Clone Hard Disk

[Doum]

Recommendations please. I have Googled but its difficult to be sure what
software would be best so asking for opinions!

I have a net book running Windows 7 Starter with the usual hidden recovery
partition.

I would like to clone the entire 250 gb hard disk (including the recovery
partition) to an external hard disk (I have a 500 gb usb external drive)
so that in the case of disaster I could boot from the external hard disk and
restore the image without the need to install any software first on the net
book.

I would also still like to be able to use the remaining disk space on the
external files for normal access.

The netbook has no floppy or DVD drive so I can't create a system disk to
boot from although it will boot from a USB pen drive.

Any (free!) software that will do this?

I have a laptop and a netbook that I've replaced the original HD for bigger
ones. I cloned the drives (all partitions) using Acronis True Image but the
recovery partition doesn't work anymore on the laptop; it's still working
on the netbook. I don't care because I've upgraded both from XP to Seven
and I created new images using Windows Seven included backup utility, and I
have the original recovery DVDs for both.

 

[Doum]

First off, I do NOT own a Netbook with Windows 7 Starter, but I have a
friend that does. He ran into a problem accessing a large drive and I
found this:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/07/24/maximum-hardware-specifications- for-small-notebook-pc-netbook-on-windows-7-starter-and-home-basic-in-china/

If I read it correctly, you cannot access a drive larger than 250GB.
Like I said, I do not have one.

I've installed a 320 Gb - 7200RPM HD in my netbook, works fine, Windows 7
home premium if that matters.

 

[patrick013]

I don't think SeagateDiskWizard would not work on any drive,
it's just made available by them, plus it will boot off of
a flash drive as far as I can remember. Try it before you
get too far with W7 data, etc.. Or there's good old
Clonezilla which has been successfully used on Windows
by many people I'm told. These are all for same size or bigger
backup images.

patrick