"cloning" windows 7

subway

help me!

i run windows 7 as my my main htpc in the front room.
tv, videos, everything (and a couple of extenders) run via this.

if you are familiar with this type of setup you will know that it takes countless hours of manual configuration to get it right.

because of this, something as simple as reinstalling a program becomes a mjor ordeal. to avoid this i want to clone my hdd onto a spare disk, then if something goes wrong i can simply replace the drive and life continues.

problem seems to be that windows 7 doesnt work well with clone software.
i tried norton 15 and got an unusuale drive (bootmgr missing, non genuine software errors...google for more)

can you recommend a piece of software (which you have tried) that will allow me to directly clone my disk for immeidate booting?

free/cheap preferably!

woolymammoth

as it happens, there was a brief discussion on a similar topic here.

There are a number of free tools you can use to do this, one included in teh link above called clonezilla. Two others that spring to mind are DriveImage XML, and Paragon Backup & Recovery. I have Used older versions of these quite some time ago. I cannot say how good these versions are. Just set a system restore point before you do anything.

tech

acronis will work fine, great product about €50 for a copy, you can get this to do a daily image to an external disk if you like

subway

Thanks, will check them out

docetes

check this out It's open source and free to download and use