5

I have two 2 TB external USB hard drives, call them HD1 and HD2. HD1 is USB 2, HD2 is USB 3. Each drive contains exactly one NTFS partition.

I want to clone HD1 to HD2, because it's newer and much, much faster.

What's the best way to do this? I don't want to do a copy-and-paste, I want to clone the whole partition. The new drive is actually a few bytes larger, so this should be possible?

I don't have a second drive that can hold the image, so it would have to clone directly to the other disk (not to a file). How can I accomplish this on Windows 7?

I know about Clonezilla but I would prefer not to have to boot from a CD or anything, as I don't have the capability to do that right now. I want to know if there's a way to do this while running Windows.

  • You might be able to live boot into a Linux system and use something like GParted. I hear there are Linux live boot systems that can run within Windows now... but I'd be concerning about copying file from a partition in active use. The state of the drive can/will be changing as you're copying (unless it uses shadow copying maybe)... – Jeff B Dec 13 '12 at 18:59
  • @JeffBridgman: Since we're dealing with external drives only here, any cloning program should be able to dismount the volume if required. – Karan Dec 13 '12 at 20:41
  • Ah, sorry for not reading the question a bit better! – Jeff B Dec 13 '12 at 20:48

3 Answers3

1

You can use XCOPY. I made this specifically for this use. copy the following code and paste it into notepad then save it as "Backup.bat" run it and do as it asks. It is a very powerful backup and will backup everything in the drive.

@echo off
echo Enter Source Directory (Show Full File Path)
set /p sourcedir=
echo.
echo Enter Destination Directory (Show Full File Path)
set /p backupdir=
echo.
echo Enter Destination Folder Name (Name of folder that data will be saved to)
set /p destfolder=
echo.
set backupcmd=xcopy /e /h /f /y /v /c /i /r /g /k /d
%backupcmd% "%sourcedir%\*.*" "%backupdir%\%destfolder%"
attrib -s -h "%backupdir%\%destfolder%"
@timeout /t 3
JustinD
  • 704
  • 1
  • 7
  • 14
  • 1
    I said I don't want to copy and paste. I want a true clone. –  Dec 13 '12 at 18:10
  • Thats not copy and paste. It is an exact clone. Trust me – JustinD Dec 13 '12 at 18:10
  • Just type the first drive i.e. D:\ then destination, your faster drive i.e. E:\ then type a destination folder i.e. DATA then it will copy your entire drive to your new one, with hidden files and system files, everything on there will be coppied – JustinD Dec 13 '12 at 18:12
  • Or just leave the last option blank and it will not create that extra folder – JustinD Dec 13 '12 at 18:13
  • Yea, I don't think this is a clone. I looked at the docs for xcopy and attrib and none of it appears to be 'cloning' (i.e. copying all the 0's and 1's on one partition to another... even if there's no file there). Is there any documentation you can show us that says this will clone a partition? – Jeff B Dec 13 '12 at 18:56
  • I use this for myself to clone drives or any type of path that I want to copy. It copies hidden and system files and everything in that nature.http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb491035.aspx – JustinD Dec 13 '12 at 19:01
  • I've actually used it to copy an operating system then I deleted the OS then copied it back and it worked. So i know this can copy a drive – JustinD Dec 13 '12 at 19:04
  • 4
    "I deleted the OS then copied it back and it worked" - AFAIK xcopy simply cannot copy the bootloader, so I bet if you tried to restore the OS' files to a new HDD or an old one with the bootloader removed, it would no longer boot. – Karan Dec 13 '12 at 20:35
  • Karan - what does AFAIK stand for ? – Simon Dec 13 '12 at 21:56
  • @Simon: [AFAIK](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/AFAIK). Also, if you don't use the @ before someone's name, they aren't notified about your comment directed at them. – Karan Dec 13 '12 at 22:53
  • @Karan Thx, for informing me of both :) – Simon Dec 14 '12 at 09:27
  • @Karan Thats why you mount the boot partition and copy that as well, then restore them both. I did it, and it worked. not very hard. – JustinD Dec 14 '12 at 13:26
  • I think you're confusing *files* in the boot partition with the actual *boot sector/MBR* written to the beginning of the disk (even before the partition area). How do you propose to copy this with something like xcopy? You simply *cannot* restore just the xcopied files to a fresh/freshly partitioned hard disk and expect it to boot normally as before. – Karan Dec 14 '12 at 22:42
  • @Karan Well I've done it. Completely wiped the drive then restored it. Worked perfectly. And plus. He didnt want to copy his Operating system, just external data to another drive. – JustinD Dec 15 '12 at 21:28
  • How did you wipe, by formatting? That doesn't affect the existing boot loader. Try deleting *all* partitions on a disk, then recreating anew and restoring data using xcopy. It will ***not*** boot. As it turns out, I had to do this myself today on a friend's laptop. Took out the smaller drive, inserted a new bigger one, booted from a WinPE disc and used xcopy to copy everything from the old system drive (connected via USB) to the new one. As expected, did not boot due to a missing boot loader. I can ***guarantee*** that xcopy cannot touch the boot sector or copy it to another disk without one. – Karan Dec 16 '12 at 12:51
  • Yes, of course the OP didn't want to copy his OS. My comments were simply in response to what you wrote above about copying the OS with xcopy. If you still doubt it, feel free to post a new question here about whether xcopy can actually restore the OS completely to a new/wiped disk, *including the boot sector* that would make the OS successfully boot. Others will no doubt echo what I have already written above. – Karan Dec 16 '12 at 12:54
  • I have wiped all partitions and deleted them all, then recreated the partitions at a proper size then formatted and restored them and it worked just fine. @Karan – JustinD Dec 17 '12 at 13:18
  • Ok, since you're insisting and I might be missing something obvious, I've asked the experts [here](http://superuser.com/questions/520552/can-xcopy-make-a-bootable-copy-clone-of-windows) what they think. – Karan Dec 17 '12 at 17:27
1

O&O Disk Image (which is a paid application)

http://www.oo-software.com/en/products/oodiskimage

Simon
  • 4,437
  • 8
  • 39
  • 51
1

Along the lines of Simon's answer, there's another pay option Acronis TrueImage that can do disk imaging (they have a free trial, I believe).

Another alternative is to run a liveboot system (like CloneZilla or GParted) inside a VM, using VirtualBox for example (VirtualBox is free). Or you could try to run a Linux distro inside Windows directly through some other means (example). In either case, there are plenty of Linux tools that will allow you to clone a drive (dd, GParted, etc).

Jeff B
  • 4,429
  • 5
  • 18
  • 26