Hd cloning software

Anyone know any good simple hard drive cloning software? I want to clone the dell recovery partition onto a DVD then repartition and regain the 10gb of space

You might want to look intp the software called Acronis. I have used it in the past to make images of drives and it seems to work pretty good.

Let me know if this helps.

Acronis True Image is the best software for the job. It does image backups, clones drives and is very easy to use with an intuitive user interface. But I'd see if you can get a copy of version 10. The current version 11 has issues with the backup files being corrupt and unrestorable that Acronis has not resolved. HTH

Ive tried that one, either i couldnt figure out the interface or it is unable to clone only a partition on a drive to a dvd

Have you ever burned that partition to a disk before ?? Dell offers the option to copy the recovery partition to a CD or DVD when you first setup the machine. If you haven't done that previously, you might still be able to do it. Have you contacted Dell support ?? You might get lucky and get someone who speaks English. :roll:

But before you do anything, if you haven't made an image of your system using True Image and created an Emergency Boot Disk for True Image, I'd suggest that you do that so if anything happens you can restore your system to the way it is now. It should also image the recovery partition as part of the hard drive image, so you should be able to restore the partition from the True Image backup.

If you use the recovery partition to restore your system, you will end up back where you were when you first took the computer out of the box and set it up. Do you really want that ???

NOOOOOOOOO I dont want it restored the way i got it. But if I'm in a bind and dont have time to reinstall windows manually I want the option of restoring from a disk, I cant belive they take 10gb for recovery, it annoys the @#$#@ out of me!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks ill e-mail dell about it, but, i refuse to waste my time by calling them ......................

Originally Posted by BassAddict

But if I'm in a bind and dont have time to reinstall windows manually I want the option of restoring from a disk

Click to expand...

That's why you should use True Image to create a backup image of your hard drive. The best way to do it is to install a second HD in the case. Second best is an image stored on a seprate partition on your primary drive. A good image backup can save your *** when nothing else but a clean install will work. I just had to use my image backup from a couple months ago to restore my system after a hard shutdown (I accidently turned off the power switch on the UPS) trashed some obscure system file and the computer wouldn't reboot. Even my local Chinese computer wizard couldn't figure out what was borked and he did 3 days of diagnostics on the thing. I brought it back home and restored the image in about an hour. The only thing I lost were a few recent emails and a couple new email addresses and Favorites that had been added after the image were created.

I'm not sure how much good it would do you to copy the recovery partition to a DVD unless you could figure out a way to make the DVD bootable (setup to run when inserted into a drive without any action taken by you). Without a working OS on the computer, it couldn't read the disk or know what to do with it and you couldn't read it or interact with it to make it work without the OS.

Good luck with which ever option you choose.