Cloning a drive in Vista Ultimate?

[tr765]

Can anyone recommend an easy way to clone a drive in Vista ultimate 64 bit?
I am ready to transfer data from my old Quad Core Q6600 to a new i7-950 system. I have about 1 TB of data. I have dual 1.36 TB drives, one is completely empty, (was used as backup drive, I wiped it and tried to clone adrive to it) I want to simply clone my C: to I:and install the I: into the new i7-950 system. Since I will go from Vista Ultimate to Window's 7 Pro 64 bit, I will have to reinstall the programs to the New C: (Crucial C300 128GB Solid State Drive) , which will be no problem.

Will cloning drives be easiest? I will then simply import data files to new 1TB drive and then use this 1.36TB drive as a dedicated backup drive? Or since new system will have USB 3.0 running 5GB-s should I get external 2TB drive and use that as dedicated backup drive and take external drive from house when I travel?

 

[omac1a]

You are better off reinstalling Vista on the new build. Cloning will just cause problems because the cloned drive was taken from a different system. I also advise against just dropping the current drive into the new build too, since that will be hit or miss. If you try that make sure you back everything up before you try that.

Do you have an OEM version or retail version of Windows? If you have an OEM version you probably won't be able to activate Windows on the new system whether you reinstall, clone or drop the old drive in. A retail version is needed for that.