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Originally Posted by FloydianOne
Ive never used Norton Ghost or other disk cloning software and I was wondering how it worked because I was thinking about purchasing one of them. Can someone explain what the advantages of these programs are? Does it somehow not do the same thing as just copying all the files from one hard drive to the other? I know that it somehow makes an image of the source harddrive and I was wondering, is this image the same size as the contents of the source hardrive, or is it significantly smaller? If its the same size then how does one take this image and install it on other systems without using a harddrive as big as the original harddrive?
Thanks for any help on the subject.
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I'll start, but there are much more knowledgeable people here who will give you tons of information.
The main advantage that I've found is that if you clone your hard drive, you don't have to spend hours reinstalling software in the event of a crash. It is most definitely NOT the same as copying files from one hard drive to another. If you do that, many of your programs (including Windows) won't work on the new disk.
The image can be compressed into less space.. Also, you can split the image onto a series of DVDs, if you so desire. Hard drives are so cheap that I'd recommend imaging your existing drive onto another one, though.
P.S. When you buy a new hard drive, it almost always comes with software that will allow you to image your old one. Even if it doesn't, the software can be downloaded from the website of the manufacturer of the new one.
Then all you have to do is back up your data at whatever intervals you deem necessary.