Cloning advice sought

I installed a new Western Digital 120 gb hard drive a week or so ago. I'm running Windows XP. I've tried a couple of times to copy the old hard drive to the new one using the Western Digital software. Apparently the software is insufficient to accurately copy the old drive since I get some error messages with some programs. The most serious problem is that it defectively copies Norton Internet Security so that I am unable to use the update feature. The Western Digital tech guy said I should try a third party clone. I thought about Norton Ghost, but a lot of folks have had trouble with it. Acronis True Image 8 gets much better reviews and seems a whole lot easier to use. My questions: Will True Image 8 accurately copy Norton Internet Security so that I can use the updater and should I disable Norton Internet Security's firewall and anti-virus programs together with SP2's firewall before I download Acronis True Image 8?

Thanks for the help.

 

I purchased a Western Digital 160 GB drive a year ago and also had no luck cloning my old drive to the new one with the supplied Western Digital software. I was already a True Image user (and still am) and used my boot disc to clone the old drive to the new one flawlessly in about 10 minutes! The system booted from the new, cloned disc first time and all of my files, operating system, etc worked perfectly. At the time I was using Norton Firewall and Antivirus and they worked perfectly after the cloning. You shouldn't have to disable the firewall and antivirus before downloading and installing TI-I've never had to. At the time I did my cloning True Image 7.0 was the latest version but I imagine the clone feature will be the same on 8.0. Incidentally, TI 8 is a great piece of software and the backups I've made with it have saved me a lot of grief on several occasions!

Hope this helps.

 

Did you try doing the clone using the boot CD instead of from within windows? just a thought

 

Dear Jezza and Jimmytop:
Thank you very much for your responses. I tried to clone the hard drive from within Windows--as Western Digital recommends--and also from a boot floppy--as one of their tech people recommended--and had the same unfortunate results each time. And each time I did it, the process took over 2 and a half hours! Now that I know that another person has had a good experience with True Image and Norton in particular together with all the other favorable reviews of True Image I've read in general, I feel much more confident about taking the plunge and buying and using True Image.

Again, thanks for the help. I have found the information most useful and reassuring.

Yours,
Mystified