Copying a Windows hard drive

[Dos_Box]

A quick question. I need to let a user with very little technical skills know how to copy their windows hard drive to a new one they have purchased. Short of sending them off to the command line are there any free packages to do this?

[triggmiester]

do it for them and get paid

[pooley]

How about freeghost ? http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeghost/

[k-strider]

Isn't DriveImage XML a free one? sure i read an artical on it somewhere.

[ICT_GUY]

This months pc PRO has a drive image utility on it.

[tech_guy]

I'd normally suggest driveimage xml but it's a bit technical for a novice. I usually give them a bartpe disk & written instructions on how to use it so long as they've got an internal/external burner cdrom drive as well to use. Failing that I go and do it for them. Edited March 19, 2008 by tech_guy

[OutToLunch]

When you say 'Windows hard drive' do you mean they need to copy a live system?

 

Will they be happy being pointed at bootable CD utilities with an appropriate guide, or will they need to be able to run it from within Windows?

[craiglay]

Thought about something like MaxBlast (Maxor and Seagate HD's) can clone a drive and are relatively straightforward to use.

 

Personally, I would give them a BartPE / DriveimageXML disk and some written instructions

 

Craig

[Pumaedition]

clonezilla

[Joanne]

I got a new HDD for my system and i was so tempted to just copy and paste!!

 

I just ended up re-installing windows and copying over files and stuff... a fresh start is always good... right?

[mac_shinobi]

Here is a full list of utils for that sort of thing :

 

http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/backupandimage.shtml

 

The above site has a lot of other free utils / tools etc

[Polski]

I have used Partition Commander 8 since XP came out (previously used Partiton Magic 6). I think it's time I got my hand in my pocket and bought a newer version as my version does not support SATA drives. It does do nice stuff like recover dead "Dynamic disks" though, so cannot complain. My number 1 CD.

[SYNACK]

Drive snapshot is really easy and very fast. It is free for 30 days to:

Drive Snapshot - Download evaluation Software

 

No install needed either, just a straight EXE.