[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Should I Image the Hard Drive or Clone It? here

[Edward3]

There is another advantage to imaging a drive. If you have separate partitions for the Operating System and Data, ie. files that you create, you could restore just the OS partition to an earlier time without losing any files that you have created since the last backup.

[WinTard]

Cloning it usually means transferring the entire contents (all partition tables) of a drive onto another.

Imaging however, gives you the finer granularity of restoring a single partition elsewhere including shrinking/expanding the partition size.

I find imaging more suitable for my needs, as one can typically partition an HDD into C D E F partitions (or more) and only save the C partion image on the E or F partition. If and when needed, one can restore the C partition image back to whatever snapshot was taken directly from the same HDD partition E or F, which makes the whole process more flexible and easier IMHO...

Like anything else in life, both processes (cloning and imaging) have pros / cons and sometimes cloning is the best option in a particular situation.

[rgreen4]

I am an unabashed cloner. I keep all data on the NAS so I can access it from all machines in the house. That only leave the OS and applications on the drive. This Win7 drive for example is an 80GB Western Digital. The other main OS is Vista HP on an 80GB Seagate. The third OS is XP Pro on a 250GB Seagate. The fourth drive in the machine is a clone of the Vista installation (one month old) on a 160GB. (I use the BIOS boot menu to choose the boot drive). I typically use small drives as the OS and Applications don't take up that much space. The data on the NAS exceeds the size of all but one of my OS drives.

Cloning allows me the luxury of experimenting with modifications to the OS without any concern of hosing the OS installation. If the clone is not plugged up, all I have to do, is open the case, swap the cables and I'm back in business.

Cloning will do one thing that imaging will not do - an immediate and thourough verification that your backup works. I typically clone the drive, then run afterward on the clone. After all, I know the original works. If I hose the OS, I swap to the other drive and immediately clone again. Never, ever run on you sole backup. Here is a [document on cloning|d-1276] for those who wish to investigate further.

[drmsucks]

DriveImage XML is a great, free program to image your drive(s). http://www.runtime.o...veimage-xml.htm

[jgv007]

so here's a question? If I cloned my existing hard drive that is using Windows XP as its operating system & I purchased a laptop that was using Vista, could I install windows xp over the vista & do away with the vista operating system?

[Edward3]

This would not work because you are working with two machines with totally different hardware. Drivers that operate hardware, ie motherboard, hard drives, monitor, etc are not interchangable with other hardware and they are also specific to the Operating System being used.

[rgreen4]

One also has to ask the question of at this point in time why would you want to replace Vista with XP? While it was true that when Vista came out there were driver issues, but those have been for the most part resolved. There may still be some legacy hardware without Vista drivers (twain driven scanners and orphaned hardware where the manufacturer is no longer in business) but most recent hardware should work just fine.

If you have a concern, you can open a new discussion and ask questions about a specific item.

[ericstan]

Why would you want to go back to XP? Microsoft has a problem with backwards compatibility. At work we have an engineer who has software that doesn't work with Vista. He found that out when he purchased a new laptop with Vista. He has to use XP. I have had experience with programs not working when SP2 came out for XP, and that is just a service pack, and I tried using the so-called virtual environment option that MS offers i.e. 'compatability mode' on many occasions with different applications with no luck.
Why would you make back ups on a different partition on your hard drive. What happens when your hard drive dies?
Clonezilla is a free open source cloning solution that lets your clone your whole drive, or just a single partition onto an external hard drive. I used it when I bought a new larger hard drive for my laptop. I made a clone on an external USB hard drive, put the new hard drive in and put the clone on then new hard drive. I had two partitions. One for the OS, and one for my documents. It copied both. The only problem was it kept the partition sizes the same. I fixed that with GParted from a bootable Ubuntu DVD.
Vista has the capability of doing incremental back ups, and it can also make images of your hard drive onto an external hard drive. The only problem is you can't put that image on a different sized hard drive if you are planning to buy a larger hard drive. I don't know why MS elected to do that? I guess since they have about 80 to 90 percent of the OS market share they can do more things they want to (or not want to).
I heard True Image was pretty good. I have Norton Ghost, and I couldn't figure out how to put an image on an external hard drive, so I gave up and found Clonezilla.

[rgreen4]

I use Acronis True Image 11 and have never had a problem. I have cloned to a USB connected external drive (which Ghost won't do). If you run True Image from the disc it will clone anything. I even used it once to clone a Ubuntu 8.04 HD when I was experimenting with it. It obviously won't install under Linux, but it will clone it if you boot from the disc. If you download the program, you can then burn the disc from within True Image.

Version 10 would install in Vista, but sometimes would not complete the project. Again, booting from the disc and then cloning worked fine. I have not yet tried ver. 12.

I was a Ghost user for years, but had trouble even with Ghost 11 when I attempted to clone the HD in a system with XP Media Center and SATA hard drives. It did not like the Intel AHCI drive controller in the new systems.

[Edward3]

Why would you want to go back to XP?

I am running Win 7 RC on a seperate hard drive installed in a mobile rack that I can slide out and interchange with my XP hard drive. I skipped Vista because of numerous negative reports....why was MS so quick to introduce Win 7 if Vista was all that good? I understand that drivers that work in Vista will also work in Win 7. My Hewlett-Packard hardware ---Photosmart 7660 and Scanjet 5470c are hardly "legacy" hardware but they don't have drivers in either Vista or Win 7 so I wil continue to keep XP until I'm flush enough to replace my hardware. I blame HP for this since they're notorious for not updating drivers...sell more product that way.

*Why would you make back ups on a different partition on your hard drive. What happens when your hard drive dies?
I never put backups on the same hard drive with Operating System and Data. Hard drive death is not a question of if but when. I use a seperate drive for backup (Images) only. This can be either a second installed drive or an external, USB connected, drive. Again, the advanage of imaging drives is that I can put backups of all my hard drives including my wife's hard drive on a single hard drive. True Image has a routine that will verify the image to the original data. I have used the Recovery Process many times in the past 10 years and have never had a single problem unsolved. I can't say that about some of my friends who use the clone option. Turns out they cloned a drive with a problem that wasn't immediately detected. Oh..Oh!

[rgreen4]

You are partially correct. HP does not have drivers for the Scanjet 5470c (I also have one), but then neither does any other manufacturer have drivers available for the Twain driven scanners. Twain is a non-profit organization for developing communication between imaging devices and computers. However, their drivers are incompatible with Vista and Win7. Microsoft had been warning game and graphics designers for well over a decade not to write software and drivers that utilized a direct access from the processor to the device/screen, but they did not change. When the enhanced security aspect of Windows was implemented requiring all video calls to go through the kernel, it closed that path.

I chose to replace my scanner with an HP All-In-One. Or you can purchase a G3110 scanner from the HP store for $100, or another low priced scanner.

As for printer drivers, almost all HP printers have a work around, in that you install the printer using a driver for another printer. In the case of the Photosmart 7600, you use the driver for the Deskjet 5600. This information is available on the HP website, under support and drivers for the HP Photosmart 7600. (Click on image to enlage and sharpen).

[Edward3]

Thanks for the reply. I had already performed the work-around... installing the Deskjet 5600 Driver for the Photosmart 7660 printer...and it performs as advertised enabling the printer to carry out "basic" tasks. That translates to elementary printing without being able to use the photographic features in the software bundled with the printer. I even tried loading the software in "XP compatability mode" but that didn't work at all. If I do decide to move to the Windows 7 OS, I will still use my XP hard drive to work with the HP hardware as needed.

Gig Um, Ags

[sussertown]

I'd like to find a program that does both imaging and partitioning. On the other hand I see some of these can be purchased for $50 each. If a combo program costs $100, it won't matter. Do they have such a program. I just searched and haven't found one. It shoud be W7 ready.

[rgreen4]

Acronis True Image 2009 can do both, and is available from Newegg. I have just received it and have not had the opportunity to upgrade from Ver 11. There is currently a $20 MIR and the final price after rebate is $8.99.