1:1 cloning software

[truckerCLOCK]

My son wants to upgrade the 500 gb harddrive in his Dell laptop to a 500gb ssd. He would like to be able to clone the hidden recovery partition as well. Any suggestions?

 

[cbn]

I like Clonezilla , here is a video on how to use it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=12&v=gr4T47_rkLw

 

[Elixer]

Acronis (free if you go to the maker of the HD, and download), EASUS (free version), Paragon (free version), Macurium Reflect (free) can all handle what you need.
Clonezilla is good as well, but a bit more complex than the ones listed above.

 

[C1]

Like all hard drives, a full retail SSD package should come with transfer software. For example, I just bought a PNY CS2211 SSD and it comes with a license key to activate and URL to download a version of TI to image the original hard drive to the new PNY SSD.

 

[lakedude]

Had good luck with Acronis and Macrium. Gparted can also come in handy for certain operations.

Technically you could just use the dd command from the command line but that is likely not the best option.

 

[ronbo613]

I've used Clonezilla and Acronis and currently use Macrium Reflect. They all can do the job but they all have some limitations.

 

[truckerCLOCK]

Thanks for all the info. Gonna download Acronis, Macrium and Clonezilla tonight and mess around with them. He picked up a Sandisk X400 512gb. Not sure if it comes with any software or not.