Hard Drive Replacements - Cloning vs Fresh Install

Bootman 650

Bootman 650

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Yo! How is everyone?

I understand that there are probably already threads relating to this issue however they're probably quite out of date by now and the amount of new software that gets released for these purposes is endless so I thought a new thread would be a good idea.

Which method do you prefer for HD replacements?

Do you use the same method for both good and bad condition hard drives?

What software do you prefer?
 
This goes one of two ways for me, either:

Customer has tons of programs with no install media

or

Customer has hardly any programs and I have the means to install them all

This also depends on the condition of the drive. But for the most part I just clone it over. If after the clone I can't get it running I will N&P.

Of course since the drive is failing I make an image of it immediately.
 
The other day I did a clone from a drive that was showing very early signs of failure (slowdown in the mbr)...and it somehow moved the corruption over with it, that's the first time that's ever happened to me. I use acronis for my imaging needs.

If there isn't mission critical software, I prefer a fresh install and using Fab's AB4T to move across normal stuff. I often also image the old drive juuuuuuuust to be certain that I get everything I need.
 
Unless there is some problem with the windows installation why would you NOT just clone the drive? If the ONLY issue is a bad or full drive then clone it.
 
Like the clone route myself. Had one recently that was nice, it was a Vista box, drive starting to fail. Pulled out handy old acronis, tell it to do a sector by sector copy, get the new drive in, drop the image on it, use parted magic to expand the partition out. Check disk and quick check for infections, had an issue where it would not update, tweaking.com tool cured that in a few minutes. Person was happy they got their system with their files back and new part, and I got to learn some new techniques on that particular one.

That tweaking.com tool saved me on that windows install from a nuke and pave, so I'm saying clone, it's easier in some ways.
 
Most of the time I will go the clone route, then create a new user and migrate everything over with Fabs. After that it takes a little tweaking to get everything right.
Thiis keeps almost all of their original setup and cleans out some of the cruft that builds up over time.
 
Clone. Quick 'n easy. We tend to replace drives before they totally jump off the cliff and die. Cloning software tends to do a pretty good job at cloning even semi failing drives. End result from doing this an incredible amount of times over many years is pretty good. An hour time, cost of HDD...= happy customer with better running machine. Versus taking the time to do a backup, reinstall..and then deal with little items over the next several days...= high cost for client...and nagging headache for yourself for a few days.
 
Same for me; clone when possible/practical.

I used Acronis for many years. These days I use Macrium Reflect most of the time.

I like Reflect's command-line control; it works well for scripting/automating backups.
 
Customers hate change
They want everything exactly as it was
I have successfully cloned many failing HD's
Just cloned a Vista AIO it had everything on it, would have taken me forever to clean install with TV card and all programs she did not have disks for, also a lot of the drivers were missing from the HP site.
Happy customer and saved me a lot of work
The other side of the coin you may still have to do a clean install if things don’t work out, but this has never happened.
 
johnrobert said:
Customers hate change
They want everything exactly as it was
I have successfully cloned many failing HD's
Just cloned a Vista AIO it had everything on it, would have taken me forever to clean install with TV card and all programs she did not have disks for, also a lot of the drivers were missing from the HP site.
Happy customer and saved me a lot of work
The other side of the coin you may still have to do a clean install if things don’t work out, but this has never happened.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you have a very good success rate, what program do you use for that?
 
Always clone unless the cloning goes bad or if the system was really unstable before the clone and I feel it wont get better with some cleanups (chkdsk,sfc, AIO, MSFixit,etc..) after the clone.
 
NYJimbo said:
Always clone unless the cloning goes bad or if the system was really unstable before the clone and I feel it wont get better with some cleanups (chkdsk,sfc, AIO, MSFixit,etc..) after the clone.
Click to expand...

This has been my methodology but the last two I did ended up being ongoing sagas until I had to get the customers to bring them back and do a backup, nuke and pave and restore. For no extra charge. :(
 
I am so surprised so many of you clone as opposed to a clean install with a corrupted HD. Usually if a client comes in with issues, as standard, we always do a long test on the HD. If it fails the long test we recommend a new drive with a clean load.

I like what I am hearing on this thread. Convince me that my following fear is not true. I assumed a drive with bad sectors would just clone over problems and the computer would still be slow, but with a new hard drive(reduce future problems). Do you find after doing a clone and doing a basic tuneup you get a good result? We have been doing a clean load with bad HDs for so many years I am having trouble seeing it any other way. I love the idea of cloning, tuneup and charge them the full nuke and pave price and make it easy for our clients.
 
I normally just clone using a hard drive duplicator, which does a great job at recovering data from bad sectors (because it's designed to do that). Sectors are only half a kilobyte long, so 50 bad sectors, which is a lot, represent only 25KB lost--not MBs. All it takes is one bad sector to break Windows if it's a critical system file. So, if cloning can repair it and get Windows running, a SFC can often replace any other corrupted/missing system files and you avoid a re-install with all of its problems (missing OS/application program installation media, unreadable COA, time for Windows updates, lost passwords, etc.).

The old drive can be slow because many sectors have been remapped, or because it's a 5400 rpm drive with little cache vs a new, larger 7200 rpm drive with 64MB of cache. No need whatsoever to re-install because of this, but it probably needs a good tune-up and if serious enough, a re-install makes more sense in that case.
 
Think I'm going to Invest in a copy of Acronis TrueImage - Whats the best way to go about that? Buy a 1 PC Licence and use the same PC for all clones?
 
We clone our drives. Been using duplicator hardware last couple of years. They have been faster than imaging tools. It seems that we've only had to replace drives that are just starting to fail. Have only upgraded one because of space in the last 4-5 years.
 
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