A good program for cloning hd files pls?

[paradamed]

Hi guys I have just formatted my hd (actually I installed my system on an ssd) and I remember vaguely there are some programs which can clone my drive so I can use the cloned files to be restored in case I have to format again. Can you guys pls suggest me a good and free software which can be used to clone my drive, so I wont have to spend hours redownloading updates for windows 7. Also could you guys give me information on the effectiveness of this method, pls? Is it safe to do so? Is there chance for loss of data? Is it effective? Thanks in advance.

[Ishan]

Hey paradamed,

For cloning these are some known programs:

• Easeus Todo Backup & then there is,
• Paragon Backup & Recovery program also.

Choose whatever you like the most. Some people go for Clonezilla but i read some bad reviews about it, that some drivers like for sound, Ethernet etc didn't worked properly after cloning was completed on another drive but some say it's cool. Anyways personally i wouldn't go for it.

And if you're not in mood to try out these 3rd party programs then you can use the options available in windows 7 itself, since your main concern is having a system backup, or system image, rather than everything else, which is something you can simply copy paste anywhere.

In windows 7, you can use the Windows Backup and Restore feature. It's very simple and reliable. Only limitation is that it can only backup your primary partition in which your OS is installed and on NTFS drives only. From this also you can put the windows as it was in the earlier state. I use it many times because it's very convenient than having to re-install everything all over again, especially 3rd party programs and things like Photoshop and their thousands of fonts and what not, so it saves a lot of time by restoring windows from a system image.

Hope that helps you somewhat.

[paradamed]

Thanks for answering, Ishan. I will try one of these programs. As for the Windows 7 back up I tried to use it once but when I finished using it I found out it would only back up windows os files. It wouldnt make backups of other programs like VLC, firefox, Steam, etc. It wouldnt exactly clone my HD but it would select the key files for a reboot. I will try the other programs cause Im really looking forward to have it the exactly same way. Anyway, thanks for the help, man.

[Ishan]

No problem mate and the windows backup features have some options, with it we can either have only the system image only or the entire primary partition, otherwise it's of really no use except save windows when it farts for some apparent reason.

Like say i have this folder for Milkshape 3D program, if my complete C partition goes away for some reason then instead of re-installing entire OS and then installing this program again manually, I will simply use the system backup i made on my external hard drive. Like on current version, it shows the previous version being kept which will be transferred when i use this backup, for eg:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

With its registry entries, program preferences and uninstall icon in control panel etc etc.

Anyways like i previously said, the other options via external programs is more convenient for advanced users since it takes the entire HDD in one go.