Best hdd imaging software

[dkory22]

I'm pretty sure my laptop hard drive is dying, and I don't think I'll be able to get Windows to boot again. It hangs on the loading screen and I usually have to manually power it down. Multiple times it has had to run chkdsk and has found corrupt files and errors....

What I'd like to do is purchase a SSD and copy an image of the Asus restore partition over to it, then run the restore disk on the new drive. Are there any good apps that will allow me to do that without being able to boot into Windows on the current hard drive? I do have other PCs I can connect to if that is necessary...also free is good but if the software costs money that's fine too.

I realize that the restore partition may be corrupt as well, but it's worth a shot, especially if I don't have to purchase another copy of Windows.

Thanks!

 

[jeremyrailton]

disk imaging is a crapshoot in my experience. shouldn't asus have to provide you with a windows disk? or sometimes the computers come with a program that allow you to make restore disks from the partion. Either of those options would be much easier

if you have to do imaging, norton ghost seems to have a good reputation, though when i used it, my 500gb hard drive turned into a 250gb hard drive since i imaged the smaller drive onto the larger. maybe i just don't know how to use it well

 

[dkory22]

I do have a restore disk but I wasn't sure if that required the recovery partition to operate? If not then I should be all set. I haven't seen any programs for making a recovery disk from the current restore partition.

 

[petricag]

From my experience most of vendors gives you a disk or a set of disk that can be used to restore your windows. But that will format the entire disk so ... be careful what you are doing.
Every time I had to re-image the disk the entire data was lost and I had to use some partition program to split the disk in more than one partition. It is a long time since I am not keeping my data without external data

 

[Kursun]

Acronis True Image Home 2009 is the finest image/backup software you can find.
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/
You can do what you want either in windows or from its boot cd which you can create within the program.

 

[dkory22]

I was able to run a restore from the hard disk partition successfully and the laptop seems to be running alright right now. It looks like you were both correct: the restore disk and partition are independent and either could be used on a new hard drive. I may still pursue migrating to an ssd though...I've been wanting to try one and the issues may only be gone temporarily. So for that, if I decide to copy the partition I'll give Acronis a try!

Thanks for the help!