Good way to clone an entire drive?

[yomamaisonfier]

So currently, I have a 1TB main hard drive. The problem is, it's about 5 years old, so it could fail on me at any moment. I'm going to buy a new 1TB HDD, and was hoping to be able to completely and entirely copy the whole drive, in it's entire format, to where it would be the exact same thing and the computer would be non the wiser. No, I do not want to reinstall Windows, there are so many programs and little files I have on here, it would take me weeks to sift through every little crevice looking for exactly what I want to keep, and it would take forever to reinstall (Large X Number) programs I have on there, so I just want to copy everything.

Is there any program I should download specifically for this? Any downsides, precautions? Should I just Ctrl+A, Crtl+C, Ctrl+V? (that's a joke) And thank you for those who help

 

[gilbadon]

http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/005919en?language=en_US

 

[USAFRet]

CloneZilla, DriveimageXML, Marcrium Reflect...all (and others) will do that easily.

However...do you really want to recreate a 5 year old install, with all the old crap?
If so, any of the above applications will do it.

 

[yomamaisonfier]

http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/005919en?language=en_US

Is that limited to Seagate drives only?

 

[gilbadon]

CloneZilla, DriveimageXML, Marcrium Reflect...all (and others) will do that easily.

However...do you really want to recreate a 5 year old install, with all the old crap?
Id so, any of the above applications will do it.

Listen to this guy. He knows what he is talking about. A migration can be a lot more effective then a perfect clone. Just get windows over and pick and choose what you need.

 

[gilbadon]

http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/005919en?language=en_US

Is that limited to Seagate drives only?

No, I did it with a toshiba, but I just wanted to give you a tutorial as well. Makes it easier.

 

[yomamaisonfier]

CloneZilla, DriveimageXML, Marcrium Reflect...all (and others) will do that easily.

However...do you really want to recreate a 5 year old install, with all the old crap?
If so, any of the above applications will do it.

Yes, I do. As I said, it would take way too long to sift through the drive looking for what I want to keep, plus I want to not have to reinstall allllll the programs I have on it already.

 

[USAFRet]

CloneZilla, DriveimageXML, Marcrium Reflect...all (and others) will do that easily.

However...do you really want to recreate a 5 year old install, with all the old crap?
If so, any of the above applications will do it.

Yes, I do. As I said, it would take way too long to sift through the drive looking for what I want to keep, plus I want to not have to reinstall allllll the programs I have on it already.

Any of the above applications. Add Acronis True Image (15 day trial).

 

[SBMfromLA]

There is another solution... You could try a copy/reinstall method which will save the time of reinstalling everything and give you a new, clean install of Windows. You'll need a spare hard drive to accomplish this. First thing you do is.. go to Program Files and Program Files x86 folders on your old hard drive and copy everything there to a spare drive... those are all your installed programs... Next, go to Folder Options and select option to show hidden folders... then go to Program Data and AppData and copy both of those folders and their subfolders. After that to save time... scroll throw them and only keep the folders of programs you installed (no system stuff... let that remake itself).. then you just copy your Documents, Music and Videos Folders and Saved Games... The last backup you want is click on the Start Menu.. right-click on All Programs and select Open All Users.. and make a copy of programs folder.. this contains all your start button shortcuts... and copy Now your quick backup is complete... Perform your new install of Windows... install your drivers... and copy back all your programs to the location they were originally in... You're done... with the main backups.

Before you start.. I do have a recommendation for you. You said you were going to buy another 1TB drive. Why not just upgrade to like a 3TB Drive.. it's not that much more. I would also recommend creating a partition on the new drive. Make the first partition about 1/3 the size of the drive and only keep the OS.. all your drivers...and programs that start up on boot... use the next partition to keep everything else you install onto your computer... programs... games.. if you do that.. split them up... it makes it much easier and faster to create backups.. so instead of taking an hour to backup your Drive C... it could be done in about 5 min. or less.. and it also preserves your data in the event your O/S drive becomes corrupted or crashes... then I would take that older 1tb Drive and just keep that as your backup/archive drive... and perhaps even move all your media folders onto.

 

[USAFRet]

There is another solution... You could try a copy/reinstall method which will save the time of reinstalling everything and give you a new, clean install of Windows.

Many applications do not survive a simple copy/paste into a new OS install.

 

[SBMfromLA]

I know... but from my experience... about 90% of programs are able to still run. The trick is to also copy over the data for the program stored in the hidden folders.

There is another solution... You could try a copy/reinstall method which will save the time of reinstalling everything and give you a new, clean install of Windows.

Many applications do not survive a simple copy/paste into a new OS install.

 

[yomamaisonfier]

There is another solution... You could try a copy/reinstall method which will save the time of reinstalling everything and give you a new, clean install of Windows.

Sorry if I didn't elaborate enough; I am getting two hard drives. a 1TB Hybrid to replace my main one (SSDs are too much man), and a 3TB for pretty much anything else. I want an exact copy of my 1TB (which is about 75% filled currently). That's it. I wanted programs and any help about the process, not suggestions on something I stated from the beginning that I didn't want to do. I appreciate you trying to help, but I *just* want to clone it.