Clone Partitions

[Kernel USAF]

Is it possible to copy (clone) an active, primary partition (C:\) to a
logical partition, and then later copy (clone) it back as an active primary
partition? I'll be using Drive Image 2002 for that endeavor, it clones in
Caldera DOS.

 

[Tester]

Never used Drive Image so I can't comment on that crap. Acronis can do
exactly what you want to do and you can download a free full trial
version from their website.

Have you read the documents of Drive Image to see what it can and what
it can't do? Do you also want us to read it for you here?

Good luck.

 

[NoBeef]

Is it possible to copy (clone) an active, primary partition (C:\) to a
logical partition, and then later copy (clone) it back as an active
primary partition? I'll be using Drive Image 2002 for that endeavor, it
clones in Caldera DOS.

Based on my experience, I wouldn't use a disk copier developed in 2002.
Hard disk size and capabilities have changed a lot and older programs
have trouble handling them.
Lots of up to date disk copier available for free trial

 

[Justin]

Is it possible to copy (clone) an active, primary partition (C:\) to a
logical partition, and then later copy (clone) it back as an active primary
partition? I'll be using Drive Image 2002 for that endeavor, it clones in
Caldera DOS.

I wouldn't suggest using software that old. As a matter of fact, I
suggest you throw that away like you did with the F-14 Tomcat.
There is a free and open source piece of software called CloneZilla.

I find it very unlikely software from 2002 will support the huge
partitions in modern hard drives. Remember, that is nine years old.

 

[Kernel USAF]

I've tried Acronis, and it did not permit me to clone partitions. Perhaps
it does now, but
I've been using DI2002 since, well, 2002, and it has cloned partitions
superbly. Now,
with the large drives, I'd like to backup (clone) all of my PCs to one 2 TB
drive...but I'm
stuck with only four allowable primary partitions, and if I want logical
partitions, I can
have only 3 primarys for three PC's OSs because the extended partition
counts against
one of the 4 allowable primarys. Hence the desire to clone more primaries,
lots of space with 2 TB, but not enough primary partitions are available.

 

[Kernel USAF]

I wouldn't suggest using software that old. As a matter of fact, I
suggest you throw that away like you did with the F-14 Tomcat.
There is a free and open source piece of software called CloneZilla.

I find it very unlikely software from 2002 will support the huge
partitions in modern hard drives. Remember, that is nine years old.

Thanks, I have and use CloneZilla. It works okay, not as capable as DI2002
but it works well for me.

 

[Monty]

I've tried Acronis, and it did not permit me to clone partitions. Perhaps
it does now, but
I've been using DI2002 since, well, 2002, and it has cloned partitions
superbly. Now,
with the large drives, I'd like to backup (clone) all of my PCs to one 2 TB
drive...but I'm
stuck with only four allowable primary partitions, and if I want logical
partitions, I can
have only 3 primarys for three PC's OSs because the extended partition
counts against
one of the 4 allowable primarys. Hence the desire to clone more primaries,
lots of space with 2 TB, but not enough primary partitions are available.

EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition (FREE) might do what you want.
Version 7.1.1 has been released to dupport Win7 SP1. Go to:
http://www.partition-tool.com/easeus-partition-manager/comparison.html

I have been satisfied with the professional edition for many years.

 

[Char Jackson]

I've tried Acronis, and it did not permit me to clone partitions.

I wonder how long ago that was. I could be wrong, but I think I've
been using different versions of Acronis since about 2003 and have
never run into a situation where it didn't permit me to clone a
partition when I wanted to.

Perhaps it does now, but
I've been using DI2002 since, well, 2002, and it has cloned partitions
superbly. Now,
with the large drives, I'd like to backup (clone) all of my PCs to one 2 TB
drive...but I'm
stuck with only four allowable primary partitions, and if I want logical
partitions, I can
have only 3 primarys for three PC's OSs because the extended partition
counts against
one of the 4 allowable primarys. Hence the desire to clone more primaries,
lots of space with 2 TB, but not enough primary partitions are available.

Would it meet your needs to simply make images of the target
partitions rather than clones? With images, you can store as many as
you have room for, all on the same (new) partition if you'd like.
That's what I do. The images can be explored and individual files can
be extracted by Windows Explorer, for example, so it's pretty
flexible.

Is there a reason why you want to put each backed up partition in its
own (new) partition, rather than, for example, organizing your backed
up partitions by folders?

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I wonder how long ago that was. I could be wrong, but I think I've
been using different versions of Acronis since about 2003 and have
never run into a situation where it didn't permit me to clone a
partition when I wanted to.


Would it meet your needs to simply make images of the target
partitions rather than clones? With images, you can store as many as
you have room for, all on the same (new) partition if you'd like.
That's what I do. The images can be explored and individual files can
be extracted by Windows Explorer, for example, so it's pretty
flexible.

Is there a reason why you want to put each backed up partition in its
own (new) partition, rather than, for example, organizing your backed
up partitions by folders?

Another advantage of images is that, if you do incremental image backups
(as I do in Macrium), you can look at prior versions of a file where the
screwed-up version may already be backed up.

I think I recall that Acronis allows this too, but I'm not 100% sure.

 

[Kernel USAF]

I wonder how long ago that was. I could be wrong, but I think I've
been using different versions of Acronis since about 2003 and have
never run into a situation where it didn't permit me to clone a
partition when I wanted to.

I tried the free version of Acronis last year. My preference is for backup
programs that do not require any software installation on the primary drive,
the objective being to make a clone to another HDD then secure the clone
until needed. DI 2002 runs from two floppy disks, in Caldera DOS. If the
primary drive fails, just plug in the clone. If the primary gets clobbered
and won't run, plug in the clone. Any backup that requires the primary HDD
to operate will not suffice as a suitable backup for me. That's why I
clone
the drive rather than make an image. DI 2002 clones C:\ in about 3
minutes,
which is plenty fast enough for me. It does require a floppy drive...YIKES,
I sad a bad word, here comes the nasty comments now!

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I tried the free version of Acronis last year. My preference is for backup
programs that do not require any software installation on the primary drive,
the objective being to make a clone to another HDD then secure the clone
until needed. DI 2002 runs from two floppy disks, in Caldera DOS. If the
primary drive fails, just plug in the clone. If the primary gets clobbered
and won't run, plug in the clone. Any backup that requires the primary HDD
to operate will not suffice as a suitable backup for me. That's why I
clone the drive rather than make an image.

Doing the backup from the hard drive doesn't prevent you from doing a
restore using a bootable CD.

I know that Acronis, Macrium, and Casper all do backups running from the
hard drive, and all three let you create a bootable CD as well - which
is great for emergency use regardless of how you back up.

One exception: I have three licenses for Casper, but the CD only boots
on two of the three computers. The programmer did not offer me enough
assistance to solve that problem.

 

[SC Tom]

I tried the free version of Acronis last year. My preference is for
backup
programs that do not require any software installation on the primary
drive,
the objective being to make a clone to another HDD then secure the clone
until needed. DI 2002 runs from two floppy disks, in Caldera DOS. If the
primary drive fails, just plug in the clone. If the primary gets
clobbered
and won't run, plug in the clone. Any backup that requires the primary
HDD
to operate will not suffice as a suitable backup for me. That's why I
clone
the drive rather than make an image. DI 2002 clones C:\ in about 3
minutes,
which is plenty fast enough for me. It does require a floppy
drive...YIKES,
I sad a bad word, here comes the nasty comments now!

Along with what Gene posted, you can either create a boot CD with Acronis,
or boot and run it from the original media. No installation is necessary
(the install is only necessary to do scheduled backups from what I've seen).
It will allow you to create and restore images and partitions, incremental
backups, and restore individual files, all from the CD. There is no need to
install any software on the PC. I use ATI 2010, and it works great with XP
and Win7 for me.

 

[Kernel USAF]

Thanks to all for your suggestions. I'm limited in cloning several drives
to
one 2 TB drive because of the maximum number of allowed partitions (four).

Obviously I need to image rather than clone the drives to one large HDD.

Now I need to digest all of these suggestions and look into the various
options.

..

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Along with what Gene posted, you can either create a boot CD with Acronis,
or boot and run it from the original media. No installation is necessary
(the install is only necessary to do scheduled backups from what I've seen).
It will allow you to create and restore images and partitions, incremental
backups, and restore individual files, all from the CD. There is no need to
install any software on the PC. I use ATI 2010, and it works great with XP
and Win7 for me.

Thanks, I didn't recall (if I ever knew) abut booting from the original
media.

But these days I use Macrium, and the original media is a downloaded
installation file

Come to think of it, my most recent attempts at Acronis involved
downloads too.

 

[Justin]

Thanks to all for your suggestions. I'm limited in cloning several drives
to
one 2 TB drive because of the maximum number of allowed partitions (four).

Obviously I need to image rather than clone the drives to one large HDD.

Now I need to digest all of these suggestions and look into the various
options.

Hi Kernel, one last option.
A Linux live CD. Free, and once you boot to the LiveCD you can use the
dd command and basically perform a copy of the drive to someplace on
your network.
for example the command would be
dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/home/sam/myCD.iso bs=2048 conv=sync
to make an image of a CD or DVD.

Using dd to clone a hard disk to another hard disk:
dd if=/dev/ad0 of=/dev/ad1 bs=1M conv=noerror

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)

I have used this exact method without any problems.
I suggest the Ubuntu LiveCD - but there are others.

 

[SC Tom]

Thanks, I didn't recall (if I ever knew) abut booting from the original
media.

But these days I use Macrium, and the original media is a downloaded
installation file

Come to think of it, my most recent attempts at Acronis involved
downloads too.

Aside from the free versions offered by W-D, Seagate, and Maxtor, retail
Acronis offers updates through download, which is used to update what's
installed on the hard drive (if it has been done), and an ISO download of
the "native bootable media," which is what I generally use. I'm very
impressed with the ease of use both creating and restoring an image that
way. A few clicks and a file name, then go make coffee and read the paper.
By the time I'm done, so is it