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Cloning a partitioned HDD?

By MJS_JR ·
I am about to replace the hard drive in my laptop - in the process of buying a drive and an external enclosure. But my HDD has a C: partition and a partition. The OS (WinXP) is on the C: partition, and the only has some data I can backup to my external backup drive.

Can I still clone the drive to swap it out? What happens with the partition?

(I'm on a Dell Inspiron E1505. Already upgraded the memory, but desperately need more drive space.)

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What program are you using?

by Kenone In reply to Cloning a partitioned HDD ...

In general cloning programs, such as ghost, allow you to select which drive and which partition to copy. Some will let you clone all partitions or just the ones you select.

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Haven't decided

by MJS_JR In reply to What program are you usin ...

Honestly, haven't picked the cloning program yet, so I'm open to recommendations!

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Not a problem.

by dldorrance In reply to Cloning a partitioned HDD ...

The cloning software will recognize your existing drive configuration (complete with the partitions) and will reproduce an exact copy on the external drive. However, to boot from the external drive your computer BIOS must be able to recognize and boot from the external drive. This requires checking and if needed changing BIOS settings.

Here I have done what you propose many times using Acronis True Image. Download a trial version here http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/trueimage/index.html .

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Me doing samething, sorta

by SystemCheck In reply to Not a problem.

using acronis does it copy installed programs like games that i dont have a key for

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Acronis

by guenzler In reply to Me doing samething, sorta

Acronis is a backup/imaging program. When using it to image a hard drive, it will copy everything. You can select one partition to the entire drive (all partitions), and during the clone/image you can have it grow the partitions to add more space. This image of the drive will be exactly as it was on the old drive just with more space. So all programs/data will still exist as they were.

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