Subject: Re: [Shop-talk] clone HDD

From: Philip Nase <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 18:28:37 -0400

It's easy on a Mac.  Not so sure about a PC.  On a Mac I create a bootable
clone on the new drive and swap it in.  Of course good backups before starting
are a must.

Phil Nase
Applebachsville, PA
http://home.comcast.net/~philnasecpa/

On Apr 14, 2013, at 6:14 PM, Dave C <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I have about filled up my 75 gb HDD and rather than put in a new, bigger HDD
and then manually install everything, I would like to clone a bootable image
from the existing HDD over to the new HDD. Anyone got any experience in doing
this?  Advice?
>
> Probably another fix could be to just install a second HDD and move all the
picture, video and music files that are eating up space on the C drive.
>
> Thanks
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From: Brian Kemp <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 16:08:23 -0700

Dave - Go to the manufacture's web site for your new drive if it didn't 
come with software.  Cloning is a common action when people get new 
drives, so the manufactures make it easy.  They will tell you how to 
connect both drives, setup the new one, and make the clone, then you can 
remove the old one and save it as a backup.

I'd recommend your second option if everything is good with the existing 
drive other than free space.  A sysadmin years ago recommended keeping 
data separate from the OS and I've been doing it since.  I have three 
drives.  One is Windoze and programs, one is pictures and other data 
files I create, and the third is TV programs (my computer serves as my 
DVR).  This cuts down usage on my data drive and lets me do focused 
backups on the most important files.  I seem to loose a drive about 
every 10 years and this has worked out well for making recovery easier.

Brian

On 4/14/2013 3:14 PM, Dave C wrote:
> I have about filled up my 75 gb HDD and rather than put in a new, 
> bigger HDD and then manually install everything, I would like to clone 
> a bootable image from the existing HDD over to the new HDD. Anyone got 
> any experience in doing this?  Advice?
>
> Probably another fix could be to just install a second HDD and move 
> all the picture, video and music files that are eating up space on the 
> C drive.
>
> Thanks
> http://autox.team.net/mailman/options/shop-talk/[email-masked]

[email-masked]

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From: Fred Katz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 18:34:04 -0700

I bought a NewerTech USB universal drive adapter, cost me about $27 at the
time. Comes with both USB 3 and USB 2 connectors to your PC or Mac, and you
can plug any HD into the device externally, whether 2.5 3.5 or 5.25 inch
drive. Even has a SATA connector. Extremely easy to connect any HD to it, and
then use clone software that you can get off the Internet. I've used this to
copy drives (I have two of these devices). Also to copy the internal to an
external before swapping them. The only problem I encountered was copying some
15-year-old drives but that probably is not something you would do.

Alternatively, you could do as you said. I connect an external USB drive for
storing all my large videos and picture albums. I changed the preferences on
my applications to point to the external drive for accessing the home folder
for videos and albums. That keeps my laptop internal drive from filling up.

Fred -

[email-masked]

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From: Wayne <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 08:57:50 -0400

On 4/14/2013 6:14 PM, Dave C wrote:
> I have about filled up my 75 gb HDD and rather than put in a new, bigger
> HDD and then manually install everything, I would like to clone a
> bootable image from the existing HDD over to the new HDD. Anyone got any
> experience in doing this?  Advice?

I've done it a bunch, but I'm a pro, and my usuall method isn't for the 
faint of heart; and some unix / linux experience helps, too.

* Get a linux "live CD" image and burn it onto a disk. I like "Puppy 
Linux" (google will turn up any of this stuff, so I'll leave that to 
you.) A live CD is a full operating system that boots and runs from 
memory only. You don't have to install it, or modify anything on the HDD.
* Install new drive. Real easy with SATA, which is a given on anything 
built in the last 8 years or so.
* Boot Puppy Linux. It'll look a lot like a familiar Windows desktop.
* Its system utilities menu has a program "gparted". This is a disk 
partition editor, much like partition magic if you ever used that back 
in the day.
* Create the partition layout you want, and make the first one active or 
bootable using the "flags" menu option.
* The old and new drives show up on the desktop with unix device names, 
like sda0 and sdb0. Take note of them. You can click to open them and 
verify which drive is the old C:. You'll have to right-click and do a 
"dismount" to close them.
* Open "terminal" or "command line" or whatever it's called.
* You've gonna use a command line program "ntfsclone" to copy from the 
old to the new drive. It takes all the sectors in use and builds them 
into a data stream that you can store somewhere, or shoot to a 2nd copy 
and extract.
* Command will be like:
	ntfsclone -s /dev/sda1 -o - | ntfsclone -r -O /dev/sdb1 -

BE real careful here; unix tends to give ya' enough rope to hang 
yourself. make sure those /dev entries are referring to the correct 
disk, or it will be happy to do exactly what you tell it, and copy the 
empty drive to the good one!

That's it. It's not really as hairy as it sounds. Google ntfsclone, and 
there are a bunch of other similar how-tos out there. I would NOT use 
the xfer programs that the drive makers offer. The ones I've looked at 
usually are just a batch file using "xcopy" or something, which does NOT 
produce a true image or clone of your drive.

-Wayne

[email-masked]

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From: "Tony Vaccaro" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:40:56 -0400

This is really not that difficult. I do it all the time, but that is the
business I am in.

Get yourself a copy of HD Clone. Bing it.  That is all you need.

Tony Vaccaro
Lotus Owners of NY  (LOONY)
www.lotusowners.com
716-861-1412
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