I started asking around for an alternative solution other than the primitive file management tool and the data back-up option. Well, I did find one great way to do the job for me.
Hard drive Imaging (also known as hard drive cloning for some people) is one way for us to make a complete backup of all the contents of our hard drive without the need to completely format and install new programs to our PC. Yeah! When I say all of it, it means from your OS (Windows) up to your beloved apps and your monstrous amount of files. Just as I have!
It is a software that will create a snapshot of the whole content of our drive with the option of storing it for future use or immediately copying it to another storage device for immediate use. All of these can be done in just a matter of minutes but may vary based on the size of data to be “imaged” to a succeeding storage disk. Still! Faster than backing it up!
Aside from the cool feature of fast transfer, hard drive imaging programs present various features as follows:
- An option to copy between partitions or whole disks
- Data recovery options that will fix bad sectors and lost system files
- Data compression for the imaged disk for archiving and storage (smaller file than a full back-up using a back-up program)
- Network- wide implementation if you want to clone multiple computers (I used this feature when I still have my I-Cafe biz back then! Cost me less down times for my business.)
- Imaged disks can be mounted using its own disk mounting tool or another similar software
You might want to check out some of the web’s “free” softwares to do this trick:
- EASUS Disk Copy
- Clonezilla (Linux based) bootable
- Parted Magic
