I'm just going to stick with DriveImageXML, I have it working nicely with Cobian Backup and UBCD4WIN.

hippytyre

The EASEUS site says, "Disk Copy 2.0 is a potent freeware providing sector-by-sector disk/partition copy regardless of your operating system, file systems and partition scheme" and of course, in order to make a bootable clone of your hard drive, the copier would have to be OS-agnostic. And, while the site also indicates that the platform is "Windows 9x, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista," this is incorrect; any unzip utility will be able to extract the ISO file, which can then be burned to a blank CD using freely-available software in Window, Linux, or OSX.

So it's *NOT* Windows-only. It's pretty much all OSes that work with common ATA and SATA hard drives.

Deadhacker

How is it Windows only, if its a boot CD?

wantafanta

Nice! Just in time, my laptop is getting formatted tomorrow :)

TedHead

Does it work on systems using RAID?

ritch0s

Hiren's Boot CD --> Ghost Corporate --> 'nuff said

jczarni

This program is not Windows only, and it does not say that on the site. The place where it says "Work with Windows 2000/XP/2003/VISTA" is under "How to recover lost files if you forget to back up your data?" and is for a different product, the EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard, but we're looking at EASEUS Disk Copy.

From [www.easeus.com] , it says:
"Disk Copy 2.0 is a potent freeware providing sector-by-sector disk/partition copy regardless of your operating system, file systems and partition scheme."

Since it is a boot CD, it really is its own OS, and is not Windows only.

geekblake

Yeah it isn't windows only at all, in fact it uses grub as the boot loader.

hippytyre

@Deadhacker: Ack, sorry about that. Updating.

Adam Pash

And what's the difference of cloning a drive and backing up a drive? It seems similar to me. I can just back-up my files, and then install Vista to 9 other PCs, and then just cope the back-up files over to those machines.

endorphin

I am always curious about this clone drive type of software. My understanding is if I have Windows Vista or XP installed on my current PC with all the files and custom tweaks and configurations over the year, I can just clone everything? the exact configuration and then move it to a new drive?

What about the Windows license? How's that gonna work? I thought there is limit as to how many computers you can install Vista on.

Can I just........ say, build 10 PCs, buy one single Windows Vista in BestBuy, install it to one PC, and then just clone it to 9 other PCs? That must be really cool!

Any clarification would be appreciated.

endorphin

@endorphin: Its my understanding that Vista/XP talks to Microsoft servers when it has an active internet connection and, if it sees the same key being used on multiple computers, switches into "Pirate Mode". I've only seen it on XP, but there it would nag constantly and lock you out of parts of the OS, including updating. I have some vague recollection that Vista will stop functioning entirely. If the computer will never see the internet and you can fool the hardware check (10 identical computers?), an already-activated copy of Windows could theoretically be used without triggering any sort of piracy notice.

Cloning a drive will restore Windows to the exact state it was when cloned, saving any need to (re)install any programs or tweak any configurations. My biggest issue is, Windows always seems to pick up small errors over the years, which a clone would also copy over. I guess the best option would be to fresh install, install other programs/configure, then clone and have at it.

katscanne

I have a desktop in need of a reload so this (or driveimageXL) will come in handy. I wanted to be able to have a base clone of just Windows, then another clone once I have everything else added/tweaked. This will give me two options for restoring my system. A good copy of Windows to start with and then a backup with all my apps. I change them often, adding and discarding so having a clean version of Windows always available is nice.

Should have done this ages ago although it didn't seem imperative since I've never had any catastrophic failures...

Of course now that I just wrote that my dekstop will probably go all supernova and asplode on me...

Jrsy

I usually just clone/image a hard drive with the Live CD of Ubuntu using the dd command.

Rolcol

I didn't see anything on their web pages about compressing the backup. I've used Driveimage XML and also SelfImage and both of those provide compression. My favorite backup/clone utility right now is DriveImage XML as a plugin on a BartPE boot CD.

SciFiGuy

How about this: I have a Dell PC, and on it's primary hard drive, there is a recovery partition (bootable via BIOS startup command). Is it possible to clone the entire drive, including the recovery partition onto a new bigger hard drive?

zkam

G4L and G4U are free and more powerful.

snaildarter

@zkam: IMHO, with a clone disk tool you don't need the recovery partition anymore, since you are able to restore your system in the same state as before the failure.
The trick is to keep two images : a first image of your system at an early stage of use, just before you pack it with softwares, and an ordinary, say weekly, image.
If the mess in your computer comes from recently added software, you can still use the first image to restore it to a "virgin" state.

Flocon

Clonezilla is by far the best program I have ever used. We've got it booting from an external USB containing drive images. Copies at about a GB/Min. Reimage a computer in about 8 minutes!

poppageorgio

@poppageorgio: That's fast but it appears to be more complicated and it can't pull individual files out from image.

Ken

so how exactly does this work? I run the program and it creates the clone file, does it save it on your hard drive at first? Anyway, I'm assuming I would have to copy the cloned harddrive file onto the same cd/flash drive that i have the program on when i wish to restore the hard drive?

ilves

@poppageorgio: Using this software I was getting transfer rates of 1.7 GB/Minute with IDE drives.

spcomputing

@endorphin: I just cloned my hard drive using Vista and it automatically detected the hardware change and reactivated itself. I don't know if Windows is smart enough to tell if it is the same system, or a different system, same model or what. I'm sure you wouldn't have a problem until you activate a certain amount of times.

spcomputing

@zkam: Yes that is what it does by default. It clones the drive sector by sector keeping all partitions intact. If the new hard drive is larger it doesn't automatically resize your partitions to use all of the space. But EASEUS also has a free utility similar to partition magic that allows you to resize your partitions. You can find there here: [www.partition-tool.com]

spcomputing

I just ran drive copy 2, took 15 hours to copy 81GB from my laptop to an external drive. Way too long!

The other issue I'm having is; I cant access one of the partitions it copied (on the copy)I keep getting that damned "need to format" error!

Funny thing is I can access another copied partition on the copy.

Any ideas?

presmmbb