HARD DRIVE CLONING OR CREATING A DISK IMAGE... Please help me...?

Question

Hi there,

First of all, please explain the difference between the 2 : making a disk clone or creating a disk image.

secondly, I have a new 2 tb drive. I want to backup a 120gb drive with windows 7 on it to a 130gb partition of the new drive. And use the other partition for something else. Is it possible ?

can i also create or clone multiple hard drive on to the same external 2 tb drive, but on different partitions?

thanks

Vishwas.

Answer 1

You can clone a small drive to a same size partition on a larger drive, then use the rest of the space as a secondary partition. Some cloning software will even let you re-size the main (C:) partition.

However, you cannot clone other drives to different partitions, not possible. You can create partition images of any partition, then restore the partition image to any other partition on any other drive. However, that is not "cloning", you can only clone one drive to another, not multiple.

Most cloning software will let you create partition images as well as disk images. Those are two different things of course... A disk image is an identical, bootable copy. Partition images are just the data on a partition...

Answer 2

Re your update.

If you want a complete copy of your complete Hard drive irrespective of partitions and want it to be able to boot your system software the Clone is the action you want otherwise it won't boot

All the other options that has been suggested will not give you what you want.

Macrium reflect will do this but not just in partitions it will be the whole drive

Easeus todo backup is another with a clone option and works well.

Answer 3

Try EaseUS Todo Backup



1. Just clone from partition to partition, not from hard drive to partition. Suggest you firstly clone the OS partition to the new disk, then transfer partitions on others disk to the 2TB disk through image.

Answer 4

use macrium reflect , you can clone whole disks or just partitions or just drives or you can store the disk image for later cloning