# Best way to clone hard drive



## nimans (Oct 10, 2008)

I want to backup my hard drive at work to another internal hard drive that can be used to boot in place of the original hard drive in case of drive failure. I would rather have something "ready to go" just by swapping drives without worrying about restoring data to a new drive.

What's the best way to do this?
Also, what's the best software to use for this?

My Gateway computer that I bought from Circuit City does not have RAID as far as I know, just one hard drive, 160 GB 3.5" IDE. I purchased an external USB hard drive before, but I don't think I can run off of it like an internal HD.

Thanks,

NS


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## saikee (Jun 11, 2004)

This one is free, bomb proof and water tight. Satisfaction guaranteed. If you understand how simple the whole thing is you will laugh at it.

The method - run another operating system (Linux which is free) from a CD and use its command "dd" to clone one disk to another. Every Linux has the command dd which reads a hard disk by the specified number of sectors and write the same on the other disk. One creates a 100% mirror image of the first disk and the second disk is always bootable exactly as the first disk.


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## hrlow2 (Oct 6, 2008)

Then there is xxClone. Options to make bootable and it it FREE.


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## jdean (Jan 20, 2002)

In one of my machines, I use a hard drive enclosure like this one:

http://www.kingwin.com/product_pages/kf72t.asp

It requires a sliding tray for each hard drive (the unit that I have is not hot-swappable, although there may be some that are). I use this for exactly the reason you mentioned.

I have two software recommendations. The first is Acronis TrueImage, which can do cloning, backup, and a whole bunch of other things. The second is Casper XP which only does cloning.


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## nimans (Oct 10, 2008)

I've read a lot of good things about Acronis. Now would it take forever everyday to backup if I use a USB connected hard drive enclosure? I think a USB enclosure would be easiest and I would want to back up every night any changes made during the day. But I still want the second hard drive to be bootable as a clone.


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## jdean (Jan 20, 2002)

USB is fine as long as you're using USB 2. I recommend running the cable directly to your computer -- do not use a hub.

I don't remember how Acronis does cloning, but Casper XP has a "smart cloning" feature, and once you've done the clone once, subsequent clones to the same drive are quite fast (depending on how much has changed).


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