DriveClone Pro 3.5: The Right Tool for the Job?
DriveClone Pro Installation
By Erik EckelFrequently, IT professionals must prepare identical hard disk images for duplication and deployment to other systems. Drives may need to be cloned to simplify new equipment rollout, or such drive images may be required to assist in rescuing a failed or failing hard disk.
FarStone Technology boasts that its DriveClone Pro software creates exact copies of hard disks to enable instant recovery following system crashes. I'll put the software to three real world tests. In addition to cloning a failed hard disk and copying a functioning drive, I'll test the software's ability to schedule and complete backup operations, too.
Read a concise summary of DriveClone Pro's strengths and weaknesses in this blog post.
The DriveClone Pro program can be downloaded directly from the FarStone Technology
Web site. Installation begins by clicking an executable installer that extracts files to a host system's hard disk.
About Erik Eckel
Erik Eckel owns and operates two technology companies. As a managing partner with Louisville Geek, he works daily as an IT consultant to assist small businesses in overcoming technology challenges and maximizing IT investments. He is also president o...
Full Bio
Erik Eckel owns and operates two technology companies. As a managing partner with Louisville Geek, he works daily as an IT consultant to assist small businesses in overcoming technology challenges and maximizing IT investments. He is also president of Eckel Media Corp., a communications company specializing in public relations and technical authoring projects.
There was no mention of operating system (Vista 64 bit? Linux various? Vista 32 bit, dual boot systems, etc. Assuming it only runs under XP and/or Vista, can it clone a Linux hard disk in the same computer?
Im my experience Acronis is now the only reliable cloning tool that works with servers/raid/hardware changes and when you're upgrading a customers server within a very short time frame, you'd be mad to use anything else. If you do it for a living, spend the (considerable) extra and use a product which works reliably every time!!
I use Paragon software for cloning and copying drives, it also does servers as well do have a look. I have run paragon to clone my laptop through to a usb backup drive and it did it very well. It will do anything you need it to do. http://www.paragon-software.com/
How does it compare with Acronis True Image. Does the Universal Restore really work. That would be important as it does not for Acronis
I frequently have to cone disks from a master and would like to have something that works with different hardware (motherboards etc) Have had a bit of success with Acronis but its hard work at times and I don't have the time to play around with it.
Very shallow "review", looks more like a "walkthrough" and an advertisement. TechRepublic sure has fallen lately. This excerpt is a no-brainer for almost any competent ITPro: "... but an observation that attempts to clone damaged disks may well fail."
try Runtime's Drive image XML it free, stable and works pretty good! except you will need an available scondary IDE port. for restoring the drive.
Well done presentation. I liked it. None of the responders referred to Acronis's cloning program
I have used Ghost and DriveImage for cloning before, now I use BootIT NG. Will partition drives, clone, image to a file (CD/DVD/USB) all from a single floppy or boot cd it creates. No install on the target. Worthy of a look.
I much prefer Partion Magic for duping drives over any program. Started with 3.0 and now using 8.0. Great interface and easy to use. Still have to pull the drive from a note book though.
I see enough powerpoints at work. Lots of pictures little information. I prefer to read a story with associated images not click through a powerpoint like presentation. I gave up less than half way through. I can google an article that will have more meat less photos.
I'm not convinced it is better than Ghost. I have been using Ghost for 10 years and have trided others, but I still rely on Ghost to clone notebook drives with great success.
I prefer Ghost with BartsPE but I've noticed that the latest rev of Ghost (version 12) doesn't work with the BartsPE plugin. So I then moved to trying to build out the Ghost boot disks...but ran into lots of problems there as well. Havn't given up yet. BartsPE or better yet the ultimate boot disk are an IT Pro's best friends when it comes to laptops in particular. I refuse to open the case on a laptop for disk mirroring.
I use ghost to create DVD images for all of my notebooks and it works great. For a basic recovery it takes about a little over an hour with image of the basics, XP, Office and a few other programs.
I know that Symantec has purchased DeployCenter but to me DeployCenter works a lot better then ghost, especially when it comes to ghosting RAID 5 units
I have changed from DC version 2x to using a BartPE bootdisk and SelfImage for cloning. Very nice for cloning operations although I have not attempted to clone a damaged drive.
Here is a free util, DriveImage XML - DriveImage XML is an easy to use and reliable program for imaging and backing up partitions and logical drives http://runtime.org/dixml.htm
Any time you have to install an application to a drive you want to clone, you are changing the drive.. You want something that will clone without installing anything, and that will not require a running OS install before cloning.. ie. you want a program that can run from floppy or CD so that you can use the system the drive is in, without modifying the contents of the drive in any way. Don't get me wrong, DC Pro may do great with imaging drives, including itself (that is the drive you've installed it to) but it would be of limited use if you're trying to create a forensic copy of a drive and don't want the drive mounted for more than read operations. Or if you were truely trying to clone your main drive, rather than having to build a completely different drive as a master. Recently I found a tip for using DD in a terminal session off of a Knoppix cd (knoppix is a linux 'boot from cd' distro) and another tip was to try Digital Dolly, find it with google, which is similar but with a menu driven screen to help you easily copy drives, partitions, or raw data. If you want to image, and the like, I'm sure DriveClone can be used by building a drive you want to master, and then putting it into the system as a slave drive and creating the image from that, but it also adds that complexity for something someone may not need. And did I mention Knoppix and Digital Dolly are free? *- whups guess i just did -* Personally, I bought a copy of Drive Copy from Power Quest, just before they were annexed into Symantec and irreversibly altered, merging it with Ghost, which also turned into this expensive drive mastering program (high dollar cost for networked and imaged cloning) rather than an inexpensive tool to allow easy drive to drive copying.. "Drive Copy" was in the 40 to 60 dollar range at its height of popularity, and wasn't without its bugs, like drive to drive copy not resizing partitions on some drives.. but being able to get around that by only coping one partition at a time, allows the program to continue to be used, at least until NTFS is no more.. (fat,F32,*nix, & ntfs are supported)
Version 2x did allow booting from a CD to clone/restore a drive, and also only worked in a 'pre-OS' environment. I have not tried version 3x so I don't know if it offers this or not. I know that 3x will run IN Windows whereas 2x would not at all. This article didn't address if it would/could run from CD or pre-OS.