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How to clone large HDDs?

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crono:
Hi Guys,

my primary HDD with the OS's installed (XP and Debian) is slowly, but surely, going to die. my HDD-Life SMART Monitor tells me it is 74% OK which is for me way to low for ignoring it :( I got a second - unused - drive (self model). I want to put it in my external case 1 and the new HDD in the external case 2 and copy it (Lowlevel) with my laptop 1-to-1. Is this possible (with all the partitions an the bootmanager...)? If the  Linux Ext3 partition is the problem I would leave it, but Windows should be cloned the the other disk. Backing up an image to DVD is not an option (160 GB) an a total new Installation should also be avoided. Any Ideas?

tinjaw:
That is standard. Any disk cloning software will do the trick. A low-level copy doesn't care what is on the drive. If the laptop also has linux you can just use dd and copy it. If you don't have copy software and are looking for free, try DriveImage XML.

crono:
That is standard. Any disk cloning software will do the trick. [/url].
-tinjaw (January 28, 2007, 01:02 PM)
--- End quote ---
Really? Cool - I only knew Imaging tools, which do it "one partion to one big binary file" way. Thanks - I will try DriveImage XML

Crush:
The the Free Edition of HDClone: http://www.miray.de/de/products/sat.hdclone.html or Hard Drive Copy http://www.freeware-download.com/downloaddetails/809.html
I tried different HD-Backup-Software and also use Drive Image that´s till now the fastest and most reliable Backup-utility.

tinjaw:
That is standard. Any disk cloning software will do the trick. [/url].
-tinjaw (January 28, 2007, 01:02 PM)
--- End quote ---
Really? Cool - I only knew Imaging tools, which do it "one partion to one big binary file" way. Thanks - I will try DriveImage XML
-crono (January 28, 2007, 01:12 PM)
--- End quote ---
I guess I should elaborate, as I wasn't too clear on that. Depending on what software you use, it may require to make an intermediate file. I'm not sure if it holds true, but I consider cloning to be making an exact copy, regardless of the method used, be that directly disk to disk or via an intermediate file. DriveImage XML is one of the later. Ghost will do both. There are plenty of others.

However, let me say that I prefer the latter because this way I have an image of the drive if I every need to recover from a crash. I figure that if I am going to spend the time cloning it, I might as well keep a copy.

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