clone window 7 to new hard drive

[EricB]

I have somebody who has a failing hard drive. They need to keep their settings. How do I backup or clone window 7 to new hard drive?

 

[carnageX]

I use CloneZilla to clone drives. May not like bad sectors, though. There's another tool on the Parted Magic LiveCD that can clone drives and skip bad sectors; I can't remember what it's called off hand though.

Edit: apparently CloneZilla has an option to skip bad sectors, so I'd look into that.

 

[WinOutreach2]

If there is an external hard drive available large enough to hold the failing drive, an image based backup could be created using the Windows 7 Backup and Restore feature. The process is outlined here at Windows Support. To restore, swap out the failing drive for its replacement and boot to the Windows Recovery Environment. WinRE can be accessed by booting to the installation media, selecting your language settings, and then selecting Repair your computer. Select System Image Recovery and follow the prompts.

Brandon
Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro
The Springboard Series on TechNet

 

[glomicilina]

if you have a identical hdd use a linux distro, plug both disc and in the shell :
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb

if=/dev/sda : Input disk (source)
of=/dev/sdb : Output disk (destination)
quick and easy