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General discussion

Cloning New Hard Drive Using External HD Enclosure

by lizanded Feb 5, 2009 8:55PM PST

I am putting a new hard drive in my Dell 1525 laptop loaded with Vista Home Premium. I have a new 2.5" external hard drive enclosure. Can I put the old hard drive in the enclosure and clone it from there to my new hard drive? Will it move all of my data and programs as well as Vista? Will it set up both partitions on the new drive?

If I can't clone that way, can I copy and paste my files and folders to get them to the new hard drive?

Finally, If I choose to put XP Pro on the laptop, the files and folders will still transfer right.

Thanks in advance for your help. Have a great day.

Discussion is locked

9 Posts
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The best thing to do is a backup and restore which
by orlbuckeye Feb 5, 2009 9:20PM PST

usually can be done with the laptops manufacturer software that comes with the machine. Symantec also sells a program that we use here at my work called Ghost. It creates what we call an image and we use this image for all our new machines and when current machines have issues. External drives are better for data backup rather then system files and applications. Plus usually backups are to DVD and are more permanent.

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I was using the external enclosure for the old drive
by lizanded Feb 5, 2009 9:32PM PST

I have a copy of Ghost 7.0 and even Norton's Save and Restore 1.0 but neither will work with windows vista. I'm just trying to figure out a way to transfer data from the old drive to the new one before I use a wipe program on the old drive.

Thanks for the quick response.

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What I've used.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Feb 5, 2009 10:29PM PST

1. I use G4U to do this. But I've found most users put off by the command line.
2. Now I suggest HDCLONE. They seem to like that.

3. Files are files and discounting a bad copy or someone doing something odd will be fine.

Again, Files, folders are fine. The software titles don't copy back to the other OS.
Bob

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HD Clone
by lizanded Feb 6, 2009 12:25AM PST

Bob,

Thanks for the info on HD Clone. It looks like the right product. So by burning a cloned image to CD/DVD I would not need the external HD. I would just install the new HD, place the bootable CD in and follow the instructions on the screen. I can do that. Thanks a lot.

Have you tried the Free or Basic versions? Did they work OK (slower but OK)?

I will try the free version in a little while. I'll let you know how it worked.

Thanks again.

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Sorry.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Feb 6, 2009 12:30AM PST

What I use is G4U. That way I don't need a mouse or much else.

As to CD/DVD why would we do that?
Bob

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External Enclosure
by lizanded Feb 6, 2009 12:56AM PST

Bob,

Thanks for the quick reply. If I put the old hard drive in the external enclosure how would I clone it directly to a new blank hd? Will the blank drive open up or show up for copying too without an OS? Would I load up Vista or XP Pro first on the new drive then just copy or clone the files and folders? Can you use HD Clone to just move files and folders?

Does HD Clone need to be installed on both drives or just the source drive?

Thanks again. Have a great day.

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Let's try easy.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Feb 6, 2009 1:14AM PST

"If I put the old hard drive in the external enclosure how would I clone it directly to a new blank hd?"

I don't do that. I put the new blank hd in the external enclosure, clone to it then swap the old and new drives. Seems easy.

"Will the blank drive open up or show up for copying too without an OS?"

Where? Explorer, Disk Management? The clone application? Windows is the OS, what application and why are you not trying this?

-> I get the feeling you want me to predict and document what will happen. Sorry but it never works that way.

I'll stop here.
Bob

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You're Right
by lizanded Feb 6, 2009 1:19AM PST

Bob,

Thanks for all of your time and advice. I will let you know how it works out.

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I've done my to DVD because thats
by orlbuckeye Feb 6, 2009 4:52AM PST

Acer does it's backups on DVD. I don't use Ghost but they use it here where I work.

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