Cloning my Hard Drive

[paladinyogi]

Hello,

I have a Western Digital Black Edition that is failing on me,and I plan on buying a Veloci raptor hard drive.

I want to clone my Windows 7 operating system and all of my games onto the new hard drive.Should I use Western Digital`s Acronis program or something else? Instructions on how to proceed would greatly be appreciated!

 

[g90814]

Acronis would be fine,

Personally I use Macrium Reflect (free version).

It can clone a drive while Windows is running (meaning it can clone the drive that Windows is running on), and is very easy to use.

 

[g90814]

Something else to consider would be buying an SSD to speed up your system, AND get another drive for data storage, but that depends on your budget

 

[paladinyogi]

I don't have the money for a hard drive AND a good SSD,so,I'll just make the veloci raptor my main Hard Drive.

But that being said,what happens when our clone a hard drive? Does it clone absolutely everything,so when I make the new hard drive my main one,I can instantly start playing my steam games and such?

 

[g90814]

Yes when you do a clone, just shutdown after the clone process is completed, disconnect the old drive, and your computer should boot like normal from the new drive. A clone is just that... absolutely everything is copied.

Of course if you hooked up the new drive via USB or something, you want to physically swap the drives so the new one is installed in the computer.

You may also want to connect the new drive to the first SATA port on your motherboard, or the same port the old drive was connected to.

 

[paladinyogi]

Ok,thank you,I appreciate your help!