- In order to clone a computer's hard drive, the system must first be copied to a remote location. Software like Symantec's Norton Ghost accomplishes this task with a bootable CD. Users will typically boot up their computer to the software CD and then connect an external hard drive to either a USB or FireWire port on their computer. From there, users can select where on the external drive the clone file should be saved, and the software will begin creating an image of the computer's hard drive.
- When a hard drive is cloned, the cloning software creates a virtual image of the computer's entire hard drive and saves the data to an external location. The disk image is a compressed file, so it is usually not as large as the computer's hard drive. When the image is placed onto a new hard drive, the compressed image file will be expanded to allow the program to copy all of the data to the new drive.
- Once the original hard drive's data have been successfully copied to an external location as a compressed image file, the new hard drive can be installed into the computer. The user will then again boot up to the cloning software CD, but this time she will choose the option to clone the new drive. The cloning software will read the compressed image file and move the data onto the blank hard drive, creating an exact replica of the original hard drive.
Comments
jackyang said
on 5/28/2009 hello,everyoneI wonder if there is any way to automatic clone new hard drive on network.