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Free Drive Cloners/Imagers. Great Tools!

Hi allheart;
Can you tell me more details about these programs?
What are the abilities of each?

Do any support imaging to an external drive?
Do any support imaging to CD or DVD with disk spanning?

Which ones work with Windows 98, XP and Vista?
Are there any bugs with large file names?

I'm always looking for good free programs. But before I trust a program for backup I need to really have faith in it. Has anyone here tested any of these yet? I would really be interested in feedback if you have.

Thanks;
RandyL
 
(Disk Copy) creates an exact Mirror Image copy of your disk, including the operating system, applications, personal preferences, custom settings, and all of your vital data.
Disk Copy can be used for copy, cloning, or upgrading your original hard drive to a new drive. It supports all versions of Windows.

(XXClone) makes a self-bootable clone of Windows system disk.
Supports all 32-bit Windows (95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP). Supports common internal disk drives (IDE, SATA, SCSI) and external USB/FIREWIRE drives (also good for a laptop).
Competes with Norton Ghost, DriveImage, MaxBlast, yet is much faster than any of them in typical daily backup.


(HDClone) It copies smaller drives onto larger ones for migrating or backing up complete installations as well as for data rescue. The download package contains a program to easily create a bootable floppy disk or CD/DVD under Windows with only few clicks. A floppy image, or CD/DVD ISO image, can be created to boot from.

(DrvClonerXP) copies a whole drive partition byte-for-byte, sector-by-sector, directly to another drive partition, producing an exact reproduction (clone) of the original partition. Unlike a disk imaging tool, it does not save the image to disk (for backup or other purpose) but applies it directly to the selected partition. Use it, if you want to create a clone of your drive for whatever reason, (new hard drive etc.) Compatible with Windows 2000/XP.


(SelfImage) is capable of making an image file of a hard disk or hard disk partition, and can restore an image back to any drive or partition that doesn't have open files. Useful for making backups. Unlike dd for Windows (or cygwin), SelfImage is capable of creating an image of a partition that is currently in use. It can even create images of partitions that Windows doesn't recognize (partitions that Windows doesn't have mounted on a drive letter). This is perfect for the dual-boot system, you can create an image backup of a Linux partition directly from Windows. Can create an image of an entire hard disk, including the master boot record, partition table, and all partitions (Windows 2000/XP)

(Partition Saving) makes an image file of a hard disk or hard disk partition, and can restore an image back to any drive or partition. I'ts useful for making backups. All versions of Windows including Vista.
 
Randy, EaseUs Disk Copy or (Disk Copy) is my personal favorite! I liked it so much, I stopped testing the others. I have Acronis,and that was what I have been using for quite some time but I stopped using it approx. two months ago. I was planning on making a full image on one of my dual boot machines to an external Seagate of both XP and Vista. I had already partitioned the Seagate for separate imaging of each OS. It wacked out on me and totally hosed everything on the computer!! I will eventually use it again, but only on a machine with one OS. I have also used (Partition Saving) and liked it as well. It's not quite as "user friendly" as the (Disk Copy). A friend from a large tech forum swears by (XXClone) She insists that it's far better than any "paid" software. She would know, I guess, as she has used both Norton Ghost and Acronis. As for the rest of them, I only know they were recommended by someone at TSG. ~Cindy~
 
Thanks allheart;
I'll save the info.
Take care.

RandyL
 
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