HDD cloning/image backup
Written by AndyAr85 on 1:49 PMHere comes a fun part, at least I always laugh when someone gets confused when I tell him/her that I reinstall my OS in about 3 minutes. Are you surprised too?? don't be...I'll tell you how to do this yourself!!
It's all about a concept called cloning. what is cloning? Like you already guessed is a process that makes an exact copy of something. Regarding HDD cloning, basically you make an exact copy of the contents of one HDD drive to another HDD.
Why is this useful? For example you are a IT engineer and your boss tels you to install on a bunch of computers an OS for some important client. Your options:
1. you install the OS from scratch on every PC/Mac
2. you install the OS on one machine and clone the rest.... :-)(this way I get away very easy)
Another useful application, very similar to HDD cloning id HDD imaging. You create an image of your HDD drive and apply/reapply it on a diferent HDD or even your own HDD drive(this is the way I told you about- how I reinstall my OS). The great thing is that you can make a full recovery of your OS with all the applications already installed and functional. Don't waste your time any more on new OS install! Do it once and that's it!
It's all about a concept called cloning. what is cloning? Like you already guessed is a process that makes an exact copy of something. Regarding HDD cloning, basically you make an exact copy of the contents of one HDD drive to another HDD.
Why is this useful? For example you are a IT engineer and your boss tels you to install on a bunch of computers an OS for some important client. Your options:
1. you install the OS from scratch on every PC/Mac
2. you install the OS on one machine and clone the rest.... :-)(this way I get away very easy)
Another useful application, very similar to HDD cloning id HDD imaging. You create an image of your HDD drive and apply/reapply it on a diferent HDD or even your own HDD drive(this is the way I told you about- how I reinstall my OS). The great thing is that you can make a full recovery of your OS with all the applications already installed and functional. Don't waste your time any more on new OS install! Do it once and that's it!
How to do it
First you have to connect the two drives on the motherboard(make sure that you can see them in BIOS). This is whether you want to clone them.
For HDD imaging you need the original drive on the second one is optional. you need it only if you want to save the image on it. Otherwise you can save it on a different partition.
There are a bunch of specifically designed programs just for that: Norton Ghost, Acronis Disk Image, Paragon Disk Copy, Paragon Disk Backup, and there are a lot more. you can find them on the internet, there are trial versions available for download, or on the Utility Bootable CD-s I mention all the time: Hiren Boot CD, Windows UBCD.
For example in the DOS version of Norton Ghost to make:
- a HDD clone you choose Local-> Disk-> To Disk and then you choose the source Disk(what you want to clone) and the destination Disk(where you want to clone).
- a HDD image choosing Local-> Disk-> To image, and then you name the image and select where to save it. This way you save the entire HDD image(with partitions and all the data). Make sure you have another drive to save the image;
The great part is creating an image of a partition(the Windows partition):
- choose Local->Partition-> To image;
and for restoring the image(make sure you specify the exact partition to restore!!)
- choose Local-> Partition->From image
- a HDD restore from an image you created earlier, choose Local-> Disk-> From image, and then select the path to the image you created and the destination drive.
OBS. You have to be very careful with this tools, mainly with choosing the drives(you have to be sure which is the source drive and which is destination drive, or you can get with lost data....for this see my other posts)
Make you own HDD image
Start by installing an OS from scratch, add all the drivers an applications that you need(remember the way you save the image is the way it will always look when you restore it) and then create a HDD image like I already showed you.
Another useful tool, also from Norton is the 2003 windows version of ghost. this one is great, because you can manage the images and cloning process from Windows. Also, a very handy option is that you can save an image on a CD/DVD and that way you create a HDD backup right on the DVD itself...very useful.
That's it you're ready to go...you'll thank me later
1 comments: Responses to “ HDD cloning/image backup ”
By Stepterix on February 27, 2008 12:30 PM
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This article has been added to the 2nd Carnival of Computer Help and Advice.
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Cheers
K.