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Two questions on HD Clone Basic

PostPosted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 6:28 am
by smolds
1: What is the difference between "Clone" & "Migrate" for making a full copy of a disk?

2: Is it possible to change the location where the log is saved? My version of Win 7 uses a "C:/Users/Public/Public Desktop/." folder, and will not allow me to create a "C:/Users/Public/Desktop/." folder.

Re: Two questions on HD Clone Basic

PostPosted: Fri Aug 21, 2015 1:22 pm
by Alex
1) Clone & Migrate currently do the same, but may change in the future when Migrate might get specialized options for migrating your system from one Computer to another or from on hard disk to another. (Adjustments in drivers, resizing options etc.)
The Clone option is for cloning to a spare disk that can later replace the current disk in case of a failure, or for cloning the current system multiple times to different disks (because these different disks will then all be used in different computers with the same setup etc.)

2) Currently, there's no way. HDClone uses the value returned by CSIDL_COMMON_DESKTOPDIRECTORY for storing the log file, and cannot currently be changed (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... 85%29.aspx)

Re: Two questions on HD Clone Basic

PostPosted: Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:41 pm
by smolds
Thanks for the info.

The migration seems to have worked with no errors.

The first run of Clone had errors, and ran far too long with no indication of an end in sight. I had to stop it, then reactivate the USB disk to see what had been copied.

I ran chkdsk, then a full defrag, then used System Mechanic to clean the entire disk of problems - then ran Migrate.

That seems to have made the difference.

Re: Two questions on HD Clone Basic

PostPosted: Thu Aug 27, 2015 9:17 am
by Alex
But wait... there’s more...

In current 6.0.4 version (and beyond), if the common public desktop cannot be found, then the local desktop is used as fallback.
There's only one thing that doesn't work (and that is if you system is somewhat malconfigured): If the common public desktop exists, but has been deactivated in the group policies, then the value is still returned, and HDClone tries to write to it, but ultimately fails.

Re: Two questions on HD Clone Basic

PostPosted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 6:01 am
by smolds
As an aside, right after I finished the migration" to my USB drive, I installed Win 10 - that was why I needed to make the clone in the first place...

Yesterday, while trying to find a way to use the old Word and Excel 2000 programs that worked on Win 7, I clicked on a button that said "Find out more"...it immediately started downloading stuff, several strange programs appeared, and web pages I couldn't close flashed across the screen.

Then I discovered that none of my browsers worked - Firefox had disappeared - and that none of my security programs would open.

In fact, NONE of my programs would open!

I shut down - had to turn off the power to do that - and figured "OK, now is the time I se how good HD Clone really is!"...

SO I put in the DVD I made for starting HD Clone, it loaded and I selected migration to reverse what I had just done a few days before, format the C drive and reload it with the Win 7 files....

Since this was the first attempt to use the DVD I got a message that I needed to go to the HDClone website to get a "verification"code...using that PC that had no working browsers...!

Obviously, that wasn't going to happen. Now, I understand the need to have licenses to control use of a product - but this seems to be a somewhat overbearing situation - when the machine is broken, how are you supposed to get the permission to use the tool on that machine?

I would like to suggest a better, more flexible, solution - have the DVD program capable of contacting Miray directly, send the license code to the site, and receive back the verification code. Of course, this assumes the PC is capable of accessing the web...but if it isn't, is there another way to get the needed code?

I took the PC into a technician, who used super powers to rid my PC of all of the bad stuff, and I am in the process of running some security scans to verify that to be true...and I thought I would pass this along, with the hope that someone will see the logic of my observation...