[Psykopathik]

need to make an image of my laptop drive to an external USB HDD (through USB naturally), so i can swap them out quickly.

Partition Magic maybe?

any ideas?

[pankrationisfun]

turbo e asking questions???
i've used norton ghost which ain't free. try acronis

[John]

http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm
I've never used it myself.

[lilaznviper]

+1 for norton ghost

i've always used it and never failed me

[Eclypz]

Acronis has a free trial period, so if its for a one time use, you're good to go :)

[asian_XL]

I don't see acronis supports dos mode recovery(or maybe I am stupid)...so I use Norton only.

[Presto]

http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm
I've never used it myself.

I've used DriveImage numerous times. It works as advertised, and it's free.

[Psykopathik]

thanks guys

[InvisibleSoul]

Find and download Hiren's Boot CD.

You will have every single one of those programs listed above plus more.

[Psykopathik]

weird drive image copied, but when i installed the newly cloned drive it didnt work, however all the stuff is copied.

meh.

just did a clean install instead.

thanks for the help anyways guys

[Presto]

weird drive image copied, but when i installed the newly cloned drive it didnt work, however all the stuff is copied.


The partition may have needed it to be set to active.

[Eclypz]

and you need to make sure you copy the MBR if you are mirroring your boot drive.
I think the default is usually off, in case people accidentally overwrite an existing MBR on their clone drive.

[m3thods]

I've tried Ghost and Acronis True Image 11. TI11 is easier to use, and cheaper in stores. Incredible life saver, and you can make bootable media out of essentially anything, which has helped me out a ton. I can't recommend TI11 enough.