[SOLVED] Copy vs clone OS?

[r es]

I have a windows installation with a lot of music software and projects. The project files are dependent on the locations of a lot of samples and plugins which I installed and stored in an idiosyncratic (read 'thoughtless') way. As a result, without reconstructing a lot of the installations and files exactly, many projects will fail to open properly.

Also - it won't boot. I've tried to repair, tried to rebuild the boot files, etc. No joy.

What would happen if I set up a new hard drive, with a properly functioning boot partition (is that the terminology), and just copied everything directly over to it. Would that work?
Thanks for any advice!

 

[Deleted member 14196]

What should happen is this, salvage as much of your data as you can and then format and reinstall windows and when you do new projects make sure to organize things so that they are easy to back up. And then you must institute a regular back up plan so that in case of any machine failure you never lose your data

 

[rgd1101]

depend on why it won't boot.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

there are many options available for "cloning" an OS these days. a lot of free software out there for that purpose. but, if your OS data is corrupted cloning it will not work. you will likely end up with the OS loading problems again.

if your old data is still readable on the old drive you can just copy/paste the needed files onto the new drive after it is setup.

to protect, and later salvage if needed, all of my system drive User & Program Data files I have made backups of these particular folders/files with Acronis True Image or similar backup software.
it takes a "snapshot" or image of these portions of data and will restore them to the exact location after a new OS is installed.

 

[r es]

Files are all readable. I think I caused the problem by messing with some setting about how the hdd interacts with the little ssd the laptop has.

Unfortunately, it's not just user data. There are a whole lot of plugins, dlls that are installed in random places.