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Posted By: Clive Clone laptop hdd - 15th Aug 2011 7:35pm
Is there any free software to clone a hdd, I would like to clone my laptop hdd, and reinstall all back on new drive, copying the recovery partion on to new drive as well.
Is this possable?
Posted By: little_pob Re: Clone laptop hdd - 15th Aug 2011 7:55pm
Acronis True Image can clone your current install to the new drive.

To be honest I'd just install a fresh copy of your OS (presuming some version of Windows). You won't have the OEM bloat on it then.
Posted By: MattLFC Re: Clone laptop hdd - 15th Aug 2011 8:35pm
Originally Posted by little_pob
Acronis True Image can clone your current install to the new drive.

To be honest I'd just install a fresh copy of your OS (presuming some version of Windows). You won't have the OEM bloat on it then.

I'd recommend Acronis too.

Little_pob is correct as well, but only if the laptop is full of bloat (I've seen some horrendous Toshiba's over the years, but my Advent, and a Dell [Snikas] I fixed last week, were pretty much bloat-free [in fact Snikas was literally just a Dell branded core-XP SP3 disc and nothing else - had to download the drivers using the service tag lol, I have a few "backup" Dell discs, and they seem to be clean]).

My general attitude is, install Windows, get all your programs on, get it running to how you like it, little quirks and what have you, and then take an image of it 4 - 6 weeks later (check it for malware first lol). Then in addition to regular backups, you always have a "clean" install you can revert to, should you wish to start afresh in the future.

smile
Posted By: diggingdeeper Re: Clone laptop hdd - 15th Aug 2011 8:43pm
Certainly handy if you have a SP3 CD, if you haven't, updating takes longer than the install.
Posted By: MattLFC Re: Clone laptop hdd - 15th Aug 2011 8:45pm
Originally Posted by diggingdeeper
Certainly handy if you have a SP3 CD, if you haven't, updating takes longer than the install.

Vista is the worst haha! Deffo take an image of a Vista installation after you have updated it. raftl
Posted By: Moonstar Re: Clone laptop hdd - 15th Aug 2011 9:36pm
Sorry to be so ignorant, but what is 'bloat'?
Posted By: diggingdeeper Re: Clone laptop hdd - 15th Aug 2011 9:41pm
Originally Posted by Moonstar
Sorry to be so ignorant, but what is 'bloat'?
extra cr*p you don't want or need, like an over-the-top screen driver that plays tunes to you while you adjust the settings etc
Posted By: Vanmanone Re: Clone laptop hdd - 16th Aug 2011 7:13am
Use Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows Computer

One of the easiest methods to access your data is to simply boot off an Ubuntu Live CD
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...dows-computer/
Posted By: Clive Re: Clone laptop hdd - 16th Aug 2011 7:46am
My laptop is not dead, what I want to do is do a copy of everything on hdd including recovery partion, I then want to put new hdd in laptop and put everything back, including the recovery partion
Posted By: Vanmanone Re: Clone laptop hdd - 16th Aug 2011 12:55pm
That link not working try this one

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...p-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/
Posted By: Clive Re: Clone laptop hdd - 16th Aug 2011 1:04pm
My laptop is not dead, see my previous post
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