mattkime's thread below re-reminded me of the daunting-to-me task that needs to be attempted asap...

Mrs. Buzz's new-to-us refurb Dell E6410 was supposed to have an integrated webcam. Well, I got pretty much migrated all of her stuff from her old XP laptop, and upgraded and updated almost all of her apps while she was away in Maui (since I got sick and couldn't go; bummer). I saved Skype for last, since our Maui friends were in Florida, and didn't get back until Monday night. Well, on Monday, Skype didn't find a webcam, so a few more hours of trying to install drivers and software, and troubleshoot similar sounding issues based on internet info, and I finally gave up and called Dell... to find out the laptop was originally from Canada, and needs to be registered for international support if we need help, yada, yada... but I did talk the rep into confirming that based on the E6410's service tag number, that it actually did not have a webcam afterall.

It's gotta go back, Jim. While the RMA paperwork gets sorted out, I'd like to clone the Win 7 drive, so I can clone it back to the next new Win 7 laptop w/o having to spent another set of countless hours prepping. What's the best way to clone a Win 7 Pro laptop for this purpose? Thanks.
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Try Clonezilla. I don't think there are any options as simple and elegant as Super Duper, or Carbon Copy Cloner though.

Prior to retirement I used Acronis True image on a regular basis for the PC side and while not free nor nearly as easy as CCC or Super Duper it did the job. I never lost any client data and saved the data from a lot of drives using it. Restoring to a different piece of hardware however like you are proposing introduces another layer of complexity owing to the windows licensing quagmire.

[www.acronis.com]

Sorry to say you are facing hours of work and frustration no matter how you approach the problem, it is just the nature of windows that nothing is easy.

Acronis 2015 is one of the best paid programs. Macrium Reflect Free works pretty well once you learn the basics (it helps to be familiar with the Windows Storage management module).

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

I think maybe I gotta find a local high school/college kid that's Windoze literate... it all looks very daunting compared to our beloved Mac cloners.

OTOH, is there an easy migrator app that will somehow accomplish the same thing? or is the dark side so screwed up w/ all the updates, that that sort of migration won't work?
Thanks again.
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Sometimes it is what it is...
and then there's times when it's really better.



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Cloning a Windows machine can lead to all sorts problems when going to a different machine, from drivers to licensing. Works well for a back-up drive that you are going to maybe swap into the same machine, but going to a different machine is different. I'd try Window's Easy Transfer first and then if I had problems I'd try the cloning route as a 2nd choice.

AOMEI Backupper, a FREE and easy-to-use backup software, supports system backup, file backup, disk partition backup, scheduled backup, etc. Download at: [www.backup-utility.com]

...is another option



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/08/2015 09:12PM by AllGold.