easiest, simplest 'tard proof way of copying a hard drive

[danny_galaga]

using either linux OR XP. im not proud, i just want the absolute easiest way to do it. so that even a 'tard like me can do it

you know what its like. setting it up for your cab, with macros and settings etc to just suit. if you had to start from scratch, it would be quite tedious.

ive been meaning to do this for a while. i had a scare last night and realised i better do it before i WISH id done it. in fact, this drive is a copy a friend made for me from the original, so its certainly worth the effort.

so whats the best thing for me to make an ISO of it (i guess thats what i need to do) and then plug in another hard drive and put the image on that- ready to rock and roll again?

ive posted this question on the ubuntu forum as well, but it only takes about 30 minutes there before the thread is on the second page and gone for good (practically anyway)

[MonMotha]

Easiest is probably in Linux.  From a command line:

Code: [Select]

dd if=/dev/hdX of=/dev/hdY
where hdX is the source device and hdY is the destination.

That will have no progress bar.  If you want a progress bar, grab a copy of "pv" ("apt-get install pv" might work on Ubuntu as the package is in Debian) and do

Code: [Select]

pv < /dev/hdX > /dev/hdY
where again hdX is the source and hdY is the destination.  That'll give you an indication of how much has been transferred as well as the speed.  Note that if your hard drives are SATA, these will probably be sdX and sdY instead of hdX and hdY.  Same idea.

You can also use this method to take an image (similar to an "ISO" image of a CD, but not an ISO-9660 or compatible filesystem) by replacing the output argument (/dev/hdY) with a file name.  Note that files >4GB cannot be placed on FAT32 partitions due to limitations of the filesystem.

There is a version of dd built for Windows floating around.  Usage is similar, but I think it takes drive letters as arguments.  There are also likely purpose built drive copiers.

[ghettodish]

...or you can make an nlite version of xp with mame added to it.

[danny_galaga]

...or you can make an nlite version of xp with mame added to it.

how does that get me around not having to make macros etc for shutting the cab down?

if i have to start from scratch again, theres no reason for me to use anything other than what i was already using, which is win98. its a cocktail cab with games up to about 1991 vintage. it doesnt need drivers for bluetooth and hoosie whatsits 

i guess im wanting to make an backup because that is the spirit of the original machines. you didnt need to program new stuff if something failed. you pulled out the broken part and put in a new one.

monmotha. i dual boot ubuntu/xp. but ive screwed things up before when i wasnt a hundred percent about what i was doing in the terminal. i was hoping for something equivalent to copying tapes like when we were kids. you didnt need a degree for that. you put the original tape in one deck, the blank tape in the other. press play/record. hey presto! exact copy!

im beginning to realise that there isnt an equivalent of that. that it can be done, but type something in wrong and you risk wiping over the drive instead of copying it! maybe norton ghost is exactly what i want, but i dont want to buy/steal...

i have copied all the unique files i could think of, including all the mame files, desk top image, macro settings (i think, its been years, dont remember how i made it in the first place!)

[EwJ]

http://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/trial/
Casper - free 30 day trial.
Looks like it may suit your requirements.
Says trial copy doesn't work on 64-bit Vista(maybe ok for 64-bit XP?)

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/trueimage/
free 15 day trial.
I've heard people swear by this one - never tried it myself.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-image-for-linux.htm
Terabyte Image for linux 30 day free trial.
Same site has trial Image for Windows.


http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm-personal/download.html
Paragon free trial.


OPEN Source

http://www.clonezilla.org/

http://www.partimage.org/Main_Page


I was looking into doing a clone recently too- found these options.
Sorry - can't comment on the easiest - haven't tried any of them yet (just Ghost a long while back) - so I'm looking for info too, sorry to clutter up your thread - but maybe someone will get some use out of those url's.
I'm going to try Casper first - it's under 4mb and looks easy to use, although dd that MonMotha posted looks as straightforward as it comes -if you're sure of which drive/partition you're working with.
I'll comment on how it went if I ever get around to actually using it.

Would appreciate comments on what you used and how it went.

[daywane]

I just bought a 500 gig maxtor 1 touch. $89.00 at Wal Mart
LOVE IT.
It will not back up windows but I have baced up all my PCs on it and have mega room left.
If A PC crashes no big deal.
install windows. Plug in Maxtor one touch .
drag all my files back into place.
I bet I could be back to running order in just over 1 hr

[HaRuMaN]

X2 for clonezilla, that's what I use, and its free (really free, not I wear an eyepatch and have a pegleg free).

[ghettodish]

...or you can make an nlite version of xp with mame added to it.

how does that get me around not having to make macros etc for shutting the cab down?

if i have to start from scratch again, theres no reason for me to use anything other than what i was already using, which is win98. its a cocktail cab with games up to about 1991 vintage. it doesnt need drivers for bluetooth and hoosie whatsits 

i guess im wanting to make an backup because that is the spirit of the original machines. you didnt need to program new stuff if something failed. you pulled out the broken part and put in a new one.

monmotha. i dual boot ubuntu/xp. but ive screwed things up before when i wasnt a hundred percent about what i was doing in the terminal. i was hoping for something equivalent to copying tapes like when we were kids. you didnt need a degree for that. you put the original tape in one deck, the blank tape in the other. press play/record. hey presto! exact copy!

im beginning to realise that there isnt an equivalent of that. that it can be done, but type something in wrong and you risk wiping over the drive instead of copying it! maybe norton ghost is exactly what i want, but i dont want to buy/steal...

i have copied all the unique files i could think of, including all the mame files, desk top image, macro settings (i think, its been years, dont remember how i made it in the first place!)

The trick is to copy your working mame folders (already set up and woking the way you like) from your working HHD to the nlite xp disk. This is from SpyStyle's setup:

"There is an interesting trick - all files and folders added to :

C:\MAME-XP\XP CD\$OEM$\$1

Will be copied to the root of the hard drive during the installation of the operating system.

For example, if you copy a folder called "MAME" to that folder you would end up with :

C:\MAME

on the arcade machine's computer (after MAME-XP is installed).

Therefore, if you have a DVD burner and you can get your MAME set small enough to fit on a DVD-R disk, or a DVD-R DL disk if your burner supports it, you could possibly have everything copied to the hard drive during the OS install. Cool huh? "

...so if your computer fails just pop in your disk, and re-install. Windows, mame, etc. will set themselves up just like you had them before. Tard-proof, once your disk is made!

[MonMotha]

monmotha. i dual boot ubuntu/xp. but ive screwed things up before when i wasnt a hundred percent about what i was doing in the terminal. i was hoping for something equivalent to copying tapes like when we were kids. you didnt need a degree for that. you put the original tape in one deck, the blank tape in the other. press play/record. hey presto! exact copy!

Then do it in Windows.  My goal was to give you something that would work with minimal to no additional required software.  One of the neat things about Linux (and just about every OS other than Windows) is that you can pull stuff like this off without finding oddball pieces of 3rd party software with strange interfaces.  If you want a point-and-drool interface, stick to Windows, since the Ubuntu GUI isn't designed to let you do anything like this.

[daywane]

If A PC crashes no big deal.
install windows. Plug in Maxtor one touch .
drag all my files back into place.
I bet I could be back to running order in just over 1 hr

WELL.... I just tried this out.
started with a 1.2 ghz PC
512 meg memory
30 gig hard drive
Had windows xp sp2 on it.
Plugged in Maxtor one touch.
7:am
Did not think of the USB 1 VS USB2 
I just dragged Mame Version 78 to it (with all the settings and all the bells a whistles)
11:30 still going. 
Bad thing is I have a PCI USB 2.0 card right here. never even thought of putting it in.

[krick]

If you're trying to move a windows 9x installation to a larger hard drive, you can connect the new drive alongside your old drive and then use XXCOPY to image the old drive contents to the new drive.  Detailed instructions are here...

http://www.xxcopy.com/xxcopy10.htm

Freeware XXCOPY download...
http://www.xxcopy.com/index.htm#download

[zaphod]

Similar to krick's suggestion, I have used Western Digital's DataLifeGuard Tools for copying the drive to a new drive (or a partition on it).  Most recently I used to to image my stable cab drive to a second one in the box, then I unplugged the second drive completely but left it in the case.

[wbassett]

Are you talking about just copying over your MAME stuff to a new drive or duplicating the entire drive... OS and everything?  If it's just the MAME directories and content that's pretty straight forward.

If it's the OS too, it gets a bit trickier but most drives you buy have utilities included that let you move to the bigger drive and then you just swap that with your old C: drive and you're golden!

Ghost will also work like a champ too, but if you can use a free utility why spend money on a program?

Now... if you plan on duplicating your entire drive, OS and all and then putting that into a different computer, you're going to run into some problems doing that.  XP will see there is all new hardware and won't like it.  You can change your drivers and get it to work, but in my experience it's never a clean system, at least not like a system formatted and where XP is installed on from scratch. 

[severdhed]

Acronis True image is an awesome program...we use it at work all the time.  you'd basically get your PC set up exactly the way you want it, connect a second hard drive, and boot from the acronis CD, it will make an exact copy of your drive, you then just tuck that drive away for some day.  at any point you have a problem and you screw up your installation or configuration or anything, you can go through the same process in reverse and essentialy restore your computer back to the way it was when you cloned it.. and if you make alot of changes and you want them to be backed up, you can just do it again and overwrite the clone drive.

it works beautifully

[AndyWarne]

Agree about Acronis. Its far better than Ghost which used to be OK but has become increasingly worse on each release. In fact I wont touch anything from Symantec.
Acronis has an option which I have not tried, which allows you to clone an entire disk installation onto another PC with different hardware and have it boot up normally (Universal Restore). This sounds almost too good to be true but judging by the quality of the base product should work. Anyone used this feature?

[severdhed]

i have not seen that feature...i must be a version or two behind.  lots of times when we clone a drive, it is because a motherboard or something failed and they bought a new PC...more often than not, we have had great success with cloning a drive from one PC and using it in another...occasionally we have to do a repair installation of windows, but it generally works pretty well.  I'll have to check out the new version to see about this universal restore option though

[crashwg]

So this Acronis True Image programs seems pretty sweet but funds are lacking.  To those who've used it: if I download the trial version and make a backup, will I be able to restore from that backup or does the backup itself expire somehow?

[severdhed]

i don't know how that works. it has been so long since i used the trial version...we got the full version once we used it and got to see out good it was.... but, if you use it to clone your hard drive to another one, i dont see how that could expire.  if your drive gets messed up, you could always just swap it with the clone drive...then at that point you would be out of luck.

[XeviouS]

So this Acronis True Image programs seems pretty sweet but funds are lacking.  To those who've used it: if I download the trial version and make a backup, will I be able to restore from that backup or does the backup itself expire somehow?

Pssssst!

Two words: Bit.Torrent.

don't tell anyone I told ya (slinks back into the undergrowth)

[Bloinkxp]

I work for a major Healthcare org.  We use Acronis for fast and dirty cloning.  It's fast and *very* easy to use.

[joeH]

+1 for Acronis as well. 

Universal restore is on the business version I believe.  I just use the home version which does not have this feature.

[Dexter]

Acronis trueimage and disk director suite, two blinding programs.

On my own cab I have a 40 gig hard drive split into 2x20 gig partitions. When I had everything working the way I wanted it within the first partition, I cloned it to the second. I also took an image onto another hd in case of a mechanical fail. If anything goes wrong with the main partition itself I just copy the second partition back over the first and I'm back to the point I originally cloned from. Simple.

[Kayden]

Since you have XP handy, try running NTBACKUP (from the run box) and point it to the partition with 98 on it.  It should work... I think.

Or give the trial of True Image... a try.

[orion]

You could give Macrium Reflect a try. It's probably not as good as Acronis (which I have never tried) but its free.

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

[Bender]

anyone know how to clone a laptop drive Can you do it in a usb enclosure?

[MonMotha]

anyone know how to clone a laptop drive Can you do it in a usb enclosure?

Works fine on Linux since it shows up identically to any other hard drive.  I'm told at least some of the Windows tools will deal with them.  SATA laptop hard drives are especially easy since the connectors are the same as their desktop counterparts.  PATA laptop hard drives need a little adapter as they use a smaller connector than the desktop versions, and power is placed on that same connector.

[severdhed]

you can copy a laptop drive several ways.  if it is a sata hard drive, you can simply take it out of the laptop and connect it to your desktop just like a normal hard drive (assuming you have sata ports on your desktop).


if it is not a sata drive, you could use one of these to connect it internally to an IDE connector on your pc

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119245

or you could use a usb adaptor like this that would allow you to connect either a regular IDE, laptop drive, or sata drive up via usb.  we use these at work all the time

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119152

[King Nerd]

Wouldn't plain old XCOPY through WinXP or Vista do the job and it comes with Windows?
Might not be the most "tard" proof, but it's certainly the most accessible. No downloads, no purchases, nothin'. It's already there.

[MonMotha]

Wouldn't plain old XCOPY through WinXP or Vista do the job and it comes with Windows?
Might not be the most "tard" proof, but it's certainly the most accessible. No downloads, no purchases, nothin'. It's already there.

This will only copy files.  This means that the filesystem isn't guaranteed to look the same on disk, won't replicate the partition table for you, and it won't copy any filesystem which Windows doesn't understand (which is most of them).

It's perfectly possible to copy the raw drive to another one or into a file, creating an "image", if you prefer.  This creates a drive that is 100% a duplicate of the first one if an identical model drive is used.  This is very handy for backing up arcade games that use a hard drive, since most of those don't have filesystems or even partition tables that Windows (or any other common OS) will understand.

Besides, if you want to copy a ton of files, you should probably use robocopy, now.  At least use xcopy32 (though that may just be an alias of xcopy on modern Windows systems).  rsync can also be handy in some situations (e.g. backup).

[Ummon]

you can copy a laptop drive several ways.  if it is a sata hard drive, you can simply take it out of the laptop and connect it to your desktop just like a normal hard drive (assuming you have sata ports on your desktop).

Couldn't you just go through ethernet to a drive in another PC?

I used Acronis a year or so ago on a few drives, and the only issue I had with one of them was that I needed to verify the installation, which resulted in having to call Microsoft. The call was actually only six minutes in length. I used the trial version, and there was no 'water-marking' or whatever that I've.

As for copying, I just highlight whatever I want to copy, and then paste it to wherever else, be it another drive on the system or on another system in the network.

[MonMotha]

you can copy a laptop drive several ways.  if it is a sata hard drive, you can simply take it out of the laptop and connect it to your desktop just like a normal hard drive (assuming you have sata ports on your desktop).

Couldn't you just go through ethernet to a drive in another PC?

It is difficult (though not impossible) to cleanly image a drive while the filesystem is active.  One could use a "live CD" or USB boot type thing to do this, however.  I've done this before.  Of course, if you just want to copy a bunch of files, no issues at all.

[severdhed]

you can copy a laptop drive several ways.  if it is a sata hard drive, you can simply take it out of the laptop and connect it to your desktop just like a normal hard drive (assuming you have sata ports on your desktop).

Couldn't you just go through ethernet to a drive in another PC?

while this may technically be possible, it would be relatively difficult to set up and may not work too well....plus it would take alot longer to copy that it would if both drivers were physically connected to the same PC.

if you need an exact duplicate of a drive, acronis is by far the best way to go.  i have never had to reactive windows when doing this...guess i just got lucky. (unless i was installing the hard drive in a different pc....then there are other problems as well)

[drventure]

I know Vista isn't high on the popularity list round these parts, but it does have a "Backup Entire Computer" which is pretty cool

You can run it interactive or from the command line and it'll clone your entire C drive (including boot stuff), to a VHD on another drive.

That file you can then Mount using Virtual PC to get at individual files in it.

If you ever need to restore, you just boot to the Vista Boot disk and walk through the prompts.

Pretty slick.

Windows 7 will even have a "Boot to VHD" feature, so you can literally boot to different OS's that are set up WITHIN VHD files on your actual harddrive.

[protokatie]

This may be an odd way to go about it, but what about setting up a software RAID1 (many OS's have this as a built in feature) with the two drives in it, and then just break the array and rely on one of the discs. This give an advantage that if the primary disc dies, you could hook up the other disc in the array plus a new disc (or the old primary reformated if it isnt actually dead) and have it reimage again just as a basic function of RAID1.

[Ummon]

I know Vista isn't high on the popularity list round these parts, but it does have a "Backup Entire Computer" which is pretty cool

You can run it interactive or from the command line and it'll clone your entire C drive (including boot stuff), to a VHD on another drive.

That file you can then Mount using Virtual PC to get at individual files in it.

If you ever need to restore, you just boot to the Vista Boot disk and walk through the prompts.

Pretty slick.

It's about time.

Windows 7 will even have a "Boot to VHD" feature, so you can literally boot to different OS's that are set up WITHIN VHD files on your actual harddrive.

Yeah, Scott Hanselman in the .NET Rocks program was talking about this at some length. Pretty neat ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---.

[nox771]

Regarding cloning a laptop drive (or any drive), I've used SelfImage often and it works great:
http://www.excelcia.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=4

A few good things about that program: it's free, it can clone a drive that is currently in use, and it can clone partitions/drives that Windows does not recognize (ext3 or such). 

I used that to clone my laptop drive when it was on the edge of death.  I hooked up an external 2.5" USB enclosure with a new drive, booted the laptop, and used SelfImage to clone the laptop drive to the new drive.  When it was done I flipped the laptop over, pulled the bad drive, put in the new one, flipped it back, and it booted right up. 

I would suggest running a disk check to clean up any leftover open files (the small penalty you get when cloning a drive that's in use).  I even got a 2nd new drive that I image the drive to every month or so (in case one of them goes bad).