michaeljones•4d agoProlific Poster

I think drive imaging software is overrated for most small shops

I had a customer's Dell desktop die on me last Tuesday with a clicking hard drive, and instead of using the fancy Acronis image I made 3 months ago, I just cloned it sector by sector with a $30 USB dock and DDrescue. The image software failed to mount the backup because the drive letter changed somewhere during the process. Has anyone else had better luck just using raw cloning tools instead of paid imaging suites?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_betty4d ago

Yeah "used to swear by imaging software" pretty much sums up my experience too. I had an old HP that would only boot from a specific SATA port, and every time I tried restoring from an image it would blue screen because the drive letter mapping changed. Now I just use Clonezilla or DDrescue straight to a USB enclosure, no fussing with license keys or hoping the backup mounts right. For small shops it's honestly way less headache to just copy the raw blocks and let the machine figure itself out.

alex_taylor104d ago

Honestly used to swear by imaging software but this made me reconsider.

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