Cloning a hard drive

[CoralReef]

I want my entire hard drive (os, programs, files, everything) put onto an external hard drive.

In case of fire, stolen computer, crash, etc. I want to be able to just plug an external hard drive to a new computer and be up and running as if I was using my old computer and pick up right where I left off.

Whats the best way to do this? I feel like this my not be as easy as I think.

 

[Tums]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/t...&en=d12131057197cf6b&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND

 

[rolextrader]

It's a pain in the ass and takes some time. I paid a local computer repair shop $75 to do it for me. Do likewise and relieve yourself of the burden.

 

[kiwi_trader]

Otherwise look at Acronis for image backup and transfers.

It all depends how technically capable you are.

 

[longhi18]

ghost image?

 

[gaj]

casper xp works for me.

 

[jfilla]

I second casper xp... I have had several hard drives go bad over the years and every time, i have swapped it out with the casper drive and been back up on the next reboot. For $50.00, it cant be beat.

 

[mokwit]

CasperXP. Just swap in the backup HDD and you are up and running again. Saved me from some serious headaches and lost trading time.

 

[ntfs]

Coral,

I tried using an external hd and found the transfer was too slow. I ended up installing two removable HD drawers. Using Aconis, I now have a master hd , which I have my operating system, core programs and data, and several cloned masters. I use the clone and if there is any problem I can quickly switch drives, like under one minute, and I am up and running. I update the master weekly. Use cable select when setting up the hd’s.


nt

 

[gnome]

Casper XP is the easiest to keep a cloned hard drive up to date.

Acronis True Image offers more capability and flexiblity with its additional ability to make "images" to an external drive.

Both are good and offer a fully functional free trial.

If you are truly anal about backups (as am I), the BEST would be to have both. Each day you could keep a cloned HD current with about a 1 minute update by using Casper XP, and you could make "images" to an external hard drive with Acronis as necessary. (Actually, Acronis has a recently added ability to make an "incremental" update, but I don't know whether that's to an existing image or to a cloned HDD... haven't tried it yet.)