Cloning your hard drive?

[leoliger]

I am running out of space in my 160GB laptop and wanting to upgrade to a bigger hard drive, however I'm not to sure how the process works. When it comes to backing up a system I have little to no knowledge. Wanting to backup just in case for future cases of a crash and then just popping in the backup drive like nothing ever happened.

Is it possible to backup or clone an entire drive on your laptop, move all your information, programs etc., to a much bigger one then put that new hard drive into you laptop?

I was planning to use one of these programs to start the process, but I want one's opinion before I do anything.
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/09/05/5-free-apps-to-clone-your-hard-drive/

I was planning on buying an hard drive enclosure, then running one of those programs to copy everything I have on my older laptop hard drive, take the new one out of the enclosure case and putting that into the computer, and then keeping the old one for a spare backup.

[Xiong Chiamiov]

If you only have one partition, it makes things a lot easier.

Many years ago, I used a utility that came with a Seagate drive.  It worked flawlessly and easily, and it's possible it's still on their site somewhere.  I'd probably just go with one of those linked there, though.

[leoliger]

Many years ago, I used a utility that came with a Seagate drive.  It worked flawlessly and easily, and it's possible it's still on their site somewhere.  I'd probably just go with one of those linked there, though.

Those would only work on a Seagate product hard drive. The one I wanted is hitachi.

[PowerMac]

I use HDClone from Miray. They do have a free version but it limits the cloning speed http://www.miray.de/products/sat.hdclone.html

[Freedom Kira]

Those would only work on a Seagate product hard drive. The one I wanted is hitachi.

Nah, drive brand usually, if not always, does not matter with cloning programs. A drive is a drive.

I've used Symantec Ghost before at a job I had for a work term earlier this year. It's a great program, but it requires networking that I'm unfamiliar with, and also a place to store the drive image on the network. It's also payware, so I guess you don't want to go with that.

[halfelite]

I use DD

[Xiong Chiamiov]

Ah yes, that's what I've used before: Partimage.  It's a *nix tool (although it comes on a live cd, so you don't need to have Linux installed), has similar storage requirements as Ghost, and may be a bit confusing.

Pff, while we're there, you might as well just look at the list of disk cloning software.

[flynn]

Windows os can easily clone drives, you just need 3 to do it.  >_<!!
 

[iamcrazybob]

I've only used clonezilla live, I installed it to a usb stick and boot from it when I use it.  I haven't compared it with other cloning software.... but it works great for me.  It has quite a few features & can do what you are looking to do. 

[Tiffanys]

I use Acronis True Image Home. Couldn't be easier. Just download the program, it's all very intuitive. You just choose the old drive to clone and the new drive to clone it to and it'll make an exact copy.

[OtakuN3rd]

I recently did it using this program:  http://majorgeeks.com/SelfImage_d5588.html

Its freeware and can run from within Windows.  I would recommend you run it in safe mode so there is nothing else trying to change the stuff on the hard drive.

Because its a laptop, you'll also want to get something like this:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812197009

Alternatively (assuming that the laptop has a SATA hard drive), you could use different software (that boots off of a CD) and temporarily put both hard drives (the original and the replacement) in a desktop computer. Here's a program that would work for that:  http://clonezilla.org/

Of course, if you use the desktop you will need to have two available SATA cables.