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General discussion

boot from a cloned hdd?

Mar 3, 2005 2:18PM PST

Purchased an identical hdd for my Toshiba 6100 laptop. With an IDE cable adapter I will install it into my desktop as a slave. With the use of Norton ghost or other mirror software I hope to mirror and back up daily my laptop hdd onto the desktop slave hdd over my network. The reason for identical drives is so I can swap it into my laptop in the`event the current hdd craps out (calling this toshiba hdd crap is being kind, I am on my third unit in two years!)

My main concern is will I be able to boot from it like nothing even happen. I dont want to deal with recoveries or reload my OS I just want to plug it in and go. I spoke with the Norton people but I get the feeling there not sure. Thanks!

Discussion is locked

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I've done this.
Mar 3, 2005 8:58PM PST

I used a pair of those 3.65 2.5 inch drive adaptors and Norton's Ghost.

The clone ran and then the new drive booted in the laptop.

Painless. Of course I've done this dozens of times, but if you want 100% ironclad it will work, then even I can't give you that. No one will.

Bob

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Will give it a try
Mar 4, 2005 8:47AM PST

Bob, thanks for your feedback. I agree it should work but if I seem skepticale its because I have read otherwise. There has been some talk about a glitch with ghost that prevents boot up or log on with the mirrored drive. Something about windows not reconizing the drive letters now that the slave is a master in a different computer. I guess I will just have to try it to see if it works.

BTW can some one recommend an alternative to ghost. It does not seem get high marks by all.

I will post my findings If anyone is interest.

Thanks

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Alt = Acronis Trueimage.
Mar 5, 2005 12:00AM PST

Maybe the demo on download.com ?