how do I clone hard drive?

I copy my entire C:\ drive to another internal hard drive installed in my machine using a software package called "Retrospect Backup Professional Version 7.0.

Here's a CNET review of the previous version.

http://reviews.cnet.com/Dantz_Retrospect_Professional_6_0/4505-8051_7-20890728.html

You can also try before you buy.

http://www.dantz.com/en/products/trial_terms.dtml?platform=windows&edition=professional

I use Nortons Ghost, it seems to work just fine. To use their words:

Norton Ghost is the fast and reliable software solution to satisfy all your PC disk cloning and copying needs: upgrading hard drives, backing up for
disaster recovery, or rolling out numerous machines of similar configurations.

I have used Casper XP for couple of years. Simple,fast, auto backup to external drive or internal or both. Works great. Good assistance from company if you need help.
http://www.fssdev.com/products/casperxp/

Scott

Acronis works for me.
Western Digital Data Life guard did not work for me.
I use Windows XP-OS

I just cloned my (failing) hard drive to a new one using Copy Commander from Vcom (v-com.com). It was half the price of Norton and worked as advertised. So if you just want to back up your boot drive, this is a good tool for that (assuming there's sufficient space on the target drive to hold all the data on the source).

The other thing you can do, which I do, is use the drive for files storage. I store all my personal files on my secondary drive and use my primary to hold Windows and the applications.

Assuming the used HD is formatted, you can create directories on it the same way you do on your primary drive. And you can change your profile to use that drive as your home directory.

R. Craig

If all you want to do is a one-time clone of a hard drive (such as to install a new larger primary hard drive while keeping everything on your old drive), then download the 14-day fully functional trial copy of Acronis True Image 9.0 at www.acronis.com. You'll be able to make your image for free - I did exactly that. But once you've downloaded it, see how easy it is to set it up to make regular automatic images so you can restore from any hard drive crashes without any lost data and no need to reinstall Windows or any programs. True Image just saved my butt - I installed it three weeks ago and had it making weekly full images and daily incremental images, automatically. My timing couldn't have been better. Last week, my Windows got corrupted and wouldn't boot - I restored the prior image using the Acronis boot disk, and I'm back to normal again with no problem, and no need to reinstall Windows or all my programs (let alone no lost personal files). It's a great, user-friendly program, and you can easily find it for less than half the price of Norton Ghost, which I understand is not as friendly for non-technically oriented people and does not have some of the features Acronis has. Among other things, Acronis handles both disk imaging and individual file backup, and can restore individual files from an image.

Before finding Acronis, I bought VCom Copy Commander, because it was cheap - about $30 compared to about $70 for Norton Ghost. It might work for a single clone, but does not have the automatic scheduling capabilities of Acronis, and does not run within Windows (runs on Windows systems, just not while Windows is booted). I regret that purchase. For the same price, I got True Image 9.0 at Newegg.com (downloadable version). Definitely worth the money. Make sure you get version 9.0 if you purchase -- for some reason 8.0 is more prevalent (sometimes, oddly, for a higher price than 9.0), but 9.0 is more feature-laden. (And don't buy it directly from Acronis, as it is $20 more there.)

No connection to Acronis and no axes to grind against Norton or VCom - just appreciate that this program was reasonably priced, easy to set up, and worked exactly as advertised.

I have been using Acronis True Image ver 8 for some time now. I am not familiar with newer versions of Norton Ghost but with Acronis you can:

Back up to a second hard drive containing the ''Acronis Secure Zone'' (a partition created by the software that cannot be touched by any other software...not even by you except through True Image).

Manage/Repartition hard drives.

Do all the partitioning of a new drive easily.

Clone a hard drive.

Back up to CD's or even DVD's (although for DVD you must first back up to files (not more than 2GB per file [the largest filesize recordable to a DVD]on a hard disk and then copy/move them to a DVD)... somewhat cumbersome but useful to have multiple sources of full disaster recovery.

Schedule tasks, Export a drive, Explore Image (to selectively restore a file or folder etc.)

I have no connection to the makers of this product, nor do I sell it.... only a satisfied user.

BTW, I would suggest *at least* an 80GB (using 40GB for the secure zone) second hard drive if you also plan to use that drive for other things, such as small additional storage space. It all depends on how many files you maintain on your main drive. Acronis does compress the backup and you can do multiple full system backups to the secure zone.

In my case I keep any non program files, downloads and any files that are not essential to the operating system and registered programs on the second drive and simply do not back them up in order to limit the backups to a reasonable size.