Windows Recover/Clone Disk Software?

[srwatters]

Working on a friend's (are they really a friend if they use a Windows PC?) PC trying to clone/recover the OS & Recovery partitions. The PC is a HP Touchsmart running (gag) Vista Home Premium 64 bit. The drive clearly has bad sections. It will boot but locks up regular mode, better in safe mode but will still lock up trying to access the HDD (Seagate 500GB). I have a new 500GB replacement drive and have tried to use my favorite bit copier utility, but it hangs very early in the copy process. I can clone the recovery partition easily, but would prefer to try and salvage as much of the OS/User data as possible.

What's your favorite recover/clone software?

Host system I'm using for the clone is 64bit Windows 7 Ultimate, but I also have 32bit XP systems on hand.

[Sonny]

Norton Ghost
Acronis
EaseUs
Macrium Reflect Backup and Hard Disk Imaging

[Rson]

reload vista over the old vista. It will automatically move the old install into a windows.old file.

I have all flavors.

[Rson]

If you have a new 500gb drive, pull the old and install a new OS, plug in the old drive after all updates and move the user files back over. Or are they trying to save a program?

[Rson]

Oh, I like Ontrack Recovery Pro and Stellar Pheonix and EaseUS Data for recovery.

[cfortner]

I'm a big fan of Acronis True Image. Works great.

Of course if you are having problems with the drive and it's locking up during the imaging process, it's likely going to lockup during the imaging process despite the software you use. At least that has been my experience with bad hdd's for the most part. On the other hand if you have valuable programs/data on it, it's always worth a try.

I'd have to agree with Rich, if they aren't trying to save actual programs only personal data, there are likely much better options. (OS Reload(preferably new))

[srwatters]

If it was my machine, I'd just install Windows 7 on the new drive and be done with it, but it's not and I promised to at least try and salvage the data including programs...

Downloading Acronis now. I doubt it's going to work because I'm using some real low level copy code outside of the Windows environment and it's having issues. What I want is to skip over the bad sectors, copy what I can to the new drive, then try to repair/reinstall on the new drive. We'll see what happens. I just wanted some other options since I don't pay much attention to the Windows world any more. All Mac at home and mostly Linux at work...

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Buddha]

I would try repairing the old OS, but it sounds as if the old HD might be bad. In that case, I would remove it and replace it with the new HD, then install an OS on that one. Then I would hook up the old HD as a slave to the new one. That should let you read it. If files are missing, I would try 'Recuva' as a file recovery application. It's free and it works. Also, it's time to buy an external HD as a back up.