Disk Cloning Question

[sdot8732]

Hi Everybody,

New here and I have a couple of questions which I'm sure many of you will feel are probably exceptionally basic but your assistance would be greatly appreciated. I have spent a good deal of time googling many of these things and I think I may have somewhat of an understanding of some of these items however clarification would be great.

1) What is the difference between sector by sector cloning and block by block cloning? A follow up to this is which would be more comprehensive. I'm looking to not only copy the existing files on one of my old laptop hard drives but also deleted ones.

2) Can anyone recommend windows software that will give me the most comprehensive clone possible? Free or paid. I don't mind paying for something as long as it is good.

3) I have an old A1728 MacBook Pro with a 250 GB hard drive HDD. I'm planning on popping out the hard drive and cloning it as if it were an external hard drive as the display has broken. Any idea how long this will take?

[northwind]

Hi,

1) You need sector-by-sector cloning (imaging). Thus, the entire drive will be cloned to another device, so you will have an identical mirror, including deleted files.
2) You can use HDD Raw Copy Tool (you can download it from this site). It is very simple, yet very effective. You just select the source (your laptop drive), the destination (a new empty drive with size at least the size of the source) and you fire it up. Make sure you select the right drives as source and destination, because if you mix 'em up, you will end up with quite a (non-recoverable) mess. Also make sure your patient drive is in good shape, otherwise you can also make things pretty worse, pretty fast.
3) If you hook 'em up via SATA, and assuming both drives are in good shape, I'd say something like 40-45' (in SATA3).

[sdot8732]

Thank you very much for your reply northwind. That was very helpful.

Another question has also come up since I’ve been doing research. I’m pretty sure I just read (unless I’m misunderstanding which is very possible) that when cloning a disk, all the information on the disk you are making the clone of gets destroyed. This doesn’t seem to make sense to me, but I would feel a lot more comfortable with some clarification on this fact.

Thanks in advance!

[northwind]

No.

All the data on the disk you're making clone TO gets destroyed.

In terms of data, the source drive isn't affected by this process (unless you choose to wipe it afterwards), only the destination drive.

[lcoughey]

Thank you very much for your reply northwind. That was very helpful.

Another question has also come up since I’ve been doing research. I’m pretty sure I just read (unless I’m misunderstanding which is very possible) that when cloning a disk, all the information on the disk you are making the clone of gets destroyed. This doesn’t seem to make sense to me, but I would feel a lot more comfortable with some clarification on this fact.

Thanks in advance!

Let's try an analogy. You have two different books, each with 100 pages. You make a photo copy of both sides of the first page of the first book, remove and shred the first page from the second book replacing it with the copy of the first page from the first book. You repeat the process for each page of the first book until you have copied every page from the first book into the second book.

When complete, the second book, is essentially identical to the first. The cover (brand, model and serial number of the drive) still remains different, but the contents are exactly the same and nothing from the second book exists any more.

[sdot8732]

Ok so I’m slightly confused because it seems that lcoughey, your response is contradictory to what northwind is saying with respect to your analogy. Unless of course the analogy that you have given is representative of the scenario northwind outlined Ie making a clone of, and then wiping the source drive. Correct?

[ddrecovery]

I think what he meant to say is that you make a new book using photocopies from the original book. So all the data on the original book is still in tact.

[northwind]

Yep. He said "you make a photocopy".

[ddrecovery]

My apologies to Luke, yes he did.

[ubr7]

So what is my patient drive(seagate barracuda st2000dm001) was head exchanged with donor and bad shape. What program should i use to do for cloning.(I dont want any erased data) thx 4 help and sorry for my bad english.

[jermy]

So what is my patient drive(seagate barracuda st2000dm001) was head exchanged with donor and bad shape.

a DM + a bad shape ?!
and you're talking about software level ?!
as @Spildit mentioned already, you'll need for that an hardware imager

very unlikely to get away with software level
most likely you'll end up killing the heads

(אם החומר בפנים חשוב לך, שלח את זה למשחזר מידע מקצועי)

if the data in it is valuable send it to a pro

PS. I assume it will not be cheap (the drive is already been tampered with)

[ubr7]

I write story too wrong guys sorry for my bad english. Firsthing first I got a ST2000DM001(patient).Problem is head clicking 10-11 times while plates spinng and shut down. Bios did not recognize the Hdd. I find a donor drive and exchange the head by myself in a clean room. My question is what am i going to do clonning my patient drive. Software advices and operation steps maybe. Thx for any advices and sorry for my bad language again.

[jermy]

and the answers given above still stays

you have to (most likely) deal with FW issues
and cloning this drive with software level is - IMHO - a bad idea

[ubr7]

and the answers given above still stays

you have to (most likely) deal with FW issues
and cloning this drive with software level is - IMHO - a bad idea

I dont understand. FW(firm ware) is in pcb and my pcb working well. Heads and connections isnt just hardware? (I assumed head exchange process going well)

[ubr7]

Can you give me a link that any hardware imaging device (Like DeepSpar Disk Imager™ 4)

[northwind]

FW(firm ware) is in pcb

Errr... not.

[pcimage]

FW(firm ware) is in pcb

Errr... not.

And there we have the reason why this guy should not be messing with this drive to this level

[ubr7]

No no its my persone drive. Actually i search professionals but i dont want give my hdd to another personel couse i have to many reasons. I search donor drive right now and ı give notice about my process thank you.

[Dmitri]

i dont want give my hdd to another personel

If it's an ST2000DM001, you will simply ruin it.

If the data is important, buy two identical working drives of this model first (e.g. find someone, who sells used drives pulled from the same storage), fill them with data and then attempt to perform a head swap and imaging afterwards. See what will happen.