time to switch out the rapidly failing drive in my trusty laptop

whats the best software for doing this with an external enclosure on the new drive?

ive got a lot of stuff worth savin'

3/18/2008 1:31:22 PM

Norton Ghost



It'll do the job.

3/18/2008 1:32:25 PM

acronis true image, easily

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/trueimage/

3/18/2008 1:39:39 PM

acronis true image

is awesome

3/18/2008 1:43:56 PM

are we talking like, one click + deinstalls itself afterward awesome?

3/18/2008 2:05:40 PM

deinstall? why would you want to that?

its by far the easiest to use and fastest imaging software out there

3/18/2008 2:16:44 PM

Paragon

3/18/2008 3:10:56 PM

after it transfers the stuff, why would i have any use for it on my computer?

3/18/2008 3:12:15 PM

i mean it won't hurt...if the old drive is failing you might as well just leave the old junk on it, maybe one day soon your new drive fails..that old drive might be like a backup (obviously not a good one..but you get the idea)

3/18/2008 3:19:47 PM

yeah, i guess i just assumed id still have access to a means to download it and a product key again

3/18/2008 3:42:22 PM

Are any of these programs bootable?

3/19/2008 10:38:51 AM

Quote :

"Norton Ghost"

^ Norton Ghost

3/19/2008 10:40:21 AM

^^ http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd is my favorite

[Edited on March 19, 2008 at 10:41 AM. Reason : arrows]

3/19/2008 10:40:50 AM

Quote :

"Are any of these programs bootable?"

yeah all of them are

3/19/2008 10:47:27 AM

i've used both ghost and true image and true image kicks norton in the vagina.

3/19/2008 12:26:02 PM

acronis is the best because it can transfer an image between different hardware. It also owns for backing up computers remotely.

ghost is probably the easiest of you want to backup your current machine so you can restore it to the same hardware.

The executable fo ghost hasn't been updated since ghost 2003. So it dosn't have sata support, which means if you cant set your sata drives to emulate IDE you are SOL. Also, if you cant mount the external drive in dos, yout wont be able to back up to it.

3/19/2008 2:05:12 PM

Quote :

"ghost is probably the easiest of you want to backup your current machine so you can restore it to the same hardware. "

why would it be better than acronis for that purpose? in my mind the only advantage of ghost is the enterprise features...and their long history of providing enterprise features.

3/19/2008 2:53:45 PM

because a copy of ghost.exe on a bootdisk is probably faster for making an image of a single machine and restoring it than acronis.

3/19/2008 3:04:18 PM

whenever ive ran/restored backups in acronis, i've done so while in windows...which is a big plus for me. taking a 20gb image of a booted windows install only takes ~10-15 minutes. you can also use the bootdisk but i dont know how fast that is

3/19/2008 3:35:11 PM

ultimate boot disk had a ghost utility we just used to ghost and ide drive to a sata... i'll let you know tomorrow if it worked or not.

3/19/2008 3:42:13 PM

Quote :

"The executable fo ghost hasn't been updated since ghost 2003. So it dosn't have sata support, which means if you cant set your sata drives to emulate IDE you are SOL. Also, if you cant mount the external drive in dos, yout wont be able to back up to it."

It certainly does have SATA support, and it support removable media, such as usb

Quote :

"acronis is the best because it can transfer an image between different hardware."

That doesn't make any sense. It wouldn't be a limitation of the backup software, it would be an OS limitation. Transplanting windows from one set of hardware to another, such as a total mobo change, usually ends up bad.

3/19/2008 5:24:29 PM

The dos based ghost executable, unless it has been updated since 2003, does not have sata support. if you imaged a sata drive its because it was set to emulate IDE mode in your bios.

I've never tried connecting to a USB device when running ghost in dos, but I imagine its possible if you have the right drivers.

Quote :

"It wouldn't be a limitation of the backup software, it would be an OS limitation. "

An OS limitation that Acronis Universal restore takes care of. Acronis essentially handles sysprepping the image for you, and the end result is that you can transfer a windows install from one set of hardware to another. Which is one of the big reasons its so much better than ghost except for very limited situations.

3/19/2008 5:46:42 PM

so that being said, what's the best new hard drive to get these days? who's the most reliable brand

3/24/2008 10:23:54 AM

seagate

3/24/2008 10:27:09 AM

^ retail only

all my oem drives from places like newegg have failed

3/24/2008 10:36:20 AM

^^ yes

^ i've never had any trouble with their OEM drives, and i've bought between 7 and 10 in the past 18 months...have yours been dying within that time frame, or just not making it past 5 years?

3/24/2008 12:42:55 PM

all the retail drive i have are perfect and the oem drives i have purchased in the last 2 years havent made it more than 18 months with maybe on 40% of the time

3/24/2008 2:54:22 PM

Quote :

"The dos based ghost executable, unless it has been updated since 2003, does not have sata support. if you imaged a sata drive its because it was set to emulate IDE mode in your bios. I've never tried connecting to a USB device when running ghost in dos, but I imagine its possible if you have the right drivers."

Last I used Ghost was in 2007, and it did have native support for SATA from boot.


That being said, Acronis ftw.

3/24/2008 6:56:51 PM