[Erric Newmen]

I'm asking something similar / simple question.
Can HDCLONE do this: ?

I want to save a clone of my C: drive as an image file (saved on the D: drive).

When my OS crashes (for any reason) or I get a new C: drive, instead of spending hours/days fixing the problem, I can just restore the C drive to it's original state using HDCLONE.

Then I need to make a bootable CD that will restore the image saved on the D: and copy all the raw data to the C:.
Or perhaps make a bootable Thumb Drive that will do the same thing?

I read the main info page, but I can't find anything this specific.

thanks!

[Alex]

Yes, this is easily possible:

You should make the image of your system somewhere you can access it later. Drive D: is usually a safe bet if it is a normal disk drive in the computer. What you need now is a bootable HDClone, which can be on a CD or an USB thumb drive (or even a floppy disk). If you start HDClone, you have the chance to burn a CD or make a bootable thumb drive by selecting 'create bootable medium'.

In case of CD: simply select the target drive, put in an empty CD-R and press 'Create CD/DVD'. If no CD-drive appears (or is grayed out), there's an issue with the CD burning service on your computer. In this case use the file hdclone.iso from the HDClone package and burn this as a bootable image directly onto the CD-R with the CD burning application of your choice.

If you want to create a bootable thumb drive, you select the drive letter in the HDClone installation program and click on 'Make bootable'. Then a bootloader and the HDClone kernel.map will be written onto the USB drive and it can be booted from it. If this works is mainly dependent of the computer's BIOS.

To make sure it works, your USB drive should be partitioned (look for the "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool" to do this), as a partitioned USB drive is working on a wider range of BIOSes as a non-partitioned (sc. Superfloppy).