Topic by Figment 2016-07-18 20:00:55

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I am getting ready to do a fresh install of Windows 7 on my laptop. While I have backups, and plan to do another just before starting the install, I'd like to clone my current drive to another drive so that I'll have access to all my files to copy back to my drive after the install without having to use a backup program to restore them.

So what I'm looking for is either an accessible partition manager that can copy the whole partition to another drive, or an accessible program that will do a file by file copy of one drive to another. I know I could use Windows Explorer for this, but if it has a problem and stops in the middle of the copy process, it's not exactly easy to resume an interrupted copy.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

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Reply by roelvdwal 2016-07-18 21:28:17

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I've used AOMEI Partition Assistant for this. When using it with nvda I had to use object navigation and such so it's not the most accessible but I haven't found anything better.

Roel
golfing in the kitchen

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Reply by Figment 2016-07-19 15:19:48

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Thanks! I'll give it a try.

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Reply by turtlepower17 2016-07-25 00:09:08

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Partition Guru should do what you want as well. There are no significant accessibility issues as far as I've seen.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

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Reply by jack 2016-07-28 16:23:32 (edited by jack 2016-07-28 16:24:47)

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There's also paragon partition manager, which is free, and has some tab through capabilities, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to have it through every part of the program, so I'd stick to other solutions. Unfortunate, because other tools they make, especially the ones for mac like Paragon Bootcamp Backup or Virtual Machine Disk Mounter, and their ntfs driver for mac, are near completely accessible. Guess not so much on the windows side.

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Reply by jack 2016-07-28 16:28:37

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Slightly off the subject of partitioning, but still a necessary tool to get. Since you plan on doing a fresh install, the next thing you'll probably want to do is monitor the hard drive for signs of needing another reinstall a few years down the road. Hard Disk Sentinal is the solution for that, running in the background and completely monitoring all aspects of the drive, giving you plenty warning if it predicts failure.

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Reply by Figment 2016-07-28 16:50:47 (edited by Figment 2016-07-28 18:13:45)

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I remember Paragon Software from years ago, I used their background defragmenter until I switched to Diskeeper. Back then my preferred partition manager was Partition Magic. As soon as I heard that Symantec was acquiring Power Quest, I made sure I had the latest version. I saw what happened to Roxio's GoBack after Symantec acquired it and it wasn't pretty. I wasn't going to let myself get trapped into having to use another Symantec product with all the bloated spyware they package with all their products.

Unfortunately Partition Magic isn't accessible at all.

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