Clone laptop hdd for replacement?

[jzmtl]

Seems we have a few tech minded people here so I'll ask this. I just bought a ssd to replace the hdd in my old netbook,  since it has no optical drive I also bought a usb enclosure to clone the present hdd.

I figure I'll use one of the cloning softwares to do it, not sure which one yet. The present hdd is partitioned into three drives, with two being recovery and some bios update stuff. I'm not sure if I should clone all three or just leave out the other two. I have the recovery backed up on another external hdd. Can win 7 separate some free space from one drive  to form a new partition without reformat the whole thing down the road?

If I choose to clone the three partitions as is,  should I format the ssd into three drivrs manually first, or could any cloning software do it altogether? Similar to previous, can win 7 merge partitions to form one drive without format the whole thing (I think might have done this a long time ago, don't remember anymore).

[Millhouse]

Not used it, but this is quite highly rated.

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

[RFOneWatt]

Keep it simple, just clone the whole drive. 

The cloning software will do just that - clone it bit for bit.  It will be identical aside from the size difference of the two drives.  All partitions intact.

Depending on the software you use you will have options available to create/delete partitions, etc.  Use if you desire.

Here is a very small list of the best cloning software you can get.  I've literally used all of them over the years and they all work fine. (I use Acronis for pretty much everything now but that's paid. Their trial version will do everything aside from clone)

The main one on this page, DriveImage XML is sorta clunky but works great - best of all, it's free!

http://goo.gl/pP8ij

I hope that helps.  If you have any other questions feel free to ask.

~rf

[jzmtl]

Thanks, the ssd shipped yesterday and will be delivered Monday, the enclosure was also shipped yesterday but by post office, and will be delivered on the 30th...

So it'll be a few days before I can get to it.

[derekmac]

Ive been thinking about getting an SSD for the OS drive for my PC, but I'm still on the fence about it.  I also want to get a Mac Pro, or a Macbook Pro, but those cost just a tad more than an SSD!!

Maybe when the bigger drives come down in price more, I'll get one.


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[jzmtl]

They are getting pretty cheap now, I paid $85 for a 240GB one, plenty especially if you just want to run OS off it.

[Syph007]

There is a live CD/USB linux distro that is solely for HDD backups/clones and Ive used it many times to upgrade a laptop HDD to bigger one and it would just happily work no issues.

Its been a couple years since I used it, but Im pretty sure it was Clonezilla I was using.

[derekmac]

They are getting pretty cheap now, I paid $85 for a 240GB one, plenty especially if you just want to run OS off it.

Oh wow, I thought they were much more than that for that size!!  Good to know then!


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[jzmtl]

They are getting pretty cheap now, I paid $85 for a 240GB one, plenty especially if you just want to run OS off it.

Oh wow, I thought they were much more than that for that size!!  Good to know then!


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Yep, watch for boxing day ads, should be a few cheap ones, I got mine from amazon on their lightening deals.

[jzmtl]

Got my SSD, can't do jack because post office is taking its sweet time with the enclosure. 

On the plus side I was trying disc cloning and swapped system to the 2nd disk in my desktop that sat unused for years, now I finally have system and data on separate physical drives, instead of two logical drives.

[Whoey]

Got my SSD, can't do jack because post office is taking its sweet time with the enclosure. 

On the plus side I was trying disc cloning and swapped system to the 2nd disk in my desktop that sat unused for years, now I finally have system and data on separate physical drives, instead of two logical drives.

In my experience, it's always been a good idea to separate storage/data in either physical disks or at the very least a partition. Especially if you have a lot of media (music/movies/photos/etc). That way if you need to wipe the OS it's quicker than if everything is in the same drive.

I've had it this way for years, and it makes even more sense since I have multiple OSes running on the same machine... so I can always access my data, yet be able to wipe a system without losing anything.

[jzmtl]

I install most of the program on the data disk as well. It seems to be when two partitions are located on the same drive it often cause a lot of disk thrashing, much less if the single physical disk isn't partitioned or use two physical disks.

Enclosure should be here tonight, excited.

[jzmtl]

And done!  Win7 score for disk speed went from 5.9 to 7.9, too bad CPU/GPU still sucks. 

Going to bed now.

[enki_ck]

[Whoey]

And done!  Win7 score for disk speed went from 5.9 to 7.9, too bad CPU/GPU still sucks. 

Going to bed now.

[jzmtl]

So far quite happy with the result, highly recommended consider how cheap SSD has become. From now I won't be able to live with any new computer unless it has a SSD system disc.   

Just not sure if I should leave the old HDD as it for back up or wipe it for on the go storage. On one hand it's sitting in a USB enclosure anyway, on the other it's only 256 GB so while many times the size of a flash drive it's only twice the storage space.

[Whoey]

good for a backup drive? maybe do a new image once a month?