Paragon Backup & Recovery Free

I prefer the blog post to the image gallery. Thanks for listening!

at least as the term is used within IT support circles these days. Cloning nowadays usually implies creating an image with the intent of applying it to multiple systems. You can define the word as you wish, but don't expect anyone in an IT forum to understand your non-standard use.

The good news is that any of these cloning tools will do what you want without buying a third drive. The bad news is you'll need to buy or borrow a USB hard drive enclosure (usually less than $50). You need one so you can have the both the original and replacement drives active at the same time. Here's how.

1) Install the replacement drive in the USB enclosure and connect it to your system

2) Use the cloning tool to make an image of the original drive and store the image on the replacement drive.

3) Move the finished image to the original drive.

4) Use the cloning tool to access the image file now stored on the original drive and apply it to the second drive.

5) If desired, delete the image from the original drive before storing it.

Windows Backup is a lousy tool for copying entire drives. Older versions of Ghost would copy directly from one drive to another, but both drives will still have to be in the machine at the same time and no version of Ghost was ever legally free. There used to be several tools for direct drive-to-drive copying, including LapLink, FastLink, and others. They were useful back in the day when you couldn't put two drives in a machine, or when it was just easier to toss a parallel or serial cable between two systems. I haven't seen any of those apps in years.

Perhaps I'm not using the term "cloning" correctly.... I was under the impression that a CLONE was a bit for bit copy of the original drive to another drive. In my case, I'm just trying to copy the drive that came in a laptop (320G) to a 1Tb drive to put into the machine, and put the original in a static bag on a shelf to put back in if I'm ever to get rid of the laptop. And, the Windows7 backup and restore comes up with an error every time and will save nothing to the backup drive. So, it looks like I must first make an image of the original onto a third hard drive, then restore that image to the new 1Tb drive. Just another unnecessary step and time consumed that doesn't need to be consumed, plus a third hard drive. Then I'd imagine that the new 1Tb drive will have the same problem creating a backup and restore from Win7 that the original drive does, but then I always have the image (compressed), don't I?. The original Ghost copied bit by bit, and that was what I called a clone... not a copy or an image, and certainly not compressed! This is where errors creep into things. I want an EXACT copy, bit for bit, errors and all!! (If there are any!) That's the way it came to me, and that's how I want the new drive to be: an EXACT copy... a clone! If it isn't, it's not a clone, it's an image, and compressed at that! But you're right, it makes no difference what proprietary format is used, as long as you restore it with the same program you made the backup with. That wasn't my point. My point was that MOST cloning programs are NOT CLONING programs at all. They are proprietary data compressing copiers. You may call it a clone, but *I* won't, sorry! A "clone" by definition is an exact copy

The phrase 'hard drive cloning' in the IT field usually means a making a compressed copy of a drive, often in a proprietary format, usually for disaster recovery or system duplication purposes. As long as you use the same tool to make the copy and then write it, what difference does the format make?

I've successfully used the suggested 'Redo Backup and Recovery' tool a half a dozen times since this article appeared. I have neither sent any money nor been prompted to do so.

What are you trying to accomplish? Maybe something besides a cloning tool would be better suited.