Cloning old drive to new drive

[Mombo323]

I just got a new WD 320 Gig SATA drive. I do not have Windows Vista Home Premium OS to do a fresh install like I would like to. I have the product key, but not the software. What is the best program to do a clone to the new drive? If anyone knows where I can get Vista Home Premium install disk, I would appreciate it. thanks

[JPMiller]

If the old drive is smaller, ( the one your cloning FROM), you can use the free version of HD Clone
It creates a bootable cd that makes a perfect 1-1 copy of the drive...
its one of the only free cloning proggies I've used that truly worked.

[MTAtech]

Free Acronis True Image WD Edition Software

The new drive usually comes with software or can be downloaded from the manufacturer.

[Mombo323]

I have a brand new hard drive to install.. 320 gigs. I am running Vista Home premium on a 40 gig drive. I want to install my new drive, and install XP on it. Can I clone my existing drive to my external USB drive and if I dont like the way XP runs on my computer, put it back on my old drive from the external drive?

[RicheemxX]

There shouldn't be any issues doing that, or (and this is what I'd do) you could clone the 40gb to the new drive and setup the new drive with a dual boot with Vista and XP. Are you planning on pulling the old hdd completely? you could just leave it in the system, disable it in the bios and install the new drive with XP. Then re-enable it and you'd have the option to boot from either one. Doing a dual boot would be easier but since you already have Vista installed you'd need to use easybcd or something else to change the bootloader to see both installs.

[Mombo323]

I may have asked this before but cannot find the post. If I clone my old drive to my new drive, either with HD Clone or Acronis, does the program only "copy" the image to the new drive, or is it completely erased from the old drive in the process? Thanks

[stroyal]

It only copies the image to the new drive.