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Discover the benefits of cloning your hard drive and learn how to do it. What is a clone of a hard drive? A perfect clone (exact copy) of a hard drive is the copy of the hard drive image itself. THE CONFUSING part about a hard drive image is understanding that it is NOT THE SAME as copying all the files/folders from one hard drive to another.
There are many people and I am sure that some of you might have experienced this yourself: You copied all the folders and files from one hard drive to another, and then discovered that Windows would not start and that your programs would not run when you clicked on the shortcuts. The reason why? Easy...because what you did was a data-backup. A data-backup means you copied all the files and folders from one location to another. The reason why Windows and the programs don't work is because they were not installed! The programs weren't installed and therefore the system doesn't recognize that there are programs registered and installed! Even though you copied every single file and folder and everything looks identical from one hard drive to another, it WILL NOT BOOT to Windows and the programs will not work. What you need to do is an image backup. I'm sure this explanation brought out several more questions from you:
Q: So does this mean that my backup program doesn't work?
A: Backup programs can only back up your data and files as individual entities. You cannot simply copy an entire program folder and expect it to run in another computer!
Q: So how do I backup my hard drive in a way that makes it bootable?
A: This is done by making an image backup. There are many programs that will allow you to do this: Norton Ghost, Acronis TrueImage, Partition Magic, Powerquest, etc... Q: Are there other advantages to cloning your hard drive other than having a working bootable backup copy?
A: ABSOLUTELY! Cloned hard drive images help you save time in many ways! 1) Pretend you have 10 identical machines. Instead of spending the time installing software on all the computers, you can setup one computer perfectly and then clone the image and copy the hard drive image to the drives on all the other computers and save yourself hours of repetitive work. 2) Suppose you had a 40gb hard drive and wanted to upgrade to a 120gb. Instead of re-installing Windows and all your programs, you could simply clone the image to the bigger hard drive! 3) You can have a full BOOTABLE backup of your hard drive that you can use right away in case your hard drive fails! Q: Are there any limits to hard drive cloning I should know about?
A: You cannot clone an image of a hard drive to be used in a different computer with a different motherboard! The reason for example if Josh and Sarah have 2 entirely different computers and Josh tries to put a image copy of his hard drive and load it up in Sarah's computer...it WILL NOT work! The reason is because Josh's hard drive has all the drivers and registry settings for the hardware in his own computer and not Sarah's! Remember that to use a hard drive image on a computer other than the original computer, the new computer must have at the very least, the same motherboard or else it will not boot and will not work. Instructions on how to clone a hard drive using Acronis TrueImage coming soon!
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