Cloning a hard drive??

My Mom's Dell Desktop needs a new hard drive - hers is still working for
now, but I fear that's near end of life - she's seeing constant CHKDSK
messages warning of a corrupt drive - running CHKDSK several times does no
good. I can get a replacement HD pretty cheap - what's the best approach to
clone (copy? replicate? image?) the existing hard drive over to a
replacement hard drive, and then use the new drive as the primary (only)
drive in the desktop. I'm assuming that the ribbon cable and power supply
in her desktop will accommodate both the current hard drive as well as the
new hard drive to get the data from the old to the new drive.

I'm guessing that something like Ghost would do the job - is there anything
that's easier or more reliable?

Thanks!

"Oh no, not again!" <> wrote in message
news:gd7uoe$86f$...
> My Mom's Dell Desktop needs a new hard drive - hers is still working for
> now, but I fear that's near end of life - she's seeing constant CHKDSK
> messages warning of a corrupt drive - running CHKDSK several times does no
> good. I can get a replacement HD pretty cheap - what's the best approach
> to clone (copy? replicate? image?) the existing hard drive over to a
> replacement hard drive, and then use the new drive as the primary (only)
> drive in the desktop. I'm assuming that the ribbon cable and power supply
> in her desktop will accommodate both the current hard drive as well as the
> new hard drive to get the data from the old to the new drive.
>
> I'm guessing that something like Ghost would do the job - is there
> anything that's easier or more reliable?
>
> Thanks!
>


You can trial either CasperXP or CompuApps Drive Wizard free to see if it
works. They're both small and can be downloaded from www.download.com .

I use Drive Wizard primarily because it's small and easy to use - and it
works predictably for me.

To me it's more simply than either Acronis True Image or Ghost.


Stew

Unfortunately, the cloned HD is likely to show the same errors. You are
creating an exact copy of the present OS.

But try it anyway.

First, a bit of terminology (not that it really matters A disk image
is a byte for byte copy of the contents of a hard disk (or disk
partition.) A disk clone is an identical copy of a hard disk (or disk
partition); that includes the free space and files not normally included
in an image, like the paging file. A disk image is a single file, while
a clone is typically the mirror image of the original.

Practically speaking, a disk image is smaller, because the image file is
typically compressed. Other than that, as long as your Mom's hard disk
is not repartitioned into two or more partitions, it makes no difference
whether you image or clone. (The term 'ghost' is used by Symantec to
mean an image.)

If you're buying a retail hard disk it will almost certainly come with
complete directions on copying everything to the new disk, and it will
include the disk manufacturer's software for accomplishing the task.
(The software is usually a repackaged version of Norton Ghost or True
Image.)

You're free to buy the full retail package of Norton Ghost, or Acronis
True Image, or Image for Windows (from Terabyte Unlimited) or similar
software. But unless you're pretty comfortable with taking and restoring
images, I would stick with the manufacturer-supplied software. Retail
disk packages come with handholding installation support from the
manufacturer. May as well take advantage of it.

Daddy

Oh no, not again! wrote:
> My Mom's Dell Desktop needs a new hard drive - hers is still working for
> now, but I fear that's near end of life - she's seeing constant CHKDSK
> messages warning of a corrupt drive - running CHKDSK several times does no
> good. I can get a replacement HD pretty cheap - what's the best approach to
> clone (copy? replicate? image?) the existing hard drive over to a
> replacement hard drive, and then use the new drive as the primary (only)
> drive in the desktop. I'm assuming that the ribbon cable and power supply
> in her desktop will accommodate both the current hard drive as well as the
> new hard drive to get the data from the old to the new drive.
>
> I'm guessing that something like Ghost would do the job - is there anything
> that's easier or more reliable?
>
> Thanks!
>
>

you didn't mention the current size/type of drive or model of the pc but i
would suggest you get a seagate drive from newegg and clone the current
drive using the excellent diskwizard software available from seagate's web
site. other manufacturers have similar software but seagate's current
version is very good. like someone else mentioned, i fear you may clone
some of your problems to the new drive too so don't be surprised if you see
some bad behavior from you clone. finally, if you are buying from newegg
beware that many of their drives are oem packaged (a bare drive) and not
retail packed (drive, brackets, cable, installation software)... so you may
need to also pick up a data cable (sata or pata type), but there is a chance
that you could temporarily use the data cable for the optical drive
depending on which model computer you are talking about.

"Oh no, not again!" <> wrote in message
news:gd7uoe$86f$...
> My Mom's Dell Desktop needs a new hard drive - hers is still working for
> now, but I fear that's near end of life - she's seeing constant CHKDSK
> messages warning of a corrupt drive - running CHKDSK several times does no
> good. I can get a replacement HD pretty cheap - what's the best approach
> to clone (copy? replicate? image?) the existing hard drive over to a
> replacement hard drive, and then use the new drive as the primary (only)
> drive in the desktop. I'm assuming that the ribbon cable and power supply
> in her desktop will accommodate both the current hard drive as well as the
> new hard drive to get the data from the old to the new drive.
>
> I'm guessing that something like Ghost would do the job - is there
> anything that's easier or more reliable?
>
> Thanks!
>

I am guessing that there's some type of HW-related problem with the drive
that's generating the recurring CHKDSK indicators. And I'm also guessing
that IF it's a HW problem that's putting bad data on the drive, that the bad
writes will stop with a new drive, and that any bad data currently on the
drive will be "fixed" (as much as possible) the first time we run CHKDSK on
the new drive, after the data is all copied over to the new drive.

FYI, it's a 20 GB Maxtor drive - fine for the email and web surfing that Mom
does. Maxtor has a DiskWizard program that (I think) says it can clone
drives

All I'm trying to do is replace what appears to be a failing drive with a
new one.

"Christopher Muto" <> wrote in message
news:gd87da$b5k$...
> you didn't mention the current size/type of drive or model of the pc but i
> would suggest you get a seagate drive from newegg and clone the current
> drive using the excellent diskwizard software available from seagate's web
> site. other manufacturers have similar software but seagate's current
> version is very good. like someone else mentioned, i fear you may clone
> some of your problems to the new drive too so don't be surprised if you
> see some bad behavior from you clone. finally, if you are buying from
> newegg beware that many of their drives are oem packaged (a bare drive)
> and not retail packed (drive, brackets, cable, installation software)...
> so you may need to also pick up a data cable (sata or pata type), but
> there is a chance that you could temporarily use the data cable for the
> optical drive depending on which model computer you are talking about.
>
> "Oh no, not again!" <> wrote in message
> news:gd7uoe$86f$...
>> My Mom's Dell Desktop needs a new hard drive - hers is still working for
>> now, but I fear that's near end of life - she's seeing constant CHKDSK
>> messages warning of a corrupt drive - running CHKDSK several times does
>> no good. I can get a replacement HD pretty cheap - what's the best
>> approach to clone (copy? replicate? image?) the existing hard drive over
>> to a replacement hard drive, and then use the new drive as the primary
>> (only) drive in the desktop. I'm assuming that the ribbon cable and
>> power supply in her desktop will accommodate both the current hard drive
>> as well as the new hard drive to get the data from the old to the new
>> drive.
>>
>> I'm guessing that something like Ghost would do the job - is there
>> anything that's easier or more reliable?
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>
>

"Oh no, not again!" <> wrote in message
news:gd8c4v$dki$...
>I am guessing that there's some type of HW-related problem with the drive
>that's generating the recurring CHKDSK indicators. And I'm also guessing
>that IF it's a HW problem that's putting bad data on the drive, that the
>bad writes will stop with a new drive, and that any bad data currently on
>the drive will be "fixed" (as much as possible) the first time we run
>CHKDSK on the new drive, after the data is all copied over to the new
>drive.
>
> FYI, it's a 20 GB Maxtor drive - fine for the email and web surfing that
> Mom does. Maxtor has a DiskWizard program that (I think) says it can
> clone drives
>
> All I'm trying to do is replace what appears to be a failing drive with a
> new one.
>


What system model number?

Brian K wrote:
> Unfortunately, the cloned HD is likely to show the same errors. You are
> creating an exact copy of the present OS.
>
> But try it anyway.
>
>
Not precisely. A cloned drive, assuming the the clone has no bad
sectors, will not have any PHYSICAL errors like the old drive. But most
cloning processes copy exactly what is seen. If a sector is allocated
to a file or folder by Windows on the old drive and it contains
corrupted data, so will the replacement drive. On the other hand, if a
sector has not been allocated by the file system, it won't get copied at
all, if the hard drive cloning software copies data according to its
LOGICAL organization. There are also less perfect clong processes that
copy the PHYSICAL sectors exactly.

There is cloning and there is cloning. Not an extremely simple subject.

.... Ben Myers

i think we all get what it is that you are trying to do, and atemping to
clone the current drive certainly makes sense, but was just trying to
caution that it dosen't always produce a positve result when the source
(your current drive) is suspect. still worth a shot as reloading
everything from scratch takes hours. and yes, the segate utility has a
clone function as do all disk utilities from all the major vendors. however
these utilites are locked to the vendors hardware where at least one of
thier drives must be present in the machine for the software to run. you
may want to try computergeeks.com for a small replacement drive as
everything new on the market is ten to twenty times the capacity of your
current one.

"Oh no, not again!" <> wrote in message
news:gd8c4v$dki$...
>I am guessing that there's some type of HW-related problem with the drive
>that's generating the recurring CHKDSK indicators. And I'm also guessing
>that IF it's a HW problem that's putting bad data on the drive, that the
>bad writes will stop with a new drive, and that any bad data currently on
>the drive will be "fixed" (as much as possible) the first time we run
>CHKDSK on the new drive, after the data is all copied over to the new
>drive.
>
> FYI, it's a 20 GB Maxtor drive - fine for the email and web surfing that
> Mom does. Maxtor has a DiskWizard program that (I think) says it can
> clone drives
>
> All I'm trying to do is replace what appears to be a failing drive with a
> new one.
>
> "Christopher Muto" <> wrote in message
> news:gd87da$b5k$...
>> you didn't mention the current size/type of drive or model of the pc but
>> i would suggest you get a seagate drive from newegg and clone the current
>> drive using the excellent diskwizard software available from seagate's
>> web site. other manufacturers have similar software but seagate's
>> current version is very good. like someone else mentioned, i fear you
>> may clone some of your problems to the new drive too so don't be
>> surprised if you see some bad behavior from you clone. finally, if you
>> are buying from newegg beware that many of their drives are oem packaged
>> (a bare drive) and not retail packed (drive, brackets, cable,
>> installation software)... so you may need to also pick up a data cable
>> (sata or pata type), but there is a chance that you could temporarily use
>> the data cable for the optical drive depending on which model computer
>> you are talking about.
>>
>> "Oh no, not again!" <> wrote in message
>> news:gd7uoe$86f$...
>>> My Mom's Dell Desktop needs a new hard drive - hers is still working for
>>> now, but I fear that's near end of life - she's seeing constant CHKDSK
>>> messages warning of a corrupt drive - running CHKDSK several times does
>>> no good. I can get a replacement HD pretty cheap - what's the best
>>> approach to clone (copy? replicate? image?) the existing hard drive over
>>> to a replacement hard drive, and then use the new drive as the primary
>>> (only) drive in the desktop. I'm assuming that the ribbon cable and
>>> power supply in her desktop will accommodate both the current hard drive
>>> as well as the new hard drive to get the data from the old to the new
>>> drive.
>>>
>>> I'm guessing that something like Ghost would do the job - is there
>>> anything that's easier or more reliable?
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

Yeah, that's pretty much what I've come down to at this point - I can get a
equivalent replacement drive for almost nothing - and I'll just do a fresh
install of everything, update with all the SPs, and that'll be that.

I'll use the Files and Settings transfer wizard from the old drive to move
over Mom's internet favorites and all that kind stuff.

Thanks for all the thoughtful help and suggestions, guys - ain't this
internet thing great - I'm so glad Al Gore invented it for us!


"RnR" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:47:55 -0500, "Oh no, not again!"
> <> wrote:
>
>>My Mom's Dell Desktop needs a new hard drive - hers is still working for
>>now, but I fear that's near end of life - she's seeing constant CHKDSK
>>messages warning of a corrupt drive - running CHKDSK several times does no
>>good. I can get a replacement HD pretty cheap - what's the best approach
>>to
>>clone (copy? replicate? image?) the existing hard drive over to a
>>replacement hard drive, and then use the new drive as the primary (only)
>>drive in the desktop. I'm assuming that the ribbon cable and power supply
>>in her desktop will accommodate both the current hard drive as well as the
>>new hard drive to get the data from the old to the new drive.
>>
>>I'm guessing that something like Ghost would do the job - is there
>>anything
>>that's easier or more reliable?
>>
>>Thanks!
>>
>
> I won't answer your question since others have done that well. I
> might add tho, instead of cloning, imaging or whatever, why not just
> install everything fresh so you have clean setup? Yes I know it's
> more work but there is the benefit of knowing everything should work
> better as a whole.