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darcybaston · Jun 9, 2009, 10:19 AM

Does anybody have any experience with cloning a Windows bootable internal drive to an external that can do its thing while I'm still using the startup volume? Every Windows utility I find that I think is an incremental cloning solution that makes an external drive bootable, is some "put in a CD, reboot the computer, and create a WHOLE image only" solution. I'm trying to recreate (or come as close as possible to) the SuperDuper or CCC experience in Windows 7 RC1, without having to reboot.

Anything you can teach me would be great and warmly received!

Cold Warrior · Jun 9, 2009, 10:48 AM

Windows 7 has a built-in backup tool that does incremental backups and images. It doesn't require booting from a CD or into some partial environment.
Windows 7: Windows Backup Overview

darcybaston · Jun 9, 2009, 10:54 AM

It doesn't copy file for file though does it? Meaning if I browsed to C

and then browsed the E

(external drive), they would look *exactly* the same? Plus, it doesn't make backup drives bootable. That overview doesn't suggest it can.

shifuimam · Jun 9, 2009, 04:09 PM

You might try this tool:

EASEUS Disk Copy: Free Disk Copy, Disk Clone, Partition Copy Software. Sector by Sector for hard drive backup freeware.

It's freeware and appears to let you clone disks in Windows. No idea if it requires a reboot to create a clone, but it's worth looking at.

darcybaston · Jun 9, 2009, 04:30 PM

shifuimam, that looks very promising! I'll give it a go.

shifuimam · Jun 9, 2009, 04:44 PM

It does look like it requires a reboot.

However, the way that Windows behaves is different than the way OS X behaves. If you want to clone your system/OS drive, I think it's inevitable that you're going to have to reboot first.

darcybaston · Jun 9, 2009, 04:47 PM

Oh shoot. I'm looking for a non reboot option. Looks like the built-in features of Windows 7 are the only ones that allow this, or tools which use the Shadow Volume service. I'm trying the W7 stuff right now and see if it gets incremental after the full. I'm using both of its abilities, to copy individual files in the event of smaller pieced loss, and create a system restore image in the event of a total failure of the internal drive.

kinokeith · Jul 6, 2009, 04:12 PM

Acronis True Image can do full partition backups from within windows to an external HD. make a bootable CD, then restore from external HD.

But why bother when you can winclone (http://twocanoes.com/winclone/). You can backup your bootcamp partition from the mac side. no need for windows utilities.