Making a copy of my hard drive

I did a search but didn't find what I was looking for. Or, maybe I did find it but didn't understand the technical talk.

What I would like to do is make a perfect copy of my hard drive. I have an external drive that I want to copy to. I tried copying to my external, but during the process it says xxx file is in use and aborts the process. I've searched for the file/program it says is in use and can't find it so I'm not sure how to shut it down.

I did find a backup feature on Windows XP. One option is to back up all information on this computer. If I use that, will it make a perfect mirror image of what my C drive is? I want ALL of my programs to function and all data backed up if my C drive zonks out. Am I making any sense at all?

I did a google search and found out about the Microsoft backup feature here-

http://www.microsoft.c​om …maintain/backup​files.mspx

Any information/suggestion​s are appreciated.

Norton Ghost will do this for you.

Nortelbert wrote in post #7900152
Norton Ghost will do this for you.

+1 on ghosting the drive..

driveimage xml is free for home use

http://www.runtime.org​/driveimage-xml.htm

I like Acronis True Image.

Acronis if great!

Ghost will work, and will make a huge image file that you can keep as a backup. If you simply want to move all your files to another drive, try the free xxclone on windows. Don't get suckered into paying for it.

I downloaded a free trial of Acronis. I've tried multiple times to copy my drive and it causes my computer to freeze up each time. It did manage to copy about 8gb one of those times.

I downloaded Driveimage too, but have no idea how to use it. It says I have to partition my drive... I have no idea how to do that. I'm hesitant to screw around with it too much because I don't want to lose what is already on that drive.

Norton will have to wait. I'm not paying 60 bucks for something that I know can be done easily and for free. I'm just not able to figure this out just yet.

Im Sasquatch wrote in post #7901525
=I'm Sasquatch;7901525]Nort​on will have to wait. I'm not paying 60 bucks for something that I know can be done easily and for free. I'm just not able to figure this out just yet.

tim wrote in post #7901484
Ghost will work, and will make a huge image file that you can keep as a backup. If you simply want to move all your files to another drive, try the free xxclone on windows. Don't get suckered into paying for it.

Try my suggestion before you give up.

My desktop, which I'm trying to copy, has XP Home SP3 but no 'backup' tab under programs->accessories->system tools. My laptop has 'backup' listed here. I'll keep looking around.

Thanks for your help Tim (and everyone else).

Jason

Im Sasquatch wrote in post #7901870
=I'm Sasquatch;7901870]My desktop, which I'm trying to copy, has XP Home SP3 but no 'backup' tab under programs->accessories->system tools. My laptop has 'backup' listed here. I'll keep looking around.

Thanks for your help Tim (and everyone else).

Jason

It might just not have been installed with windows. But either way, it's not that useful.

What are you trying to do? Move your OS to another drive? Or just move data around? XXclone will do either, easily. The one gotcha is it wipes the target drive before it does the copy. And if it's an OS you're copying you have to go into the tools menu (I think) and choose "make bootable".

Acronis True Image does work. It's not $60

http://www.amazon.com …-keywords=Acronis&x=0&y​=0

I have the same question, but am a little unclear about what cloning can do since I never used cloning software. I would like to connect an external USB drive and make an exact clone of my internal system drive once everything is installed and updated. Then - in the even my internal drive dies - take the external drive I used to make a clone, connect it to the motherboard in place of the dead drive and have it boot up. Then I would just have to restore any photo, Word, etc. files changed since the drive was cloned. Make sense? Which of the above mentioned softwares will do this? I will download trials and experiment this weekend. Thanks.

kachemak wrote in post #7906181
I have the same question, but am a little unclear about what cloning can do since I never used cloning software. I would like to connect an external USB drive and make an exact clone of my internal system drive once everything is installed and updated. Then - in the even my internal drive dies - take the external drive I used to make a clone, connect it to the motherboard in place of the dead drive and have it boot up. Then I would just have to restore any photo, Word, etc. files changed since the drive was cloned. Make sense? Which of the above mentioned softwares will do this? I will download trials and experiment this weekend. Thanks.

Cloning your drive will do just what you want. It makes an exact copy of your HD at that moment, allowing you to remove the old HD & put in the cloned HD and the machine will not know the difference...it will run as before

kachemak wrote in post #7906181
I have the same question, but am a little unclear about what cloning can do since I never used cloning software. I would like to connect an external USB drive and make an exact clone of my internal system drive once everything is installed and updated. Then - in the even my internal drive dies - take the external drive I used to make a clone, connect it to the motherboard in place of the dead drive and have it boot up. Then I would just have to restore any photo, Word, etc. files changed since the drive was cloned. Make sense? Which of the above mentioned softwares will do this? I will download trials and experiment this weekend. Thanks.

This is exactly what I'm trying to do. I haven't been able to make the Acronis software work-my computer keeps freezing up in the middle of the process. I'm too computer illiterate to know how to fix it. I'm left with 2 options.

1. Throw my computer in the river. I'll feel a lot better initially.
2. Bribe a buddy with food to help me out. Much more friendly to the environment and my mental health as well.

I'm thinking about going with option 2.

kachemak wrote in post #7906181
I have the same question, but am a little unclear about what cloning can do since I never used cloning software. I would like to connect an external USB drive and make an exact clone of my internal system drive once everything is installed and updated. Then - in the even my internal drive dies - take the external drive I used to make a clone, connect it to the motherboard in place of the dead drive and have it boot up. Then I would just have to restore any photo, Word, etc. files changed since the drive was cloned. Make sense? Which of the above mentioned softwares will do this? I will download trials and experiment this weekend. Thanks.

XXclone, or ghost. The former's free, the latter not, but is maybe handier - it creates a compressed image file that you can just keep on a hard drive and uncompress if you need it.

Before you clone or ghost a drive try and reduce or eliminate the paging file, empty the recycle bin, and delete any temporary files.