Image program

[Bahumat]

Dell laptop hard drive is coming up with messages saying its detecting faults and to back up data. Its out of warranty so I was planning to take an image, replace the hard drive and redeploy the image. I take it I would require a boot disk to deploy onto the new drive?

Anyone know a good free program for this? We have no windows disk or key as its a Dell. Windows 7 has an image thing built in but I've never used it and don't know if its any good?

 

[Bahumat]

Typed on phone so apologies for basic info.

 

[Ch3tan]

A lot easier if you have a hardrive caddy or dock of some type. Lots of software that will do what you need.

 

[Bahumat]

I have a caddy. Could you elaborate further please?

 

[Zenith.UK]

This is what I do.

Download Macrium Reflect free version. It allows you to create an image of your drive while still running Windows and is pretty intuitive. Save the image to an external USB drive (hard drive or pendrive).
Download and burn Hiren's BootCD from here. An option is to burn it to USB stick.
Boot with Hiren's BootCD and choose Macrium Reflect from the options.
The DOS version of Macrium allows you to apply the image from a USB drive to the hard drive.

In fact, Hiren's CD is great if you need to do anything technical with a PC. The best tool I use frequently is the password reset for Win 2k/XP/Vista/7. It can strip a password, unlock user accounts and is generally made of win.

[edit] Thinking on it, maybe you should just backup your important stuff, blitz the drive, replace the drive and install Windows from the recovery discs. Then run MS Update, update, update, update. It takes time but it gets you up to date and with the relevant service packs. THEN take the image.

 

[Bahumat]

Sorry I thought the windows recovery disk you are supplied with only lets you re-install windows on the same drive as it will have the other files it requires. Are you saying you could install a full working version of windows with the recovery disk? Albeit it lacks a CD key?

 

[Ch3tan]

No, he is saying you can restore the image to your disk using hirens boot cd.

Your recovery cd and or partition will install onto a replacement drive just fine, if that is what you want to do once you've restored the image.

 

[Zenith.UK]

Sorry I thought the windows recovery disk you are supplied with only lets you re-install windows on the same drive as it will have the other files it requires. Are you saying you could install a full working version of windows with the recovery disk? Albeit it lacks a CD key?

Yes, the original hard drive usually has a hidden partition to reinstall the system. Most laptop manufacturers allow you to create a set of discs to reinstall the system onto another hard drive. It's an option in the start menu under the Dell folder called Datasafe.
Dell DataSafe Local Backup 2.0 Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) | Dell

Using the recovery discs allows you to effectively "move" your system onto a new hard drive, but it will be a factory clean version that will still need lots of MS Update downloads. Once you've run the updates, installed your preferred AV, installed your preferred programs... install Macrium Reflect and make an image at that point.
NOW you have your own image that saves you all that faffing around installing updates and stuff. It saves you time in the future.

 

[crispy]

Boot an Ubuntu live cd and dd the whole harddisk to a file on a usb disk, or whatever. Shut down, replace disk boot back to live cd and dd from file to new harddisk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)