windows - Transfer disk contents *without* cloning tools

07
2014-07
  • Chris Cummins

    Is it possible to "clone" a disk which contains programs by performing a copy of all the disk contents (preserving file attributes) from source to destination disk, and unplugging the source disk and changing the drive letter of the destination disk to match that of the source?

    Context

    I have a two disk Windows 8 system with a system drive and a data drive. Recently, the data drive developed a number of bad sectors leading to IO errors. I have been sent a replacement drive so I simply need to clone the contents of this data drive onto the replacement. The drive contents include documents & media, user folders (My Documents and related), and some programs (games etc).

    Problem

    The problem is that the bad sectors on the source disk causes most disk cloning tools to fail with read errors. Attempted approaches include:

    1. Disk clone from live boot environment with Acronis True Image. Fails due to read errors.
    2. Disk clone from live boot environment with Clonezilla. Fails due to read errors.
    3. Disk clone using Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier. Fails due to hardware timeouts in the HDD (application hangs indefinitely).
    4. A straightforward copy from source to destination disk using FreeFileSync (preserving file attributes and metadata). This succeeds.

    So at the moment I have a replacement disk which contains all of the data from the original disk. Now all I need to is somehow get Windows to replace all references to the old disk to the new one. Is this possible by simply swapping the assigned drive letters? Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

    • Answers
  • RyanTimmons91

    The best software I have found to clone a disk with sector errors is a properly configured instance of CloneZilla, I use it by booting off Hirens boot cd, there are options to continue on errors.

    The only time I've had this not work was on a drive that when I read a specific file the drive would disconnect, the solution at that point was to manually copy the files off and ignore that file. Really it depends on your specific situation and the extent to which the drive is damaged.

    Unstoppable Copier is a good choice for copying files, it will continue past broken files (except in cases where the drive disconnects):

    Unstoppable Copier

    EDIT:

    You can change drive letters by right clicking on "My Computer" and going to System Management (Alternatively you can get to Disk Management from Administrative tool in the control panel)

    Once in disk management you can right click on a volume and select "Change Drive Letter"

  • Chris Cummins

    Thanks all for the responses. I went ahead and tried to do the disk clone from Windows, and surprisingly it worked. I've written up my method in case other people find themselves in similar situations and need an alternative to offline clone tools (for the record, I suspect that Ryan's CloneZilla suggestion would have worked if I had taken the time to configure it correctly, so best to try this as a last resort). Method:

    1. Copy disk contents - Using FreeFileSync, I copied the contents of the source disk "F" to the destination disk "G", preserving file attributes and running as administrator. I made sure to remove all of the file ignore patterns so that nothing was missed.
    2. Disconnect source disk - I shutdown the machine and physically disconnected the SATA cable from the source disk.
    3. Assign new drive letter - After powering up the machine (and getting all of the expected errors about the missing disk), I changed the the destination disk drive letter "G" to that of the source drive letter "F" using Windows' Administrative tools.
    4. Reboot - After a final reboot, everything worked as expected. Programs which were installed on the now disconnected source disk worked fine when ran off of the destination disk.

    In all honestly I expected this to be problematic, as I know that general wisdom dictates you can't simply copy programs across drives and expect them to work. It seems that the real issue is that you can't copy programs across drive letters, but if you're replacing a disk and keeping the drive letter consistent, you can get away with a file transfer, without the need to clone or reinstall.


    • Related Question

    windows xp - Clone a Hard Disk Content to Another Hard Disk
  • Graviton

    I subjected my hard disk ( C drive) to a scan disk and found that there was a 12kb of bad sectors, I now consider that disk to be unreliable, and am looking forward to transfer all my data to another file.

    The problem is, I want to clone the complete drive ( including the apps, OSes, files and everything verbatim) to another drive. I know there would be some crazy software activation issues, like Windows Not Genuine problem and so on. But I wonder whether is there a softwware powerful enough to do the cloning and at the same time maintain the OS and apps?


    • Related Answers
  • slhck

    Did I understand you correctly, that you want to use the same PC but just change the harddrive? In this case, you shouldn't get "crazy software activation issues".

    You can simply use a backup software like

    Acronis TrueImage

    Acronis True Image Home 2011 assures that all your important data, including photos, videos, music, documents and applications, are fully protected and can be recovered quickly in the event of any disaster.

    Or if you're looking for a free alternative:

    Macrium Reflect

    The only free XP, Vista and Windows 7 compatible disk imaging software with BartPE and Linux based recovery options.

    • Create a disk image whilst running Windows using Microsoft Volume Shadow copy Service (VSS).
    • Image to Network, USB, FireWire drives and DVD.
    • Built in scheduler.
    • 32 bit and native 64 bit versions.
    • Industry leading compression levels and speed.
    • Linux based Rescue CD with Network access and full GUI. Only 6.5MB in size!
    • Built in CD/DVD packet writing engine. Supports packet writing to DVD DL media with Windows Vista.
    • HTML log files.

    Create a clone of your harddrive, use the Rescue CD to copy the backup to a new drive. Everything will be copied 1:1. Most programs really just give you a hard time with the licenses if you change multiple aspects of your hardware at once.

  • slhck

    Clonezilla

    I'm a fan of clonezilla which will do copy disk to disk and disk to image. It's free to use but the only thing it can't do is clone to a smaller drive.

    As the others have said you may be unliekly to boot first time, unless you use it in the same computer with the same hardware.

  • Alan B

    Macrium Reflect Free

    Make sure you create a boot CD so you can get the image back onto the new drive.

  • paradroid

    I' ve used EASEUS Disk Copy (free) in the past. It worked very well, even with a disk that was so corrupted that it could not be recognised by Windows.

  • pbies

    Cygwin is one of the solutions - if you want to do that from inside the backed up system. There are dd and pv commands which would help you. Also you can use live CD/DVD of unix-like system and then also compress the image. But you also have some trash from the disk (deleted files) in the backup.