Hi,
I have windows 2000 on one disk and want to clone it onto another, in the same system, to use as a backup. Can anyone recommend any good, free, software that will do this?
Thanks,
John

Go to the manufacturer of your hard drive's web site and get a free drive preparation utility download. Download it, execute to make the floppy(ies). Boot with the bootable floppy. There is a utility in that, that will copy a partition, or a drive (labelling varies). It's very slow, but it's thurough.
That's enough to make an exact copy, but if you want both Windows installations to be bootable and to be able to choose one or the other, you may have to take some additinal steps.
E.g. If the one you are copying is presently C: and the first partition on the computer, you will be able to boot either one by setting it to boot first in the bios, but you will have to take additional steps to be able to select either when you boot without changing anything in the bios.

Hi Tubesandwires,
That should work fine. My intention is to remove the clone after making it, and keep it as a backup, in case I screw up the original. So what your saying should be just the ticket - right?
John

The drive you remove should work properly if it is connected as the first drive on the first IDE controller.
If it doesn't boot, you insert the XP CD, reboot, boot with the CD, let the Setup load files (it takes a few minutes), at the first screen where you are asked if you want to repair Windows, press R to go to the Recovery Console.
Choose the Windows installation on that drive - if that is the only Windows partition on that computer, there will only be one.
You will be prompted for a password.
If there are no *'s beside the Password line, you have no password, just press Enter.
If there ARE *'s beside the Password line, the password is the same one you use for adminstrator on that Windows installation.

Type: fixboot (press enter) at the prompt, then type: exit (press enter).
The computer will reboot.
Don't boot the CD this time.
The hard drive should boot normally.

Hi,
Couldn't really find what you described. Looked at <http://www.fujitsu.ca/support/hdd/index.html> Drives are both Fujitsu MPC3064at and 3084at.
Thanks,
John

Unfortunately, Fujitsu support isn't great.

You could try going to Drivers and Files
and getting the
Diagnostic Tool
and looking in that, but Diagnostics usually do not have something that will clone a drive or partition.

They do mention DiskGo! Disk Manager as a drive preparation utility, but when I searched for that, I found
"DiskGo! is no longer available for download for free."
.....

Alternatives?
If you have another brand of hard drive handy, or can borrow one from someone, you can temporarily install it physically (it doesn't have to have anything on it)and use the drive prepartion utility for that brand - most will copy any partition on any drive, as long as one of the drives on the computer is their brand. E.g. Maxtor/Quantum at the Maxtor site, Seagate/Conner at the Seagate site, Western Digital certainly; maybe Hitachi, Samsung, but they may not be of use as they may not do anything that doesn't involve their drive.

If you or someone you know has Partition Magic (version 8.0 or higher) or another retail drive preparation utility such as Disk Manager, they can copy partitions. In Partition Magic's case you must delete the existing partition(s) on the target drive first. It copies faster than the utilities I mentioned earlier, but it's still slow.

Otherwise, search the web for free utilities that can copy drives.

"In Partition Magic's case you must delete the existing partition(s) on the target drive first."
.... then re-size the partition to fill the still unpartitioned space - that usually is quite quick.

Thanks TubesAndWires,
Yes, I have several drives here, SEVERAL. I can do that.
What do you think of XXCOPY or XXCLONE?
http://www.xxcopy.com/index.htm
http://www.xxclone.com
................. John

I have used xxcopy, with the /clone switch, and it's relatively fast, but I don't think it copies the mbr (master boot record), maybe some other things that are necessary for an XP installation to work, and you would have to take some extra steps after copying with that.
e.g. xxcopy c:\*.* d: /clone

In fact I used it just a couple of days ago.
I could run some experiments on the copies to see what needs to be done.

One of the reasons it is so fast is it doesn't check the files and drives as thuroughly as some other methods do. You could add a few more switches that aren't included when you use the /clone switch in order to check the data more thuroughly, and that will make it run slower, but it's still faster than other methods.

Also, xxcopy won't copy some files that are "protected" some non-standard way, such as those for some games, or for certain programs such as some tax preparation programs.
You could try xxcopy to find out if there are files like that on the drive you are copying, but you have to watch while it runs to see which ones are not copied as they scroll by (press Pause to pause the program and read them?), and when xxcopy is finished, it gives a summary including the number of files that were not copied, but it doesn't tell you which ones there.

On the other hand, the utilities on the drive preparation disks, or Partition Magic, etc., that copy partitions/drives copy absolutely everything, and they thuroughly check the drives and data before and after it's copied, verifying that the data on the copy is the same and was not placed on bad sectors.

So, if you really want the best possible result, I wouldn't use xxcopy or, probably, xxclone, or similar faster utilities.

see copywipe !
free
terabyte.com
and a bunch of great imaging softwares (not free!)
Paul/Brussels/Belgium

Exact address:
http://terabyteunlimited.com/

Paul

There are four cloning apps in the Ultimate Boot CD, which is free. Available here:
UBCD

I love Humanity - It's the people I can't stand

Thank you all for your help. I tried XXCLONE (someone on the XXCOPY forum suggested it) and so far it seems good. It was very easy to use. I'll let you know if I have any problems.
John

Secure Copy can do this. Easy to use data copy utility with full set of useful features.