Posted on 05/02/2017 11:02:09 AM PDT by Allen In Texas Hill Country
I want to clone the master (C:) drive, segment for segment, so that I can install the duplicate drive in another system and it will boot. See some packages but thought I'd pass it by here too. Kinda low level stuff, any suggestions?
macrium reflect- one of the fastest most accurate and it’s free- well respected software
Watch soem youtube videos on ‘macrium reflect raw clone’ for tips- it’s pretty easy to do but a little confusing- their menu isn’t the easiest to do
if you want really simple- I guess many use Aomei cloner- but it’s chinese- i don’t really trust chinese products- but it’s suppsoed to be really simple- it’s free too-
I’d be happy to find a free Virtual Machine that works on POS Windows 10 Home version, so I could use my VM’s from another machine which had Windoze Professional installed.
That is what I used too.
The new drive needs to be larger than the current drive.
Very good Debian based cloning software. Works fine for me for Windows as I clone my OS drive to a secondary drive regularly (drive to image) as a backup.
http://clonezilla.org/downloads.php
Trying to duplicate a drive that is "active" is troublesome.
i used virtual box when i tried windows 10 it worked fine- was able to use my vm files on windows 10 just fine- it should work for you? I know there is some limitation about having more than one windows install on a machine, but you have the serial number for both, correct? shouldn’t be a problem-
Macrium Reflect Free for home use is what I use to clone my OS on both my desktop and laptop.
The main concern you should have is that the 2 computers have identical hardware so the various drivers on the main computer will work on the clone.
https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree
Macrium Reflect allows you to create a Windows PE DVD and/or Linux DVD version for reinstalling/re-running the program to restore the OS partition.
I’ll check it out in a few minutes...
Thnx
Macrium? Or the Aomei? I liek Macrium quite a bit- tried a few other ones, like paragon, and a few others- didn’t liek them as much and they were slower- plus i can do it on the fly in windows- without havign to boot into a macrium CD (although i can if needed)- have doens several backups and restores as well as transfers to new hard drive with macrium- worked flawlessly-
For large volume cloning, used Symantec Ghost extensively for years before spinning up SCCM. There is a free trial offer at Symantec.com. This may be way overkill for your requirements, however.
+1 that.
Although...I have tried it on PCs that were not exactly the same hardware and had some issues. It is best to place the image on a drive going into a very similar PC. But I suppose one could boot up and then update or replace the drivers on the dissimilar hardware.
But yes...Macrium rocks.
VMWare player
https://my.vmware.com/en/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_workstation_player/12_0
good point Tom=- forgot about that issue- He can always just try it- it might work- won’t cost anythign but a few hours work— I’ve always just cloned my drives onto new ones and switched out my old drive for hte new one in same computer- so no issues with windows screaming about different parts- like when putting drive in whole different computer-
Unless the software uses VSS. Which Macrium Reflect does.
Wait...that can’t be free.
But, sure enough looks like it is.
It’ll run an archived MS VM?
definitely looking at this in a few minutes.
HDD cloning tech bookmark.
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