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How do I clone my Hard drive?
- Thread starter DefPoet
- Start date
You may want to download Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools at
One of the options listed at the bottom is "DRIVE-TO-DRIVE COPY - Copy all the files or a specific folder from one drive to another." This mentions files, so I'm not sure this is really a drive clone program.
A couple of other cloning progras I've found, but have no experience using:
I'm sure there are other free programs to be had. In all cases, I advise backing up important data before cloning just in case something happens.
One of the options listed at the bottom is "DRIVE-TO-DRIVE COPY - Copy all the files or a specific folder from one drive to another." This mentions files, so I'm not sure this is really a drive clone program.
A couple of other cloning progras I've found, but have no experience using:
I'm sure there are other free programs to be had. In all cases, I advise backing up important data before cloning just in case something happens.
- Thread starter
- #3
- Thread starter
- #4
Not knowing the specs of your PC, it's hard to make the best suggestion.
Are these IDE drives or SATA? If IDE, then most motherboards come with two IDE ports, each supporting 2 drives. You could either use the two spots as you mentioned, or hook them up to the secondary IDE.
You could also use the existing connectors if the drives are SATA. Or are there spare SATA ports on your motherboard?
If any case, you'll probably want to do the clone from a diskette boot. PC Inspector creates this diskette. I don't know how DrvCloneXP works. You'll create this diskette prior to performing the drive swap out, if that is the route you take.
In any case, be sure you know what drive has the data, and which drive is to receive it. If you reverse the order, you'll clone over the wrong drive and lose your data. This is the one scenario which made me mention backing up important data in my prior post.
Are these IDE drives or SATA? If IDE, then most motherboards come with two IDE ports, each supporting 2 drives. You could either use the two spots as you mentioned, or hook them up to the secondary IDE.
You could also use the existing connectors if the drives are SATA. Or are there spare SATA ports on your motherboard?
If any case, you'll probably want to do the clone from a diskette boot. PC Inspector creates this diskette. I don't know how DrvCloneXP works. You'll create this diskette prior to performing the drive swap out, if that is the route you take.
In any case, be sure you know what drive has the data, and which drive is to receive it. If you reverse the order, you'll clone over the wrong drive and lose your data. This is the one scenario which made me mention backing up important data in my prior post.
- Thread starter
- #6
If you use the existing cable then you must jumper one drive for Master and the other Slave, or use Cable Select on both. If you use Cable Select, the Master will be at the end of the cable and the Slave drive will be in the middle.
The Master drive is usually assigned C: and the Slave D:. You could always create a DOS boot diskette from to examine disk contents to ensure you have the correct drive setup. If the drives are formatted with NTFS, then a NTFS reader can be made from
The Master drive is usually assigned C: and the Slave D:. You could always create a DOS boot diskette from to examine disk contents to ensure you have the correct drive setup. If the drives are formatted with NTFS, then a NTFS reader can be made from
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