn't matter to the typical disk-cloning program whether the HDD/SSD now being cloned was cloned an hour ago, or a day ago, or whenever. The "now" disk-cloning operation will proceed as if the HDD/SSD recipient of the clone, i.e., the destination HDD/SSD, is bare of data, even if that same destination HDD/SSD was the recipient of a prior clone from the same source HDD/SSD 10 minutes ago.

As a result...
The disk-cloning operation will take a substantial amount of time to "do its work" each time the disk-cloning operation is undertaken, without regard to the fact that perhaps only a relatively few changes involving the source HDD/SSD's data has changed since the last disk-cloning operation. So, as an example, let's say it takes about 40 minutes or so to clone the contents of a drive containing 100 GB of data to another drive. Two days later the user decides to again back up his or her system by undertaking another disk-cloning operation. Presumably the data changes over those two days haven't been especially large. But with the typical disk-cloning program, it will take the disk-cloning program just about the *same* period of time to currently perform the disk-cloning operation as it did originally, i.e., 40 minutes, as in the preceding example. And so on and so on in the following days.

10. But with the Casper program, the program has the unique capability of recognizing *only* the change in data that has occurred from its last disk-cloning operation and will proceed to "do its work" on that basis. Thus, given the example above it will probably take less than 4 minutes or so to complete the disk-cloning operation. And so on and so forth.

11. So you can see what a valuable incentive this is for users to systematically & routinely backup their systems with the Casper program - knowing that the expenditure of time to complete the disk-cloning operation will be relatively slight. Surely this is a strong incentive for a user to maintain his/her complete system in a reasonably up-to-date fashion. Obviously the amount of time it will take to complete this "incremental" disk-cloning operation using
Casper will be dependent upon the total volume of data being cloned as well as the additions, deletions, configuration changes, etc. that the PC user had made since he or she undertook a previous disk-cloning operation. So the user is encouraged to perform these disk-cloning operations on a relatively frequent basis since by doing so the expenditure of time in completing the operation will be relatively short. This last point is crucial. The program works best when it is used with a fairly high degree of frequency - perhaps not less than once a week or even on a daily or two or three times a week basis. When it is used in that manner, the expenditure of time in completing the disk (or partition)-cloning operation comes close to being trifling. And most importantly the user is secure in the knowledge that he/she has an up-to-date complete backup of his/her system.
12. A quick example based upon one of my PCs SSDs containing total data of about 105 GB of data. Note this is *total* data - including the OS, all programs & applications, all my user-created data - in short, *everything* that's on my "source" SSD. I last used the Casper program to clone the contents of that drive four days ago. Naturally, like most users, I've made changes of various kinds over that four-day period - added, deleted, modified some programs, manipulated this or that configuration, etc., etc. More or less the typical kinds of changes made by most users over a period of time. Earlier today I again cloned the contents of that source SSD to one of my desktop's internal SSDs. It took just about 1 minute. (I should point out that I've been converting nearly all my HDDs to SSDs so disk-cloning speed is considerably faster than when using HDDs. I would estimate that in the example I've given it would have taken me about 2 or 3 minutes to complete the disk-cloning operation using HDDs as the source & destination disks).
13. The point to keep in mind is that the recipient of the clone - the destination HDD/SSD - will be a precise copy of the source HDD/SSD with all its data immediately accessible in exactly the same way one would access data from their source drive - their day-to-day working HDD/SSD in most cases. And the destination HDD/SSD, should it be another internal HDD/SSD or a USB external HDD/SSD will be immediately bootable without the need of any recovery process.
14. So that if a user's source HDD/SSD becomes dysfunctional for any reason - he or she will have at hand a bootable HDD/SSD that will return their system to a bootable fully functional state in virtually no time at all. Had the user cloned the contents of their source HDD/SSD to a USB external HDD/SSD (instead of an internally-connected HDD/SSD), he/she could restore their system in reasonably short order by cloning the contents of the USBEHD back to an internal HDD/SSD or, should the drive itself be removed from the external enclosure it could then be installed as the system's internal HDD/SSD - fully bootable & functional. In some (but not all) cases because of the proprietary nature of some manufacturer's PCs - desktop or laptop - the cloned USB external HDD/SSD may not be bootable when connected as a USB device although when its contents are cloned back to an internally-connected HDD/SSD that drive will, of course, be bootable. Similarly if the cloned USB external HDD/SSD can be removed from its USB enclosure and installed as an internally-connected drive in the PC it will, of course, be bootable.
15. It's hard to imagine a better comprehensive backup system for the vast majority of PC users than a disk-cloning system such as the one I've been describing and strongly recommend. Besides its speed of operation as indicated above the program is extremely easy to learn & use. It shouldn't take most PC users more than a few minutes to learn how to use the program.
The cost of the program is $49.99. AFAIK, the program is only available from the developer via download. There's a 30-day trial version available at...
http://www.fssdev.com/products/free/
The trial version is slightly crippled but it should give you a good idea of how the program works.
While the trial version is basically operational in that it will "clone" the contents of one HDD or SSD to another HDD or SSD, the "destination" drive, i.e., the recipient of the clone, will be resized only to the extent of the disk size of the "source" drive, i.e., the drive that is being cloned. For example, say you're using the trial version of the program to clone the contents of your 128 GB HDD to a 500 GB HDD. After the disk-cloning operation is completed the 500 GB
HDD will contain the contents of the 128 GB HDD, however, only a 128 GB partition will be created on the 500 GB HDD; the remaining disk space on that "destination" drive will constitute "unallocated" disk space - disk space that can later be partitioned/formatted or, (if using a third-party utility such as Partition Magic or EASEUS Partition Manager), the created 128 GB can be "expanded" so as to include the unallocated disk space thus creating a 500 GB
partition on the destination HDD.
Using the licensed version of Casper there would not be this sort of limitation. Should the user choose, the full disk space of the destination HDD would be utilized to contain the cloned contents of the source HDD so that there would be no "unallocated" disk space on the destination HDD. However should the user wish he/she would also have an option to create whatever size partition he or she desires on the destination HDD, the only limitation being that the size (disk-space) allotted to that partition be sufficient to hold the cloned data contents.

Hey! I was also very happy with carbon copy cloner and I got reccomended https://www.clonezilla.org/ when getting a PC.
Anyone out there has use it?
Thanks, Ame