Hard drive clone (?)

[samurai 0]

How do I clone my hard drive? (laptop/internal upgraded from 40 to 100)

 

If I have a USB cable that will connect my old hard disk to my computer, do I need any special cloning software to copy my device drivers, internet connections etc? I actually can't get the new drive to connect to the internet. (I gave it an XP format which is the same as the old drive.)

 

also, my personal files are already backed up, don't care about those.

 

Can I simply plug in the USB and reboot my new drive's OS with my old one? Or- do I need a cloning software, ie- HDclone? Ghost?

 

I'm confused and will be problem-solving all evening once I get home. forgive my computer-unsavviness.

[fjef 0]

Here is a fairly easy to read guide for XP that covers most possibilities:

 

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=418

[samurai 0]

Cheers for that fjef... not only is it a step-by-step, but it also comments on software I was already researching.

 

slowly learning over here.

[SirJibAlot 0]

Norton Ghost - it's the industry standard....

[samurai 0]

Just downloaded Ghost yesterday. And now I'm getting irritated.

 

Here's my scenario in 500 words or less.

-downloaded Ghost, created booting .iso disk

-started computer as normal, plugged in 100gig drive via USB adapter. no problem.

-Opened Ghost... began the copy ("Clone" is no longer the language used in version 12.0)

-Ghost then told me it could not perform the copy while Norton Go Back is enabled. Please disable Norton Go Back. so, I did.

-started computer as normal again, but once I plugged in my USB/100 drive, Windows shut down... screen went blue; "Windows has encountered a problem and shut down...."

-Tried again, same thing.

-re-enabled Go Back, same thing.

-Booted via Ghost back up CD. same thing.

-booted via select start up... same thing.

 

Now, I'm wondering how to get my computer to even stay alive at the intro of the disk I want to copy onto. As soon as that 100gig drive/USB enters my computer, it shuts down.

[iiyamadude 6]

I had real problems with Ghost a few years back. The only way I got round it was to uninstall the thing and promise myself not to buy any more things labelled Norton.

[samurai 0]

I managed to now have the ability to plug it in and not puke. The copy last night, however, failed. I'm learning... slowly.

[NutteyCubey 0]

Good luck samurai.

 

I had only problems with Ghost myself when I had it a few versions back. I ended up just copying files and manually doing other settings, it worked out less hassle even if it took a fair while.

[samurai 0]

The swap is done. Thanks to the online chat support at Symantec. As it turns out, I f*d up when i first attempted to install it, before my days of cloning. Back then, I just screwed it in place, uploaded XP, and all my software- including security. The security was blocking the copy. Duh. I'm a dumbasss but at least the company has rad real-time support. They just did it for me. Props to the kids in India.

[JellyBelly 1]

Sounds good - Norton support was that?

[samurai 0]

Yeah, I was pretty stoked at how quickly they solved my problems. For some reason, I just kept putsing around with it, trying to do it myself, putting off the dreaded tech-support nightmare. But that wasn't the case. Within five minutes I was chatting, describing my problem and a few minutes later I was watching my mouse move around my screen, checking boxes I didn't understand and doing the tasks I spent days reading hundreds of pages about.

 

While we waited for the copy/clone to complete, the bored tech staff opened up a notepad page and we chatted. He was from GOA, some north western India beach town. He had never seen snow. He liked my desktop. (a hakuba shot) I told him to steel it. then I opened up that file and he copied it. It was fun. He learned some japanese too. (although he could have used a bit more english, lol) "I leave in Goa." "I leave by the beach."

[SirJibAlot 0]

Samurai, sorry to hear that you had a bad experience. I haven't used Ghost for a while, but we use it in our company to prepare systems before they get shipped out. Seems to work pretty well for the engineers. Anway, looks like they got you sorted.

[samurai 0]

all sorted. And, actually the kids at Symantec is why I got sorted. Software is software and to the larger extent, it all works. But sometimes we morons need a kick in the rear and another to supervise that kick. That's why Ghost is the industry standard... they supervise the kick.

 

I only had a bad experience because I jumped the gun and tried to clone an already booted hard disc that also had security software on it... put there by me. Not a major dilemma by any means, but people like me who just replace computers every few years and never get around to dealing with cloning hard drives need a bit of supervision.