Copying a Hardrive?

[Zephik]

How do I copy a Hard Drive onto another Hard Drive? I have a Hard Drive but I can't use it because the OS (Windows) is password protected. So would I be able to copy his Hard Drive over to this Hard Drive? Do I need to clear the Hard Drive of all the information first? What do I do?

-SnowFire's Friend

[ESX]

Founds these 3, quite good CDs if you ask me, and you probably going to need them for other tasks in your computer journey:
Hiren's BootCD (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/hiren.thanki/bootcd.html)
Bart's CD-Rom boot disk (http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/cdrom/)
and Ultimate boot CD (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/)

Those 3 are some essential pieces of software I'd say.

Good luck!
-Paul

[SgtM]

are you just going to backup the data? If so, just hook the drive up as a slave, and then copy the data.

[Zephik]

I want to make an exact copy of a hard drive and then copy it to another hard drive. So I can use it to boot up on the computer that I took it from.

I was given a used computer that was password protected. Now I want to make a copy of this hard drive that I am on and copy it over to the password protected hard drive. I think its called ghosting? But the ghost software I looked at cost $$. Is there a free ghost software out there? Also, do I have to erase all the info on the hard drive first before I ghost it or whatever?

[nil8]

Look for a program called UBCD4Win or Ultimate Boot CD for Windows.
It contains open source disk ghosting software.
Your best bet is to get an iso, burn it, boot off the cd and then write down the name of the program, remove the cd, boot normally and get all the info you can about the programs you wrote down.

As for the password protection, what you're talking about in Windows is something called an SSID. This is the unique number that windows gives to user accounts it creates. If you want to change the permissions of this there's a couple of ways to do this. The first way is to hook the drive up to another windows OS and change the permissions for all the files so you are the owner/creator.
Another option is to use UBCD4Win and create an administrator account in the OS you're looking to access. This method only works if the OS is operable in the pc you need and you have a cdrom in it.

If you want some clarification or instruction, pm me.

[onelegout]

get a ghosting app such as norton ghost.
Just follow the instructions, it isn't too hard. :)
H

[OvRiDe]

If you don't have Ghost.. G4L (http://freshmeat.net/projects/g4l/) works pretty well.

[progbuddy]

Just google "Ltools" and download it. Copy the hidden system files from Ltools onto the new HDD along with the viewable ones.