HIR V Cloning

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by TerryWood, Jan 25, 2011.

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  1. TerryWood

    TerryWood Registered Member

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    Hi

    1) From what I read if I want to transfer my Windows 7 system to a new hard drive (say because of HD failure) I can use a cloning software to transfer from one hard drive to the other. Is this a correct interpretation?

    2) Again as I understand it HIR, Hardware Independent Restore allows you to transfer a system image to another computer/the same computer with different hardware. Is this correct?

    3) If both are correct what is the value of HIR over Cloning? Cloning seems simpler.

    4) Which free cloning software is the best?

    Thanks

    Terry
     
  2. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

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    Correct.
    Correct.
    With Windows 2000 and XP without HIR you'll not be able to boot the machine when the OS is transfered to dissimilar hardware. With windows Vista and 7 most of the times HIR is not always necessary.
    It depends on your needs. Reliability, easy of use, full backups, differential backups, incremental backups, entire disk backups or OS only backups, etc.

    Panagiotis
     
  3. andylau

    andylau Registered Member

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    TerryWood,

    1. Yes.

    2. Yes. But you've better prepared some chipsets and mass storage drivers fro HIR/P2P to use. Because some imaging softwares support drivers injection. If you are using Vista/Win7, hardware problems are less happened, but still will have some.

    3. HIR can restore your current OS image to a different hardware platform PC, but Cloning may not do this. Especially in Win2000/xp/2003
     
  4. aladdin

    aladdin Registered Member

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    Good thread for learning from the Gurus!

    Best regards,

    KOR!
     
  5. TerryWood

    TerryWood Registered Member

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    Hi

    Thanks EveryBody for contributions so far.

    To refine my questions:

    1) I have Windows 7 64 bit without any Windows Disks, just a recovery partition.

    2) I am looking forward, in the sense of preparation in case a hard drive or a motherboard goes.

    3) Having some laymans experience in using backup programs ie Shadow Protect, Drive Snapshot, Macrium Reflect, Paragon Drive Backup Pro 10, and 1 Click Restore. I am now looking to refine my options as to which gives me the best all round protection and the easiest to use plus dealing with the "what if.." scenario (Should hardware fail)

    4) I am relatively none technical but would appreciate further commentary on Cloning Vis a Vis HIR specifically related to my circumstances as in 1) through 3). Which route should I be going, Cloning or HIR.

    Thanks

    Terry
     
  6. MrBrian

    MrBrian Registered Member

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    I've restored a backup of Win 7 x64 made with Macrium Reflect Free to two different computers with dissimilar hardware, just to see if it would work. One target computer is a different model from the same vendor, and the other target computer is from a different vendor. Both times succeeded, without the use of HIR or Sysprep (covered below). Your results may differ. I needed to use Paragon's free Boot Corrector to get things working, but then again I didn't do an exact clone.

    One thing you can do now to increase your chances of success is to generalize the BCD - see http://www.multibooters.co.uk/cloning.html. I've done this without any apparent problems, but do a full backup first.

    Another tool you should be aware of is Microsoft's Sysprep, which is already on your hard disk. I've also tried restoring to one of the target computers, using Sysprep on the source computer first. It also succeeded. Here's a rough outline of how to use Sysprep:
    1. Make an image of the source computer.
    2. On the source computer, run Sysprep. Use Sysprep options OOBE, check Generalize, and Quit.
    3. Make another image of the source computer. You may need a program that does offline imaging for this step. I used Paragon Backup and Recovery Free for this.
    4. Restore the image made in step #3 to target computer.
    5. Restore the image made in step #1 to source computer.

    One drawback of Sysprep is that you need a functioning source computer.
     
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