Cloning a SATA hard drive the easiest way...

[lostinisaan]

 

           Sorry for opening a new thread, but I think it's really necessary to "save face" and to be able to get my friend's machine's HD cloned ASAP.

 

             Here's what I already did: 

 

       I bought an enclosure, an identical ( blue) 500 GB WD hard drive and had huge problems to boot the machine to even start a clone program. I've done that before by using Acronis and it was a piece of cake, the hd also damaged and HD Sentinental showed a huge decrease of  hd life. 

 

       Last week, I must have spent several hours, but no way to boot the thingy in a way that I could even switch on Macrium, the free version which comes with a clone program.

 

          Somehow the hd booted again and i could start Macrium, the new hd connected in an enclosure via USB cable. All went well, I formatted the drive as the program wanted, it was initialized, visible by the machine and I started cloning.

 

      But nope, it stopped after only 3 %. I've tried to back it up, but that's also not possible. I just came back from a shop bought a cable to connect the hd direct to the motherboard via SATA and power cable.

 

         I've got three choices, but really don't want to waste anymore time on that thingy.

 

       1. I try to use Macrium and it might work well being directly connected.

 

     2. I use AOMEI Backupper ( full version) and use their clone program which seems to be a decent one.

 

   3. I install Acronis and try the clone with the 2014 version. ( full version, also the 2015 version available)/

 

   Any and I really mean any advice would be deeply appreciated. I'm only trying to do my Thai friend a favor, it's not about money. Thanks a lot in advance.  

[lostinisaan]

Got my power and data cables, plus AEOMI Back up technician edition and ready for the war.

 

          I hope the beer's cold. A temple visit might be included, but not looking for bags to snap. 

[SoiBiker]

Don't clone the disk you're running the OS from. Boot from a live CD or USB stick and clone it that way instead. 

Edited September 3, 2016 by SoiBiker

[lostinisaan]

28 minutes ago, SoiBiker said:

Don't clone the disk you're running the OS from. Boot from a live CD or USB stick and clone it that way instead. 

 

 Apart me? I've done that with Acronis having a 40 % alive hard drive in my notebook and it worked out well.

 

   I've just checked on their website: 

AOMEI Backupper provides corresponding functions about disk clone, which can clone one disk to another without breaking off the running operating system (It is called "Live Disk Cloning"). That is to say, it can clone while working without interrupting the running programs.

In default situation, this software just clones the existing data on the disk (That is the used sectors). It will not clone these deleted data. This software also provides a "Sector by sector" option. If you select this option, all the data, whether it has been deleted or not, will be cloned.

Finally, I did create a bootable memory drive and will see how that works. Will try it without first and report back. Thanks a lot. 

 

          

[lostinisaan]

I'm afraid that I wasted my time on this machine. I couldn't even put the program on and finally decided to stop trying to save the drive.

 

      I was prepared with a bootable memory stick, but that won't help if the program from AOEMEI isn't installed.

 

        I've checked with Advice and they said that they'd have a program and of course do they have other machines to clone it. I'm done and think I've tried all i could. 

 

   I was so close to it, but then the PC didn't boot up anymore. better said so slowly that you can't even install a program. 

 

         

 

         

Edited September 4, 2016 by lostinisaan

[brianinbangkok]

If the original disk is that bad but has data you want to keep. I would have installed a new HD in the computer and stuck the bad original in the external usb box
Then put a OS on the computer and just copy the data to the new HD.
If the HD is really bad I would not want to copy the OS from it.

[SoiBiker]

The last thing you want to do with a failing drive is write to it. Trying to install software onto it and do the clone that way is a very bad idea.

[lostinisaan]

24 minutes ago, SoiBiker said:

The last thing you want to do with a failing drive is write to it. Trying to install software onto it and do the clone that way is a very bad idea.

 

 Biker, you brought me on the right idea..i had all set up, I even tried to boot my PC at home with the memory drive and it worked well, had the program on my PC installed and made sure that it will work.

 

      All went fine and i could boot with the memory stick and the rest would have been a piece of cake.

 

         But if you can't even install a small program, there's no hope. Cloning it with another PC seems to be the only positive way. It's a very old PC with DDR 2 memory sticks and i must have lost a lot of face.

 

        But at least, I've tried. What really bugs me is that I cloned my notebook's hd that was in a similar shape with Acronis within an hour and had an identical copy. Just swapped the drives and continued. 

Edited September 4, 2016 by lostinisaan

[SoiBiker]

That's why you use a cd or bootable stick that already has the software of your choice built-in. I'd have used dd-rescue, but there are plenty of other options out there. 

[JSixpack]

On Sunday, September 04, 2016 at 6:03 PM, lostinisaan said:

   I was so close to it, but then the PC didn't boot up anymore. better said so slowly that you can't even install a program.              

 

A PC that won't boot from a CD or flashdrive either doesn't need a new HDD--unless you fix it so that it WILL boot up. Get to it!