How to Copy the Entire Hard Drive Including Partitions
One way to back up all drive information including partitions is to use a product like Norton Ghost. Norton Ghost copies the entire drive content, so that it can be replaced if a hard drive fails. Norton Ghost is a software application that allows you to take a complete copy of the hard drive including partitions. The name given to this process is "imaging the drive." This process requires a writable CDROM drive to store the main hard drive's image. Once the image is created, store it in a safe place in case of a drive failure.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Insert the bootable floppy or CD disk and restart the computer. A boot disk is created by the operating system. It contains the files that enable you to boot to DOS. For instance, the Windows installation CDROM is a boot disk. The computer will restart and bring you to the DOS prompt. In the DOS prompt, navigate to the location of the ghost.exe file on the hard drive and type "ghost." This starts the ghost application.
-
2
Press the "Enter" key at the welcome screen and choose which type of backup you want to create. For instance, you can create a hard drive copy that is stored on another hard drive or a CDROM. In this example, the backup is created on a CDROM disk.
-
-
3
Select "Hard Disk" when choosing a type of backup. Since this example copies the main hard drive, the "C" drive is copied to a CDROM disk.
-
4
Select the partitions you want to copy. For this example, the main "C" partition is copied, but you can also backup other partitions with the Norton's Ghost application.
-
5
Select a location for the stored backup. This can be another hard drive or a CDROM. If you have a boot CDROM in the drive, remove it for this step. Name the location for the backup and press the "Save" button.
-
6
Select "Yes" for compression if the files are larger than the CDROM's capacity. Compressed files take longer to backup, but it's beneficial if the hard drive space is too large for the CDROM disk.
-
7
Remove the CDROM once the backup process is complete. Remove the boot disk from the drive and restart the computer when finished. Ensure that the backup is stored in a safe location in case the hard drive fails.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Other software used to image a drive includes DriveImage XML by Runtime Software, Paragon Drive Backup by Paragon Software and Active@ Disk Image by Active@Data Software.
