I am in search of a software platform that can clone my hard drive while it is still in my laptop. Of course I am wanting to install that clone onto another hard drive at a future point, but I do not want to be forced to do it at the time of the imaging. I currently have Acronis True Image 2011 installed, but that has proven to be extremely problematic and not user friendly at all. I created a backup group of TIB files to my external drive, then swapped out my HDD and tried to install the TIB files via the Acronis boot disc which took me about 3-4 hours. I then noticed that there was a read error so I tried to install the Win7 disc but the duplicate partitions that Acronis left behind made that not possible. Now I have that HDD in another computer being wiped and that process was started about 8 or more hours ago and it's only half done. Acronis is the absolute biggest joke ever. Does anyone here have any suggested software that will clone a currently used drive, and be able to install the exact functioning replica onto a different drive, OS, files and apps to boot?
Image for Windows (Terabyteunlimited.com) can make bootable dvd media that can be used to clone your hard drive.
I was shooting for a one and done situation, not a continuous usage of the software. I've found (@ least I think I did) that to recover something, you first need to have it installed and operating. I want to take the contents of this drive, (my entire system, hacks patches and all) and move them to a brand new HDD without the use of a SATA-USB cable.
WinPE bootable (iso, CD, network etc) with ghost32 single executable Nothing easier Or any other alternative mentioned above. Do not make it sound more difficult then it needs to be! sebus
Dont know if this was intended for me or Urie. My laptop only has a bay for one internal drive hence my wanting to make the clone first, then do the transition and mount my system back onto the new drive once it's cleaned. I also wanted to have the clone ISO on backupon my external in case anything goes wrong in the future, I could always go back to that point. Being as though I've been trying to nail down a solution for over a month now with Acronis, I simply want to try other software because the people that designed Acronis have made it far too difficult to easily understand without devoting long hours into researching the meanings of representations that are made in that product. I appreciate the efforts you've taken in trying to explain Acronis, but I simply wish to get away from that product and opt for a more user friendly one.