Image copying a hard drive?

[bigbossman]

have an old computer (2008) that I'm finally getting around to upgrade. I bought a replacement with a 320GB SATA drive, and have a 2TB Sata drive sitting in my drawer. I want to image copy the new 320GB drive with the new Windows image to the spare 2TB drive, and then use the 2TB drive as the system (C disk.

How best to accomplish this?

[sonofeugene]

Mac or PC?

[DaveInOroValley]

There are some utilities out there to help with making a image of a Windows drive, I believe there is even one built into the Windows OS.

https://www.partitionwizard.com/clone-disk/hard-drive-image.html

[SkyHawk]

Acronis True Image is probably the best.

[MrRichards]

[MrRichards]

What version of windows?

[orangeusa]

Acronis True Image is probably the best.

I would second that. I have had great luck with this app.

[Misterclick]

Acronis is what we use at my organization.

[bigbossman]

Mac or PC?

Windows

Thanks!!

What version of windows?

Windows 10 Pro

[sonofeugene]

I guess things have changed as once upon a time, it was my understanding that a PC drive could not be cloned and then expected to work when swapped with the original disk.

On my Mac, I use CCC. Carbon Copy Cloner.

[Mute]

I guess things have changed as once upon a time, it was my understanding that a PC drive could not be cloned and then expected to work when swapped with the original disk.

On my Mac, I use CCC. Carbon Copy Cloner.

If there is significant hardware change, there could be issues but the OS should still boot and be generally usable. You may have to jump through a few hoops to get things operating smoothly.

[C.G.]

Freebie

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

[bigbossman]

Damn..... looks like this is a academic exercise for now. Turns out the new Dell HD is a much smaller footprint than the existing one. The old HD will not fit into the spare bay on the new computer. The good (ish) news is that they shipped my new computer with a 500GB drive, not 320. The OS only takes up about 30GB, so I've got plenty of room for now.

I think I'll just go look for a SATA drive external enclosure, and use the 2TB drive for storage of pics, music, etc.....

[the86d]

I've used clonezilla many times w/out issue, but not tried on Win10...

If on a fast machine with an SSD, WIN10 install is less than 20 minutes total anyways... From a USB 2.0 STICK.

[Preston-CLB]

Take a look at Vantec enclosures. I have two under their NexStar name. One of them is SATA, and the other is USB (Both HDD's are SATA drives). They are very nice, and I've never had an issue.

The SATA drive is my C:/ drive only, and the second is document backup/archive.

I use paid versions Macrium Reflect on my workstation and Acronis True Image on my laptop. Both work well.
-P