Cloning a Windows PC with MDD

[MatthewLTL]

I plan to upgrade the Hard Drive in a family member's computer. Currently, It has a 500GB laptop HDD inside of it (their laptop died so i put the HDD inside of a desktop with no bracket or anything). I could use this HDD as a upgrade to my laptop that has a 250GB inside. This family member plays some of the computer games from comanies like PopCap and BigFishGames. They do not want to upgrade and lose all of their game progress. I plan on getting a need SATA/IDE USB adapter which has a power supply externally AND has Cloning sotware included. It has ShirtPocket SuperDuper! for Mac. My question is (and most likely the case) this program will not run on PowerPC. Could I use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone Windows HDDs with a Mac?

I would like to do Dual Clone, Clone the drive of the 500GB HDD to the new HDD I would get (Most likely a 750GB for $38) Than clone the image of my laptop's 250GB HDD to this 500GB HDD. I will then most likely put this SATA 250GB either inside my eMac or use it as data storage.

Main point of this post is to see if ShirtPocket SuperDuper! works on PowerPC and if not, will CCC do the job on non-mac drives.

 

[bunnspecial]

I've never used Super Duper(I've always been a Carbon Copy Cloner fan) so can't comment directly.

I do see a couple of problems:

If the current drive is formatted as NTSF, you're going to have problems with it under 10.5.8. There are 3rd party utilities that will add support for NTSF, but I think(working from memory) that they are read only and will not write to NTSF volumes.

If you want to write to the destination volume, you will likely need to format it as FAT32 and MBR.

If Super Duper is anything like Carbon Copy Cloner, it will give you all kinds of errors before proceeding with the clone, but will likely do it anyway.

The next potential issue I see is that the last step in cloning a Mac drive is setting up all the permissions correctly, and I don't know that Super Duper will necessarily get this right for Windows.

With that said, all of the above really is me talking out of my rear end, since I've never even come close to attempting what you are trying. They are just potential problems that I see.

Personally, I'd buy a Windows cloning program(there are plenty out there) and clone the drive in the Windows machine. That seems to present a lot fewer potential headaches, even though it will require spending a few more bucks on software.

 

[MagicBoy]

Yeah, what bunnspecial says. Cloning a Windows NTFS drive on a PowerPC Mac is just asking for trouble when there are more sensible options available.

There is free/open source cloning software for IBM PCs. Try CloneZilla.

 

[MatthewLTL]

I have no problem with reading and writing to NTFS drives. I have installed Tuxera NTFS on my macs.

Also the SATA/IDE USB adaptor has cloning software for both Mac and Windows. While it uses ShirtPocket SuperDuper! for Mac it uses Apricorn EZ Gig Cloning Software for Windows. However I don't HAVE Windows. The only Windows PC in the house is the Internet Connection Sharing DELL i have sharing the internet, AND the computer in which ill upgrade for a family member. All the other computers are either Linux or Mac.

 

[lowendlinux]

You should be able to use dd. I clone Windows drives on my Linux boxes with it fairly frequently.

 

[MatthewLTL]

cool thanks ill look into that

 

[MagicBoy]

Forget Tuxera - it doesn't support the full NTFS feature set. It's intended for cross platform file access only.

Any decent cloning software, plus the *nix dd command can deal with the hardware directly and work with disk sectors rather than the file structure as presented to the operating system.

 

[MatthewLTL]

Forget Tuxera - it doesn't support the full NTFS feature set. It's intended for cross platform file access only.

Any decent cloning software, plus the *nix dd command can deal with the hardware directly and work with disk sectors rather than the file structure as presented to the operating system.

I got everything i could find: Tuxera NTFS, NTFS3G, MacFUSE however Tuxera seems to be the only one of the three that can actually WRITE to NTFS reliably NTFS3G is hit and miss for writing.

 

[archtopshop]

<snip>
Main point of this post is to see if ShirtPocket SuperDuper! works on PowerPC and if not, will CCC do the job on non-mac drives.

Just to answer this part of your post, I use SuperDuper 2.1.4 with both Tiger and Leopard on my Powermacs, but not with any PC formatted drives.

 

[weckart]

Superduper 2.7.1 is the last supported version for PPC 10.4+. 2.1.4 is the last version for Panther.

As for backing up Windows, Winclone is the preferred option for backing up Windows partitions when using Bootcamp. I am pretty sure it is just a tarted up 'dd', so you would have to boot from the Windows install disk and invoke Repair to fix the bootloader after copying to a new bare drive.

Since your Windows partition is on a Windows notebook you should look at Windows solutions. I might have a couple of spare serial codes for Acronis I got free with some purchases last year if I can find them.

Tuxera is buggy and Macfuse slow. The best solution for R/W access to NTFS drives is the commercial Paragon NTFS, although you won't have to search too far for its detractors. I have not had a problem with it, personally.

 

[archtopshop]

Superduper 2.7.1 is the last supported version for PPC 10.4+. 2.1.4 is the last version for Panther.

Yes, you are right. Apparently I have been using 2.1.4 for longer than I remember, LOL. Still, I just checked and both my cloned Tiger and Leopard partitions boot fine. So, if it ain't broke...

 

[MagicBoy]

Tuxera is buggy and Macfuse slow. The best solution for R/W access to NTFS drives is the commercial Paragon NTFS, although you won't have to search too far for its detractors. I have not had a problem with it, personally.

I used Paragon extensively for a couple of years after it was given away with a magazine. Worked well to copy files to an external drive for use with a media player. (FAT32 has the 4GB limit, and the media player didn't understand HFS+.)

I found no issues with the product or the performance. However ... that version stopped working with 10.7, and they wanted a frankly ridiculous £40 for the "upgrade" to a supported version. It was cheaper to buy Parallels and transfer files via a Virtual machine. IMO it's basically three times overpriced.

 

[MatthewLTL]

looking at the manual for the device, It states it works with Windows 98SE and up as well as Mac OS 8/9 and OSX.

Not sure what version of SuperDuper it has included. However the Manual states specifically that SuperDuper work on PowerPC.

It also states the EZ Copy III Software is bootable. Or, you can create a Bootable Floppy. USB Stick or CD/DVD. So by the sounds of it I don't even NEED a Windows OS to do it just a Windows PC. So my Linux laptop would work just fine for the task.

 

[MagicBoy]

You seem determined to prove a point, but I'm not quite sure what it is. So go for it, just don't come crying in here when you lose precious data!

 

[lowendlinux]

In the time that this has been debated you could have opened a terminal and dd =if /your/old/disk of=/your/new/disk conv=noerror, sync

 

[weckart]

I used Paragon extensively for a couple of years after it was given away with a magazine. Worked well to copy files to an external drive for use with a media player. (FAT32 has the 4GB limit, and the media player didn't understand HFS+.)

I found no issues with the product or the performance. However ... that version stopped working with 10.7, and they wanted a frankly ridiculous £40 for the "upgrade" to a supported version. It was cheaper to buy Parallels and transfer files via a Virtual machine. IMO it's basically three times overpriced.

I got that freebie, too and I totally agree with your points about the upgrade gouging. In fact, Paragon seems to have taken a leaf out of Parallels' book in that respect. The upside is that discounts are plentiful. From the freebie, I got a bundle upgrade to v10 incl. EXT and HFS for Windows for $19 (or maybe less, cannot remember). Those still work on my systems, except that HFS for Windows is clearly inferior to Macdrive.

 

[MatthewLTL]

You seem determined to prove a point, but I'm not quite sure what it is. So go for it, just don't come crying in here when you lose precious data!

not trying to prove any point. Just simply asked if you can clone a Windows partition with Mac Cloning software. Simple as that.

 

[MagicBoy]

not trying to prove any point. Just simply asked if you can clone a Windows partition with Mac Cloning software. Simple as that.

I can't see why you'd want to when you've got access to free and powerful x86 cloning tools, the Windows machine and an external USB drive adaptor. You're complicating something unneccessarily IMO.

Don't get me wrong, I like a challenge but I'd go safety first when it's someone else's data.

Right, I've said my bit.
/unsubscribes

 

[MatthewLTL]

I can't see why you'd want to when you've got access to free and powerful x86 cloning tools, the Windows machine and an external USB drive adaptor. You're complicating something unneccessarily IMO.

Don't get me wrong, I like a challenge but I'd go safety first when it's someone else's data.

Right, I've said my bit.
/unsubscribes

From being a Avid Linux user since 2005, a Avid Mac OS X user since 2012 and a Avid Windows User since 1994 i can say vary easily that MOST software on Windows and Mac are commercial. Freeware available for Mac and Windows is not that big. 9 times out of 10 all the software you can download for Mac and Windows are trials. For example finding a 100% FREE video editor for Windows is pretty much impossible (Windows Movie Maker dont work on most cases) Finding one FREE for Mac OS X is pretty much just as impossible (Unless you can hunt down a FREE copy of iMove 6)

a FREE disk cloner for Windows would most likey have features so LIMITED that 99% of what you can do would involve "Purchasing" the software.

 

[MagicBoy]

a FREE disk cloner for Windows would most likey have features so LIMITED that 99% of what you can do would involve "Purchasing" the software.

Look at Post #3. I've recommended a freeware product that I've used extensively in my job.

 

[weckart]

I also cloned a Win7 partition from HDD to SDD using the free version of Easus Disk Copy.