Hard disk copy solution to resize, copy and move hard disk partitions without losing data!

There are occasions when you may needs to be making a hard disk copy and need to familiar yourself with the proceedings to copy content of one hard disk drive to another. This can be when you need to transfer information, movies, games or mp3-music from a friend’s computer or when you need to upgrade your PC.

There exist various methods for copying the content of a disk to another and of configuring the two hard disks in order to have a clean transfer of information between PCs and avoid loosing data. One important thing that you need to consider before taking any major actions related to your disk drive copy is to make absolutely sure that you are aware of the basic rules for handling hard disk drives and their data. Take your time and don’t be in a hurry when dealing with your hard disk. Try to avoid working on it when you are tired, as your level of attention then is gradually decreasing. Follow the antistatic security protection procedures indicated by the manufacturer. Scan your hard drive for viruses and make sure to back up your data just in case some unfortunate event happens during the disk copy process so you can restore your data with a hard disk recovery.

One common and easy way to proceed when planning to perform a disk drive copy process is to simply copy the image of the drive or the partition. In case you are dealing with a hard disk that has only one C partition, then copy the image of the hard disk using a copy utility software such as: Norton’s Ghost, Paragon’s Partition Manager or GNU Parted. You can also copy your whole hard disk on to DVD’s, on to CD’s with a backup image software, on to an external and portable USB hard drive or on to a tape.

Another thing that you have to decide when making copy of hard disks is if you should select directories or if you need to make protective file backups. You also have to decide if you want to make a clean install or not and how to handle the restore process. Then, you have to make sure to copy the application data and reinstall Windows together with the applications that come along with it.

A third possible and quite common option when it comes to hard drive copy is to use a backup program, but many times this might result in problem when merging the old registry into a new one plus this is time consuming and will easily create serious errors.

A backup program is very useful to use in case the original drive fails to function properly and in order to move data from one location to another. But, in order to move the disk content from one a hard disk to another one, it is recommended to proceed with a disk image copy program instead.

There is another method that we would like to point out when it comes to hard disk copy, which is the direct copying of all directories and files. Normally the command to do this is issued from a boot floppy disk using the xcopy dos command, but there are other ways this can be done, as well.

From all the hard disk duplication methods mentioned in this article, the recommended and most efficient one is by copying the content of the hard disk as a disk image. It is true that it does require more time for the process to be completed, but it is the safest manner to proceed and carry out such a delicate operation.

Many utilities, solutions, software and tools for disk drive copy and formatting are available in the market.