Looking for a reliable hard disk cloning software.
I want to make an *exact* copy (a clone) of my hard disk(os+apps+data) so that when it fails I can install the second disk as the main disk and continue working. The disk is already making unhappy noises! Dell 8400 desktop with Windows XP SP 3.
Have researched Norton Ghost, Shadow Protect, but would like a solid recommendation from a satisfied user. Thanks.
Good Answers (1)
A.J. P.
Chief Computer Geek at Toronto Computer Geeks
Best Answers in: Computers and Software (2), Web Development (1)
I use Norton Ghost 2003; has the ability to create a bootable floppy disk (I know, so passe). The current version of Norton Ghost is a backup product, not cloning software.
I also use Acronis True Image Workstation; the current version is named: Acronis Backup & Recovery10 Workstation. I've found it more stable than the Home Edition.
Both have successfully cloned failing drives, and each has worked in a situation where the other would not successfully complete.
More Answers (22)
It really depends on your specific needs and expertise. I have used both Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image for Windows and was fairly satisfied with both. If it's just one computer you have to worry about, the products don't differ greatly. They'll both do the job.
My ultimate recommendation would be to use "dd" for Linux/UNIX. It may be difficult to learn to use if you are not familiar with using Linux and you won't really have the option of setting up scheduled backups, etc. It is a very flexible and reliable tool however.
I would recommend against using your current hard drive until it fails however - especially if it already sounds like it's on it's way to failing. You'll make it easier on yourself if you get a new hard drive as soon as possible. The longer you wait, the more problems you'll have with bad blocks, corrupt files, etc, and these are things which can also be replicated by these backup solutions.
Links:
Israel I.
Providing online businesses, and website services.
Best Answers in: Computers and Software (1)
Norton Ghost is what I rely on not just for my clients, but for myself. I can't even begin to count how many times I've used it and I've never had any problems at all with it.
I prefer Acronis True Image. Acronis is a more focused company then symantec (norton)
Paul P.
Information Technology Specialist (Sys Anly/ Ntwrk Srvcs/Telcom) at Veterans Administration
I am not a fan of Symantec in general but Norton is an excellent cloning software
I prefer Acronis, but have found other products like Ghost and Drive Image work well too. It really comes down to preference and knowing exactly what your objective is then deducing if one software or the other is a better fit for your specific needs. I am a proponent of conducting comparison tests when possible as it often provides crucial information.
Ricard C.
Seeking a new business opportunity in Melbourne
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (1)
I have also used both Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image and they are both excellent products.
You don't mention your operating system. Assuming that you are using Windows XP, Vista or 7 (not any version of Server) I recommend Acronis True Image Home for ease of use.
I have been using True Image 10 Home for 2 years and have used it twice to recover both Vista Ultimate and XP systems.
I plan to upgrade to the latest version - True Image Home 2010 - after reading a review in PC@uthority just this morning. This latest version features "Nonstop Backup" which saves changes to your backup image every 5 minutes.
Links:
Hi Hemant,
I also prefer Acronis. I have used it several times for blades. Server and workstation are totally no problem. Fast and reliable.
I recommend to clone as soon as possible. Disasters mostly occur when you have noticed a problem but taking too long for the solution.
An option I like to use in this case (as long as the OS is windows) is WinPE and Imagex. It is free (as in no money out of pocket) and will compress to a nice size. I have used it for this exact purpose and it worked great for me. all that is needed is a external storage source and boot media(usb or CD). You will have to do a little research and if interested I am including a few sites to check out.
Links:
You're probably familiar with the popular proprietary commercial package Norton Ghost®, and its OpenSource counterpart, Partition Image. The problem with these software packages is that it takes a lot of time to massively clone systems to many computers. You've probably also heard of Symantec's solution to this problem, Symantec Ghost Corporate Edition® with multicasting. Well, now there is an OpenSource clone system (OCS) solution called Clonezilla with unicasting and multicasting!
Links:
I recently used Clonezilla to clone a dual boot (Vista and Ubuntu) drive. I was upgrading from a 500GB drive to a 1TB drive, so after the cloning was done, I resized my Ubuntu partition to take advantage of the extra 500GB. It's worth a look, and it's free.
Links:
Peter B. G.
Business Strategist-Speaker-Author (Social Media & IT)
Best Answers in: Using LinkedIn (41), Enterprise Software (6), Computers and Software (6), Career Management (5), Business Insurance (3), Customer Service (3), Advertising (3), Internet Marketing (3), Public Relations (3), Freelancing and Contracting (2), Mentoring (2), Government Policy (2), Staffing and Recruiting (2), Writing and Editing (2), Business Analytics (2), Ethics (2), Professional Networking (2), Education and Schools (1), Certification and Licenses (1), Job Search (1), Resume Writing (1), Accounting (1), Economics (1), Government Contracts (1), Compensation and Benefits (1), Work-life Balance (1), Internationalization and Localization (1), Tax Law (1), Guerrilla Marketing (1), Viral Marketing (1), Business Development (1), Mobile Marketing (1), Customer Relationship Management (1), Sales Techniques (1), Search Marketing (1), Change Management (1), Organizational Development (1), Planning (1), Nonprofit Fundraising (1), Philanthropy (1), Social Enterpreneurship (1), Project Management (1), Personal Debt Management (1), Wealth Management (1), Pricing (1), Small Business (1), Starting Up (1), Green Products (1), Blogging (1), Databases (1), Information Storage (1)
I used to swear by Ghost, but am less convinced by Symantec products of late. DriveImage used to be cost effective and reliable.
R D.
Information Technology and Services Consultant
Best Answers in: Computers and Software (5), Computer Networking (2), Information Security (1)
Hi Hemant:
I have used the free easeus diskcopy utility at the url below. It copied a disk , and can do so from a smaller into a larger drive. It was brilliant.
Links:
In the part I have used Norton Ghost and found that it worked very reliably if the command line version was used after booting the computer with a bootable floppy/disk.
You can also use Hiren's Boot CD or other such recovery disks to run Norton Ghost.
Of-late, I prefer OpenSource/Freeware products instead of unlicensed commercial products. I can recommend the excellent OpenSource alternative: PING. http://ping.windowsdream.com/
Plenty of other Disc Cloning s/w are reviewed at: http://alternativeto.net/desktop/norton-ghost/
Links:
I would suggest using "Paragon Hard Disk Manager". It's a very good program. Not only does it back up files, system data and whole HDDs, it also is capable of advanced partitioning and hard disk management.
It came in handy quite often. I haven't used Norton Ghost nor Shadow Protect so I can offer no opinion on that I am afraid.
Links:
Hi Hemant,
I can confirm both of those products work very well. Shadow protect also has some very powerfull other tools also for ongoing fast recovery in desktop environment that are not complicated to use.
All the best,
Mark Lowe.
Terry B.
Computer Repair and Support
Best Answers in: Computers and Software (5), Software Development (2), Databases (1), Information Storage (1)
I second the vote for dd in Linux. You can download a live image (Ubuntu is a popular one), burn it to a CD, and boot off of the CD. You don't have to install it or make any changes to your system. And it doesn't matter what operating system you are using on the cloned hard drive.
Once you have booted Linux from the CD, you open a terminal window. The command would then be something like:
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb
"if" is the input device - the drive being copied. "of" is the output device - the replacement drive.
Do this as soon as possible, and then just install the new drive as your system drive. Don't wait for your current drive to fail, because you will almost certainly loose some files (either new or updated) when it does fail.
I agree with Terry. The Linux/Unix dd-command is very straightforward and effictive. You can also pipe to gzip to save a compressed image. This may take a while ;-)
Best way out is "dd" or use MiniPE Live Bootable where you have option of using Paragon, Acronis etc
Links:
Rajan U.
Entrepreneur
Best Answers in: Web Development (3), Computers and Software (2), Government Policy (1), Government Services (1), Internet Marketing (1), E-Commerce (1)
Go for True Image Home 2010...it is reliable and has other useful features like continuous backup, restore at boot and normal backup of files/docs.
Links:
Scott N.
Enterprise Portal Architect and Technical Manager
Best Answers in: Web Development (5), Software Development (4), Enterprise Software (2), Computers and Software (1)
If you haven't bought the hard drive yet, Seagate and Western Digital provide free tools for their drives that make perfect copies. Especially if you are upgrading the drive for an older machine that cannot take advantage of the full size of modern disks as you can create partitions on the new drive with your old drive cloned to the boot partition.
It's suggested that the drive is actually failing, so in this case I would recommend dd_rescue over dd.
dd_rescue takes multiple passes over the drive and skips blocks if it can't read them. This ensures that the majority of data is cloned from the drive. Then a second pass is taken over the drive and it will make multiple tries to read the sectors / blocks which couldn't be read in the first pass - sometimes the data will be read after a few attempts, but if the drive fails it no longer matters so much because the majority of the data has (hopefully) been recovered.
I've used dd_rescue a couple of times recently on drives that just have one bad sector, which I was completely unable to read (even after these multiple attempts). This had been preventing Windows from booting completely, but after coning to another drive it worked perfectly! A chkdsk may have been required - it's certainly good practice - but I can't say for sure that it was in both cases.
There are multiple versions of dd_rescue - the best one is the GNU one, which they insensitively named the same as the original. Both versions are available on System Rescue CD and since this required renaming one of them, you can find out which is which by using something like `ddrescue --version`.
Considering the number of "what's a command line" responses here, this may not helpful to the OP, but I recommend those advising the use of plain old dd add dd_rescue to their arsenal.
Drive Image xml................ Free..........
