Clone 20GB HDD to ext 160GB USB HDD

[Harveywaz]

I'm Running Windows 2000 Professional SP4

I want to clone my 20MB internal HDD to an external 160MB Seagate USB HDD that has plenty of room on it. I downloaded a Freeware version of XXCLONE to do this--I visited a site that reviewed several free cloning programs, and XXCLONE seemed like it would fill my needs. Now I can't even find the site where other programs were also listed. But no matter...

But when I invoke XXCLONE it warns that all data on the destination drive will be erased.

Must I partition the destination drive before cloning? How do I do that? Disk Management says: "Right-click an unallocated region of a basic disk, and then click Create Partition...[and]In the Create Partition wizard, click Next, click Primary Partition, Extended Partition, or Logical Drive, and then follow the instructions on your screen. But I don't get those options when I bring up Disk Management.

Is there another cloning program that will clone from Windows, not DOS? Is there a simple partitioning program that I can use, and if I do get my USB drive partitioned, will XXCLONE not image my HDD to that new partition?

Any suggestions? Please?
Please advise--my HDD is making funny sounds.

 

[chipk]

Why not just back up your data and re-install on a new internal disk? You're not going to be able to boot off that USB cloned copy anyway.

If you want something that will replace your currrent disk, you'll need to get another internal disk (IDE, SCSI, SATA or whatever it happens to be) and run through this routine with XXCLONE.

 

[wolluf]

If you 'clone' one disk to another of course all data on the destination disk will be overwritten - that's what cloning is!

Do you mean you want to create a backup of the 2k installation on the external hard drive? (something like a true image or ghost - not free of course - will create an image of your installation and save it as a file you can use to restore from or 'mount' to access as if it were another drive).

 

[Harveywaz]

Thank you, Chipk, Wolluf--
My hard drive is occasionally making noises such as I would associate with imminent failure, and even if it wasn't I thought it would be good to have a bootable image on another drive that I could substitute if this one failed. And anyway, 20GB is not large enough for my current needs. I have already offloaded, and currently access almost all my data on the external USB drive.

I gather from what you are saying that the better thing to do would be to add an internal hard drive, clone my old one to the new one using it's cloning s/w or another suitable pgm, and then what? Can I now switch the access to the drives so I can boot from the new large internal drive and it will look just like my original one, except with lots more room?

I appreciate your help and comments.

 

[wolluf]

Yes you can do exactly as you suggest - and the new hard drive manufacturer will have a free cloning tool (to clone TO their drive) on their website. When you do this, disconnect the old drive before booting from the new cloned version or you'll get drive letter problems.