Windows Windows 7 - Best Drive Image Tool (to move system drive)

I currently have my system files, windows files and program files on my primary hard-drive (C: ), and have a secondary hard-drive (D: ) for storage.

I'm looking to make a perfect image of my C: drive, registry entries and all, so that I can 'seamlessly' move to a new faster hard-drive and remove and sell the current primary hard-drive.

What's the best free tool to do this? and are there likely to be any common problems in doing this?

Info that might help:
-There are not multiple partitions to complicate things
-There's NO compression or indexing active on the hard-drive
-I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate (64bit)
-There's about 270GB used on the drive currently - It'll be moved to a 1TB F3

Basically I want to swap out my main system drive, but dont fancy formatting and reinstalling things (which is what I've always done previously).


Oh and I realise there's a few similar threads, but software changes and I want to be sure for something like this (although I'll still have the old drive as a backup for a while).

 

Acronis True Image is without doubt the best

You could use seagate disk wizard which is acronis and is free but you would have to have a seagate drive connected to the system for it to work then you could clone from any drive to any other drive, All it requires is a seagate drive to be connected to the system

 

I know I wasn't the one who asked the question. But thank you for the answer Teelzebub. I have my laptop set up perfectly and will be running the Seagate Disk Wizard ASAP.

 

no segate drives here...I'll get the ATI trial version...do you know if the trial will let me do a full hd to hd image?

 

Tbh I dont know mate I bought the full edition from argos best bit of software I've got. Oh I believe a maxtor drive will do it as seagate and maxtor are the same company now.

 

sadly only backup and restore are in the trial...not clone...which is the best way for me to go

 

I'm not sure but I thought I saw a demo version one for migrate easy 7.0 on the site which is the cloning software only


http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/migrateeasy/

 

Go for ACRONIS TRUE IMAGE. I have used it many times as a computer technician. There is nothing easier or better.

 

Clonezilla

free, open source, works great. works with partitions or whole disk, all you need is another disk that is same size or larger than source.
but interface is slightly ugly and doesn't do scheduling (require you boot from CD/USB)

my netbook is imaged (because i don't fancy spend time reinstalling something i rarely use) using Clonezilla perfectly fine, done a few restores.

when i moved from Samsung first gen SSD to C300 same size, Clonezilla did the job without a peep. in fact, still using same install, Windows didn't complain just installed C300 and a restart later, back to usual.

 

cheers wyx'y

 

Agreed 100%, I used to use CloneZilla all the time with my netbook. It looks scary because it's Linux-based and there is no GUI, but it really isn't scary at all. There are loads of tutorials online explaining it.

No need to pay money or use trial versions

 

I'd recommend Acronis True Image



Look on your HDD manufactures website, most have a free Acronis True Image cloner

 

nobody here use the Windows 7 tools? (AIK & ImageX)

 

hdclone by miray.de is good at what its designed for, clones non standard disks as well(PlayStation3)

 

Haven't used AIK (gotta dig into this) and imagex is command-line tool, not for the beginner. Cloning the wrong way is pretty easy to do.

 

I still use trusty old Ghost works a charm.

 

I was reading through this thread and decided to check the WD site for my drive... and there it was, Acronis true image. Will be setting this up for the clean install i'm planning this weekend.

Cheers