Clone multiple partitions.

[iLOVENZB]

I need to send one of my laptops to Acer. I need to clone the HDD because some of the s/ware that's on there has a limited install license.

I have two HDD's and 3 partitions. What app is best to use for cloning the drive with the partitions on it?

Most of the apps I've used only do one partition. What I want to do is clone a full drive with both the partitions and then restore it without having to do it twice.

Hope this makes sense, going to wake up after I have a coffee now :ermm:.

Might have a look at Ghost: http://www.funadvice.com/q/norton_for_multiple_partitions

[Appzalien]

I find Acronis a little easier to use and it has a section where you choose which partitions or the whole hard drive. All you need is a nice size external to put the images on.

[Cabalo]

Kick in some ubuntu liveCD / USB pen, and follow these instructions: http://www.linux.com/archive/feed/152592

[charon]

Or these - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Disk_Cloning .

[zot]

When you say "cloning" a hard drive, are you talking about creating a second (bootable) HDD that you can use to replace the current one and boot the PC with? Or will the 2nd drive only be used for temporarily storing a backup image file?

Personally, I prefer 'cloning' to 'imaging' because it lets me boot the new drive and see that everything works. With using stored backup images, if something goes wrong (it often does) there's no way to know until it's too late.

If creating a working clone, Acronis Migrate Easy (not True Image) is probably about the easiest way to copy a drive (unlike Norton Ghost, Powerquest Drive Image, etc, Acronis Migrate Easy will not copy an individual partition - only the entire drive)

If you don't have it already, I suggest getting a few downloads of Hiren's BootCD. It is a compilation release containing several backup and disk-cloning software applications -- as wall as many other useful utilities. (Older versions of Hiren's have a completely different software collection compared to the more recent versions.) You can then try out several different cloning/imaging tools and see which you prefer.

[iLOVENZB]

I ended up using Easeus Partition Master and 'imaged' the drive including it's partitions successfully. Unfortunately once I opened Quicken a volume license error came up saying it wasn't the original PC.

Bah! a waste of exercise.

[bijoy]

I ended up using Easeus Partition Master and 'imaged' the drive including it's partitions successfully. Unfortunately once I opened Quicken a volume license error came up saying it wasn't the original PC.

Bah! a waste of exercise.

well, then in this case it is due to registry problem. You should have backed up your PC's registry as well.

[anon]

well, then in this case it is due to registry problem. You should have backed up your PC's registry as well.

Last time I checked, the registry was stored in the hard drive, so there are some big chances it got backed up along the rest of his data.

[zot]

Unfortunately once I opened Quicken a volume license error came up saying it wasn't the original PC.


This might help you get Quicken working again.


http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives/2009/04/27/changing-or-spoofing-hard-disk-hardware-serial-number-and-volume-id/

[iLOVENZB]

Thanks for that zot, I'll take a look when I get the lappy comes back.

[Appzalien]

There is no real difference between cloning and imaging, except cloning is immediate as in putting the contents of one hard drive on another for immediate use. Imaging contains the same material (including boot partition and registry) but its compressed for later use. With Acronis, as long as you create the recovery boot CD when you install it, you can put the image onto a formatted blank drive using the boot cd and with the ability to access the image (on drive D or DVD's etc.). The image you made contains all the info about your quicken, including the original hardware, so when you get the laptop back if you put the image back on and there have been no major hardware changes it will work then same as before. Did you test the image on another PC?