Copying one hard drive to a backup hard drive... how?

tubedude

New member
Man I used to know how to do this stuff, even went to school for it. Now i'm just stupid.


I have a 40gb hard drive in my daw right now that has a ton of hours on it, but is performing great and always has. But, I'm getting nervous becuase of the amount of hard core multi track use that its seen for almost 2 years now ( I would imagine it has at least 1200 hours of actual high track count grinding on it) You can hear it kicking ass when you have about 20 tracks loaded in, its working hard.

Anyway, I have a 2nd 40gb hard drive sitting around I;ve had for over a year in case this one fails I have instant backup. But, I want everything in the current hard drive just the way it is. Drivers are stable, everything set up how I want, etc.

How can I make an exact duplicate of my current hard drive so that if it failed, I could swap out and be right back in business in 10 minutes? I have the hard drive, all I need to do is copy one to the other exactly as it is.

Thanks
Paul
 
you running PC?
You might be able to just do a right click on your C: in My computer and choose copy...then paste onto the new drive. Or You can back up the drive by doing a right click on C: and choose properties-->Tools-->backup now
Then just follow the wizard that pops up.

as far as getting your spare drive into your computer, you'll need to connect it to the IDE cable that your other drive is on right now, making it a slave device...or connect to an available ATA port on the motherboard. You might have to format the disk if you haven't done it before
 
The only problem with this is that the copy command will usually not copy system or hidden files.

If you are not familiar with manipulating these file types, you may want a proper software backup solution.

Hope this helps.
 
fraserhutch said:
The only problem with this is that the copy command will usually not copy system or hidden files.

If you are not familiar with manipulating these file types, you may want a proper software backup solution.

Hope this helps.

I agree with Fraserhutch, dont take any chances and do a proper backup :D
 
If it's the drive with the system/boot partition on it, I'd suggest using Norton Ghost. If not, it's just a matter of copying all the files.

Physically:

Determine which IDE channel you want to hook the second drive up to, and whether that drive will be the master or slave on that channel;
Configure the drive as master or slave using the jumper(s);
Open up your case.
Hook the drive up to the IDE cable and power cable. If you want to keep the drive in there permanently, you'll need to install it in an empty bay. If not, it'll be okay just hanging or sitting on the bottom of the case;
Turn on your computer and ensure that the BIOS and OS see the drive correctly;
Partition and format the drive if needed;
If just copying files, copy and paste; if using Ghost, you'll need to boot from the Ghost floppy disk and follow the prompts.
 
again, even on secondary disks, there is the danger of not being able to copy system or hidden files. This is *especially* true if you have software installed on the disk.

About the only time I would suggest it would be safe to do a simple copy would be when the disk is NOTHINg but user data.
 
AGCurry said:
If it's the drive with the system/boot partition on it, I'd suggest using Norton Ghost. If not, it's just a matter of copying all the files.

I agree with AGCurry.... try Norton ghost... I regularly back up an entire 40gb disk at work and it takes about 10 mins start to finish...
 
Hmmm.... well, I need to do it soon because I am getting nervous about it. Peace of mind ya know?
I dont understand why there isnt just a built in command to copy a hard drive as is.
 
Even if there was a built in command for copying the HD in windows, it would probably not be as good as the ones mentioned above. Just like their built in firewall isn't nearly as good as others that you can get. Don't take chances with your backups, you may have to spend a little money on it, but at least it will be done right every time.
 
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