How can I clone my hard drive cheaply and easily?

Question

I am trying to switch my main hard drives. I want to clone my current (100GB) Hard drive so i can switch to my 200 GB one that i bought. Note: The maximum I am willing to spend is $10-15.

Answer 1

Advice: cloning drives should be done only on new installations of the OS and programs. Copying a disk in use can transfer all the problems and wasted disk space with all of the XP restore files that isn't needed (if you're using XP).

There are cheap cloning software, but I know no computer professional that will risk transferring data with free alternatives. Norton's Ghost, Partition Magic (it has an mirroring option) and Drive Copy are three programs widely used for this task, and preferred by hardware techs. Although I have and like Acronis True Image software, it doesn't make me feel comfortable using copy software with mounted disks -- bad things can happen, like trashed transfers. Offline copying is safer, as nothing will be in use to conflict with a transfer (even safe mode loads system files).

Time, effort and risk of data loss makes seeking a cheap copy solution much more expensive in the end.

Source: Me. A computer builder for over 20 years.

Answer 2

Hi
You can get software like Acronis True Image. or Hard drive cloning. or Norton Ghost etc
You say you are going to switch from a 100gig hd to a 200 gig hd then why not install your 200 gig hd as master and the 100 gig hd as a secondry this way you will not loose anything on it and can still access it. you could also copy any files on it to your new drive

Answer 3

Look for Ghost or Drive Copy 2 cheap programs. If you just bought a new Hard Drive then one of them might be on the installation cd. I have used both work very well.

Answer 4

You might find some freeware at Major Geeks to clone your entire hard drive:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?id=3&sort=7

Answer 5

take a picture of it.

seriously though, ghosting software is what you are looking for