5 Ways To Clone & Copy Your Hard Drive

One of the most annoying things about owning a computer is the maintenance. It’s easily neglected. After all you don’t really notice the slow decline of your system’s performance, do you?

But then again it’s a delight to work on a freshly installed machine, where everything is smooth and responds quickly. But customization is tedious. And when your hard drive decides to break spontaneously, time is something you won’t have for sure.

For emergencies it’s better you have a data and a system backup available. Here are the 5 best tools to clone or copy your hard drive in no particular order.

Paragon’s Drive Backup Express (Windows)

This software is the easy solution to clone your hard drive . It’s comfortable to use with a sleek interface that guides you through the whole process of backing up and restoring step by step. And while a backup is running in the background you can even proceed using your system.

Both Drive Backup Express and DriveImage XML (described below) require a bootable CD, which the user has to create independently.

I have previously written about Drive Backup Express and thoroughly explained how it works here.

DriveImage XML (Windows)

In contrast to Drive Backup Express, DriveImage XML is a visually very basic tool. However, it reliably creates images of logical drives and partitions and restores these to either the originating or a different hard disk.

Like Drive Backup Express, DriveImage XML applies a cloning technique that allows parallel use of the system while the backup is running. It can also do incremental backups, supplementing existing backups with what was changed in the meantime. Additionally, images can be restored without having to reboot.

CloneZilla (cross platform)

CloneZilla is an open source and cross platform tool to make a copy of a hard drive and also to restore them afterwards.

It’s a tough tool for non nerds as it requires some background knowledge. First of all it’s not a software you install on your computer. You download CloneZilla in form of an ISO image or ZIP file and burn the image to a CD or load the files onto a USB flash drive or hard drive.

The next step is to reboot the computer from that medium you created, which may require going into the BIOS and allow booting from a CD or USB device.

Once the tool is running, it’s easy to use the simple interface to initiate or restore a backup. There also is sort of a screenshot walkthrough on the CloneZilla homepage, where you can view some of the options before running the tool.

XXCLONE (Windows)

XXCLONE is Windows software. The tool can create a self-bootable clone of a Windows drive as well as full backups of non-system volumes. Basically, it can make a hard drive image.

The interface is basic and clear. When started, the tool scans for available volumes and you can then choose a source and target volume from these. A direct link to the Windows Disk Management is provided through the “diskmgmt” button. Under the “Tool Cools” tab you can make use of options such as making the target volume self-bootable, manage restore points or create a batch file to save your current settings for future re-use.

The download section of the website provides a thorough help file that contains screenshots and descriptions of all features.

EASEUS Disk Copy (cross platform)

EASEUS Disk Copy creates sector by sector clones of partitions or hard disks, independent of operating system, file systems or partition scheme. It’s a versatile tool for both the novice and experienced user.

Just like CoolZilla, it’s not installed locally, rather the ISO image is burned to a bootable CD or DVD.

The website is probably the best of all tools described here. The information is thorough and very clear, including a very detailed help section that will walk you through every aspect of the program.

Do you clone and copy your hard drive? If so, which program do you use? Can you recommend any particular program to us? Let us know in the comments.

How to Remove an Administrator Password in Windows XP

1. Insert your Windows XP CD into your CD drive and boot your computer. If you receive the message "press any key to boot from CD," press any key.

2. Press Enter to setup Windows. After accepting the license agreement, you wil be asked if you want start a Repair process.

3. Press R to begin the Repair process. Setup will now check your disks and then start copying files, which can take several minutes. After this, reboot. Let the computer boot normally (do not press a key to boot from CD).

4. Keep your eye on the lower left hand side of the screen. When you see the Installing Devices progress bar, press SHIFT + F10. This will open a command line console.

5. Type NUSRMGR.CPL at the prompt and press Enter. This will give you access to User Accounts. Remove or change your password. Write it down! After the repair is finished, you will be able to log on with your new password.

How to Remove Faronics Deep Freeze 6 in Three Different Ways

Faronics DeepFreeze is a very powerful application. It virtually prevents all unwanted changes in your computer by freezing an entire hard drive or partition without restricting user access. Deep Freeze is perfect for work stations and is commonly used as a security software to maintain system integrity without sacrificing user experience. Due to this, it is completely logical for the application’s makers to impose a bit of security on to it. The Developers apparently have removed access to any Deep Freeze uninstall utility or procedure because it imposes threat on the software’s purpose.

This security feature may sound quite appealing, however some users that wants Deep Freeze removed are left hanging and does not know where to start on how to uninstall Deep freeze from their system. In this post I will be showing you three different ways to uninstall or remove Faronics Deep Freeze in your system. I will be using the latest version 6.2 of Deep Freeze Standard as an example.

Disable Faronics DeepFreeze

The first way is simple. All you you have to do is disable DeepFreeze using the program’s interface. Disabling it is actually good as uninstalling, as the program no longer interferes with your system as you make changes to it. Unless, you decide to re-enable it in the future. To disable Deep Freeze, all you have to is double click while pressing the shift key (shift + double click) on the Deep Freeze system tray icon [], which is located in the lower right hand corner of your screen. After doing so, you then see a new window (see image below), which prompts you to enter a password. If you have a custom password then you may enter it accordingly, if you have not set any password yet then try pressing “OK“.

After entering the correct password, you will be directed to another window (see image below), which shows you several options for configuring Deep Freeze. To disable Deep Freeze, all you have to do is select the “Boot Thawed” option and click “Apply and Reboot“. This will reboot your system, so it is important for you to make sure that you have saved all unsaved work before restarting.

You have just disabled Deep Freeze! And you are free to make any changes on your system without worrying Deep Freeze changing your system. By the way, you can always re-enable Deep Freeze by repeating the whole process and selecting the “Boot Frozen” option in the window shown above.

I personally use this step. I find this very practical because I test a lot softwares and I really don’t want them adding unwanted files into my system. After I have tested an application, all I have to do is restart my system and every bit of that software is removed!

Disable All Faronics Deep Freeze Services

The second way to uninstall DeepFreeze involves the first procedure above plus another added step. While the procedure above may be enough, it still shows an icon of Deep Freeze [] in your system tray. This icon is completely useless, it only indicates that you have deep freeze in your system and the red x means that it is disabled. To remove this icon all you have to do is disable the Deep Freeze service from the start-up. You can do this by typing the command services.msc in the run dialog box. Once you are in the services window, locate the service name DFserv and right click on it and select properties (refer to image below).

After clicking properties, stop and disable the service. Refer to the image below for instructions. Note that a restart is needed for changes to take effect on your system.

After restarting, at this point you no longer have any Deep Freeze service or application running at the background of your system. Also the system Deep Freeze Icon should be gone. You are still able re-enable Deep Freeze by reversing the whole process.

Completely Remove Deep Freeze

If you really need to completely remove Deep Freeze from your system then you must complete the first step, which is to Disable Faronics Deep Freeze . Restart your computer. After restarting locate the Deep Freeze installer [] and run it, it should prompt the whole removal process and all you have to do is follow the steps. I have provided screen-shots below to further assist you.

Click Next…

Click Uninstall and you’re done.

There, I just taught you how to remove/disable Deep Freeze in three different ways. Feel free to choose which method suites you best. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to post your comments below. Good Luck!

How to Uninstall Deep Freeze 6.0 Without Password

Unlike DeepFreeze older that version 6.0, on the Deep-freeze 6.xx there no smart software to disable or uninstall this Deep Freeze version without password. On the previous version of Deep Freeze you can hacked the software using “Deep Freeze Unfreezer” but the software useless on DeepFreeze v.6. Before formating your hardisk and lose your data why not do the method below. You can disable or uninstall DeepFreeze 6 without password and do not need reformat your hardisk.

Here the small tricks to disable or unintal Deep Freeze ver 6 without password:

1. Boot your computer from Windows XP Installer
2. After appear “Enter to Setup” option, Press Enter then press F8.
3. Selected R to repair Windows system ( Repair Setup)
4. Continue repairing/installing windows untill finish.
5. Prepare the Deepfreeze v.6 installed, open the file like you want to install the software.
6. it’s will show “Uninstall Deep-freeze” options. Uninstall the software, after uninstall finished reboot your computer.
7. Now the Deep-freeze has removed from your computer.

Note: I tested this method on Windows XP only, on another windows version maybe this method does not work.