Cloning Laptop And Netbook

[billzant]

Dear Forum,

For a long time I have thought this was a good idea, and I have finally got around to doing it.

Aside, is there a difference between a clone and a drive image?

Basically I want to store the clones on an external USB drive (500GB), create a clone of C-drive, format C, and copy the clone across to the C drive. I also want to do similar with the D drive

I started with the netbook as it was not so much of a problem if that went wrong. I asked the local computer guy to help me. I had an external CD/DVD drive. He put the CD in and there was a problem with the software and drivers so he was not able to create the clone. He was using Norton Ghost, I think.

He was then trying to work on the laptop. He said there was no problem with that except that it will take all night to create a clone of the C drive a it is 56Gb.

Are there any suggestions as to how I can do what I want?

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best

Bill Z

[bensalu]

http://www.paragon-software.com/products.htm i use paragon disc manager

[britmaveric]

Norton Ghost

[webfact]

In the past I used "Acronis True Image" but due to some problems I switched to "Storagecraft ShadowProtect"

Both programs do a brilliant job (Acronis is a bit to bloated in my opinion). I personally prefer ShadowProtect for its rock-solid stability and

reliability.

[Forkinhades]

Basically I want to store the clones on an external USB drive (500GB), create a clone of C-drive, format C, and copy the clone across to the C drive. I also want to do similar with the D drive

So you want to copy your C drive, format it, then put all the information back on to it as you had before? you must have too much time on your hands.

Acronis True Image is what I use. I use it straight after I have a new OS installed, then I do incremental back ups every so often. So if I do get a problem with the puta, I can go back to a previous 'date' 'state' without having to format 'C'

[dave_boo]

The masochistic way is to use dd (but use bs=32256 since that's a track of 64 sectors with each being 512 bytes--seems to work the fastest). There's also Gparted, which is really similar to Ghost, but free. Granted you can buy Ghost at Pantip or MBK, but are you sure there's no viruses or other nasties?

[billzant]

I am trying Acronis True Image on the netbook - I already had Acronis True Image. Have been able to create the bootable CD, and am in the process of creating the drive image on External Hard Drve. Looking good so far. But as yet have not wasted my time ( ) formatting the drive to test it.

Thanks for all the help.

Will add to thread if/when the process is succesful.

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best

Bill Z