Copying a hard drive

[Goofy4TheWorld]

I set out to see if I could connect a (new) second hard drive disk into the HDD2 slot of my computer and simply copy all contents of HDD1 onto HDD2 bit-by-bit. I assumed it would require some software, not just a copy-and-paste copy job. I want to be able to take my “copy” and use it as my only disk (in the event of HDD failure).

However, apparently there is not a simple way to make an exact copy of a hard drive? I can’t figure out if a mirror image is a bootable copy or if it is a file that requires “restoring” to yet another new disk. Can I not simply copy all data from one drive to another somehow????

Any guidance out there would be greatly appreciated!

[1DisneyNut]

In Windows 7 you can use "create a system image" located in Backup and Restore which is found in Control panel. Normally you would use this image to "restore" to your primary drive but I believe you can just swap the drive it is located on to primary and boot directly from it because it is an identical image. Regardless, if your current primary drive failed, you could restore to a new drive or if you plan ahead partition your backup drive to have two partitions and create a primary partition; you would be able to restore to that primary partition if you would like. Personally, if I had a primary drive failure; I would restore to a brand new drive.

I would assume you can also do the same thing in Windows 8 if you happen to be one of the 50 or so people who actually bought Windows 8. I can't tell you where it is located in that piece of garbage OS as I hate it and refuse to use a computer running it. You probably have to click on 6 ugly tiles and go through 15 directories to get to it but it is probably buried in there somewhere below that annoying interface.

[Goofy4TheWorld]

I would assume you can also do the same thing in Windows 8 if you happen to be one of the 50 or so people who actually bought Windows 8. I can't tell you where it is located in that piece of garbage OS as I hate it and refuse to use a computer running it. You probably have to click on 6 ugly tiles and go through 15 directories to get to it but it is probably buried in there somewhere below that annoying interface.

How funny you mention this, as the entire reason I am working on this project is so that I can have a replacement computer ready to go in the event of a failure of the primary computer at work, and there is NO WAY I have the desire to train myself or the other users on how to adapt to Windows 8. I wanted to be able to quickly replace a failed computer without having to worry that one day soon Windows 7 will not be available.

[paymerich]

Basically what you are doing it trying to do is called mirroring the drives ( or RAID). google simple drive mirroring or how to setup a simple raid system. Windows 7/8 can set this up in software . Be very careful and read thru ALL instructions before starting.

[DizneyRox]

You're going to want to look at Norton Ghost or Acronis TrueImage, or some other software like that.

Those can create identical images of a hard drive partitions. Bootable, etc In theory, they should be able to be restored onto new hardware and act like nothing ever happened.

In practice however, I've not been that lucky...

I don't believe the RAID metioned above is what you're looking for. Software RAID would assume that you have a bootable machine (which I think is what your concern is) so that's out. Hardware RAID (mirroring is correct) is what you'll nee, but you'll probably need Windows to be able to recognize that at bootup, and since you didn't install Windows that way, might be a tricky proposition.

Truth is though, Windows takes almost no time to setup these days (I lost my server last week and had it up and running again in about 5 hours). You bigger concern should probably e your data, and that is easy enough to backup with any number of pretty user friendly backup utilities. My guess is, you'll capture 99% of it by copy/paste from your My Documents folder.

Going down the road of RAID arrays, etc is probably not something most people would want to take on. If you really want to handle this on an enterprise level, then you probably want to look at thin clients booting off network images. Implementing roaming profiles will help keep user data on the network where a real backup process can make sure you maintain acceptable uptimes. You would implement RAID (probably RAID5 or better) on the server(s) for reliability/performance, not on the workstations. RAID is not a backup...

[Goofy4TheWorld]

Thanks to everyone for the responses.

What led me to this idea was a significant lightening strike at work. This was the meanest lightening strike I have ever dealt with (if it were not for the numerous UPS systems it would have probably been much worse). I was meeting with a salesmen who was showing me how to navigate their website when the BANG struck, and it ruined $800 worth of network equipment, the mother board on the primary computer, as well as a perfectly good pair of my underwear! I jumped up and immediately started looking for fire, as I was sure something had exploded.

Anyway, I use an online backup program called Carbonite that does a great job at backing up all of my data files, so I am not worried about loosing data at all. But if work were to loose this primary computer, it would take me a few days to get all of the software re-installed (including 5 printers) and get all of my tweaks back in place before I could re-install Carbonite and restore all of my data. Being without that data would be a real pain (including having to do payroll by hand) but would be a catastrophe if the computer were to be lost on day 1 of my 7 day vacation (I am the IT department!).

We have 3 identical desktops and I wanted to be able to keep a spare hard drive ready to move one of the 2 non-primary computers in place of the primary computer should it fail. Having a copy of the drive would allow me to have my programs, printers, and tweaks already installed and Carbonite would catch the data back up once the new drive goes into service. Since the computers are identical, I assume there would be no OS problems with this plan.

But to do it, I need a bootable copy of my primary drive, a copy that I would make once and then keep stored unplugged and off-property. I thought this would be an easy task, but I think I was wrong.

[DizneyRox]

Why not just turn off and unplug one of the non primary computers. Nothing should be plugged in, no power, no network.

If they are daily use PCs then buying a fourth is probably cheap.

Imaging a drive is fairly easy, but you should ake sure you know what ours doing. Also executing your disaster recovery plan isn't a bad idea. I've created a few images in my day, but rarely can I just plug and play. Had I had the time, I probably could have figured out my probem, but sometimes it's faster to start from scratch.

As Sandy taught a few, the best laid plans mean nothing if they don't work.

[Tekneek]

There is a pretty good, and free, tool for this called Easeus Todo Backup.

[garymacd]

How funny you mention this, as the entire reason I am working on this project is so that I can have a replacement computer ready to go in the event of a failure of the primary computer at work, and there is NO WAY I have the desire to train myself or the other users on how to adapt to Windows 8. I wanted to be able to quickly replace a failed computer without having to worry that one day soon Windows 7 will not be available.
I don't think you are going have to worry about Windows 7 disappearing or not being supported for some time. We are still using XP at work. It is just now coming off the computers as it is no longer being supported by Microsoft. I would assume we are stepping up to Windows 7, but I haven't seen it yet. IT departments seem to be the most overworked departments in many organisations.

[Tekneek]

End of support for some different Windows OS:

Windows XP (Service Pack 3) is currently in its extended support period, which ends April 8, 2014.

Windows Vista (Service Pack 2) is also in its extended support period, which ends April 11, 2017.

Windows 7 (Service Pack 1) ends mainstream support on January 13, 2015 and extended support on January 14, 2020.

Windows 8 ends mainstream support on January 9, 2018 and extended support on January 10, 2023.