Two identical laptops; how do i clone hard drive to save set-up time?

[d3v]

Hi guys a business customer has dropped-off two identical Lenovo B50-30 laptops asking to to downgrade both to Windows 7.

I have done the work on one of the laptops but would prefer to save the 3 hours of time by somehow cloning the hard drive for the second B50-30.

Is this possible and if so how?

 

[Titan-vds]

Here is a guide to use ddrescue written by @SilverLeaf

https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/guide-to-using-ddrescue.48269/#post-379724

 

[glricht]

Assuming the internal hardware (e.g. graphics) of both PCs are the same, just use whatever technique you currently use to image a customer's hard drive to image the first PC's hard drive and then restore it to the second PC's hard drive.

 

[DanF]

Unless I'm missing something, and considering (what glricht said), then any cloning method will do. Though I never used it, I heard Clonezilla is a very good free tool.

 

[Larry Sabo]

Don't forget to create and save an image of the target drive before cloning the twin's image to it, lest something go wrong and you need to revert.

 

[MichaelBits]

Seems like you need to do some research on how to do a more efficient install of Windows.

There are some posts around on how to use imagex and other tools to streamline windows installs.

For instance. I have an image I use to do reloads, has all windows updates in it plus other software we pre-load. I can have a PC loaded with Win 7 in about 15min using it. All I have to do after the load is install drivers for that specific machine.

 

[Ed_Zipper]

http://www.startech.com/HDD/Docking/USB-to-SATA-Dual-Hard-Drive-Docking-Station~SATADOCK22UE

Easiest solution. Just put the disks in the correct slots.

 

[taysr]

For the sake of something you can use now which is simple and has an easy learning curve and gui try Aomei Backupper, freeware for the standard version which has what you need.
http://www.backup-utility.com/free-backup-software.html

 

[gikstar]

I usually use Acronis. Sometimes I make a clone while other times I do a backup and then restore.

 

[glricht]

I usually use Acronis. Sometimes I make a clone while other times I do a backup and then restore.

This is how we do it too. In this case, I'd probably do the backup/restore and then keep a copy of the backup for future use if necessary.

 

[d3v]

Seems like you need to do some research on how to do a more efficient install of Windows.

There are some posts around on how to use imagex and other tools to streamline windows installs.

For instance. I have an image I use to do reloads, has all windows updates in it plus other software we pre-load. I can have a PC loaded with Win 7 in about 15min using it. All I have to do after the load is install drivers for that specific machine.

Yep I can have Windows 7 installed in under 15 minutes via USB flash drive however it's the driver installs, software installs and then the optimization and set up which takes 2-3 hours.

Thanks for the suggestions I ended up using Acronis which worked and saved me a lot of time.
I don't ever bother with imaging due to never encountering two identical computers before in my job. This was a one-off!

 

[gikstar]

I use the 'clone' function in Acronis when I am dealing with a failing hard drive.

 

[pcpete]

Yep I can have Windows 7 installed in under 15 minutes via USB flash drive however it's the driver installs, software installs and then the optimization and set up which takes 2-3 hours.

Thanks for the suggestions I ended up using Acronis which worked and saved me a lot of time.
I don't ever bother with imaging due to never encountering two identical computers before in my job. This was a one-off!

@MichaelBits was referring to imaged based installs which include all of the updates and service packs. You can install a full vista system with updates and service packs in about 10 minutes even on a slow single core machine with 512mb of ram. That would take about a day and a half to update using traditional methods. With image based installs you can also have it include any software you want along with any other customizations and even extra drivers.

 

[d3v]

@MichaelBits was referring to imaged based installs which include all of the updates and service packs. You can install a full vista system with updates and service packs in about 10 minutes even on a slow single core machine with 512mb of ram. That would take about a day and a half to update using traditional methods. With image based installs you can also have it include any software you want along with any other customizations and even extra drivers.

Looking in to this now, thanks.!

 

[brandonkick]

Are there any easy ways to do these image based installs WITHOUT needing to use a server?

 

[NJW]

Are there any easy ways to do these image based installs WITHOUT needing to use a server?

VirtualBox and a USB drive.

Edit to add: I meant VirtualBox for sysprepping an OOB image. If you're just imaging one drive to clone to another, you don't need a server at all, as others mention below.

 

[MichaelBits]

Are there any easy ways to do these image based installs WITHOUT needing to use a server?

No server is needed to use imagex and related tools.

 

[pcpete]

We had a server with wds(we quit using it), but actually prefer to use imagex/dsim with an external drive. it works flawlessly for us.