Quick-Cloning a Hard Drive
Why can't Microsoft provide an easy way to upgrade a disk?
By Glenn Weadock on Mon, 06/22/09 - 8:22pm.
I recently had occasion to upgrade a system drive on a simple server box (no fancy RAID arrays) to a new drive with much higher capacity, lower power consumption, and lower noise. I reviewed the Windows options for performing this operation: 1) Make a full backup to a local hard drive, DVD drive, or network share, 2) install the new drive, 3) reboot to DVD, 4) make a full restore. Definitely better than the Server 2003 procedure, which would have required an OS reinstall, but still not ideal for my situation.
To start with, I didn’t have a fast extra local hard drive handy. I could back up to DVD, but it would have taken several DVDs. I could do a network backup from the command line using WBADMIN, but that would have been fairly slow, and would have also slowed down the network for others. What I really wanted to do was something like this: 1) pop in the new drive, 2) clone the old drive to the new drive at local bus speed, 3) remove the old drive, 4) reboot to the new drive. However, remarkably, no facility exists in Windows to perform this sequence of events.
Acronis has two fine products that will do the job: TrueImage, and the smaller and cheaper Migrate Easy. I tried Migrate Easy, and it was a dream. The job was done in record time with no errors, no problems, no “gotchas”, no changing of DVDs, no slowing down the network, no scrounging for a “scratch” hard disk. Of course I could also have used Ghost, the old standby, which also works very well.
So why can’t Microsoft include a simple disk cloning function in Windows? Isn’t that a much more basic and appropriate operating-system capability than, say, the ability to see window contents while dragging? I would love to see Microsoft start paying attention to more real-world server management scenarios like simply cloning a volume to a new disk with more capacity. As the Acronis folks prove, it doesn’t have to be all THAT hard!
Recent posts:
Solid-State Disks and Server 2008, Part II
- About Glenn Weadock on Windows Server 2008
Glenn Weadock is a longtime instructor for Global Knowledge and teaches Windows 7, Server 2008, and Active Directory. He has recently co-developed with Mark Wilkins two advanced Server 2008 classes in the Microsoft Official Curriculum. Glenn also consults through his Colorado-based company Independent Software, Inc. and is technical director of MarketCoach Investment Education Software LLC.
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Why Microsoft Can't Do It
I am sure that Microsoft could easily do it, but this is how Microsoft gets into trouble with the Feds and others. We the users, want extra features added to windows so that it is easier for us to use and we don't have to add on other programs to do things.
So Microsoft wanting to be responsive to the users adds the feature. Then everyone starts crying foul play because it is unfair to them and their products. They file law suites and the Feds get involved and say Microsoft has a monopoly and needs to remove the feature because it is an unfair advantage to the competitors. Microsoft is fined huge fines and so they strip it out.
I am a firm believer in the free enterprise system and believe that Microsoft and others should be allowed to add what features it wants and let the users determine what products are best. The various governments should stay out of the free market.
However this is not the case and the more they meddle the more things get messed up.
Just my thoughts.
The "bundling" argument applies to non-OS features.
Uncle Sam got put out with Microsoft when it bundled IE with Windows. A Web browser is widely regarded as an app, not as system software. I'm not a lawyer but my understanding is that the law says that it's illegal to leverage a monopoly position in one area (operating systems) to gain an unfair advantage in another area (Web browsers).
What I'm suggesting is something different: a pure OS feature, like being able to resize disk partitions. Disk cloning for purposes of system expansion is pretty clearly a system-level task, and much more appropriate to include in an OS than (say) a media player. So I think it would be a very legitimate feature for an OS, and it would be hard for the Feds to argue otherwise...
Why Microsoft can and won't do this
Microsoft can add the "cloning" feature, but cannot do it. When the IBM PS/2 machines came out in the 1980's, IBM added a PC to PS/2 copying feature, using the parallel ports, because it is faster then the serial ports. Microsoft never added this to its Windows O/S, even if IBM was giving it with each new PS/2.
There is one main reason why: pirating. If you legally bought a new machine with a Microsoft licensed O/S on it, you assumed that it was better than what you have on your older machine. But you would have to manually reinstall al the other software products used the older machine, and you didn't need the older machine to do so. If Microsoft gave you the means to copy them over under Windows, you had a licensed software product on two machines at the same time, literally violating Microsoft's own licensing and probably violating the licensing of the third party products, which is considered as pirating.
A "clone" or disk copy is done on the same machine. If you took the copied disk over to another machines and used it, then you are violating the license on your own, not with Microsoft's help.
If anyone wished that Microsoft had a disk copy feature, they must ask Microsoft to sell it as a new product that can run "stand-alone" , like Ghost or Acronis does, without Windows. Since that isn't what Microsoft believes to be better, they rather add features to the overweight O/S instead. But the piracy action will prevent this from happening. If Microsoft divided Windows into many parts, and sold them individually, they can beat the "monopoly" call, and, in theory, make more money. But since that allows competiton to enter, they won't do this. So we have three alternatives:
1. Buy only Microsoft products, which are bulky, and limite your computer needs.
2. Add third party products or make your own, but pay more money and waste more time.
3. Go with an open solution, like Linux, or Open Solaris, but have poor support and risk your computer.
I leave you with the options.
Ah, but there are other ways to defeat piracy, like Adobe's.
You have a point, but consider this. When I want to transfer a license to use Creative Suite to another machine, I de-activate it on the old machine and Adobe's database gets updated. Then I activate it afresh on the new machine. Adobe won't let me activate my serial number more than twice. The system doesn't inconvenience the user (deactivation and activation is quick and easy over the Internet), and it protects Adobe.
Couldn't Microsoft easily do the same exact thing with Windows and disk cloning? You could deactivate right before cloning, then reactivate after cloning. So I don't really buy the anti-piracy argument; it's too easy to work around. In fact, MS already has the infrastructure to do this, with their original "activation 1.0" scheme that would squawk if you made what Microsoft considered to be too many hardware changes.
The concept is even more easily extended to corporate environments with licensing servers.
I did without any new software
I once copied my hard drive to another without any new software. It takes more steps, but it worked. I formatted the new drive, went int DOS mode, copied all the files, did a "sys" command to make the new drive bootable, then changed the BIOS seting to point to the new drive. It works with desktops that can handle two hard drives in the same box (master and slave). I have not tried this yet with an external drive for laptops and other machines that have no extra drive space.
I wonder if someone has created a cloning program that can run through the USP port. This will allow you to copy someone's machine, even if it was password locked (if Autorun was active). I guess this idea will be seen in a TV or movie scene soon.
Clonezilla
Clonezilla does it for free. Boot a linux based clonezilla cd and clone to USB or bus attached disk. Works great.
easy
boot up your favorite linux livecd
dd if=/dev/hd
of=/dev/hd bs=512
then use gparted on /dev/hd to resize the partitions
G4L
G4L allows you to clone hard drives quite painlessly. I've used it many times and it gets the job done nicely. Plus, it's FOSS.
free Windows utility - XXCLONE
There is a well-developed utility to clone a live windows system disk to another drive. And by "live" I mean the currently booted-from system disk! XXCLONE (and, no it's not pr0n).
See www.xxclone.com; here are a few of the features:
*Makes a self-bootable clone of Windows system disk.
*Supports all 32-bit Windows (95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP).
*Can restore the self-bootability in many cases.
*It takes only a minute to run.
*Everyone should keep the Freeware handy for just in case.
*The Pro version is ideal for daily backup.
*Supports common internal disk drives (IDE, SATA, SCSI).
*Supports external USB/FIREWIRE drives (good for a laptop).
*Competes with Norton Ghost, DriveImage, MaxBlast.
*Much faster than any of them in typical daily backup.
*Need not go to the DOS mode. Operates in regular Windows environment.
*Simple to use by novices. IT professionals think it's great.
I have no affiliation with the product, but I appreciate great and functional freeware (there's a pro version, too). It's by the makers of XXCOPY which is great improvment on MS's Robocopy (which is an improvement on XCOPY, which is an improvment on COPY).
you could always copy the
you could always copy the files, then run bootsect /nt60 [new-drive-letter] /MBR (/mbr isn't needed in 7's boot loader but is in vista's if you are using an mbr based boot loader) and then in partition manager set it to active and system partition. thats it done. under xp it is more difficult, but they have added the feature as they went forwards; so we can't complain about that. not all kernel 2.6 features are back ported to 2.4 in linux now are they? (FYI, bootsect.exe is in the /boot folder on your windows cd if you had trouble finding it)
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