BleepingComputer.com: Cloning Hd

I have a few laptops that I use. They are all set up identically, so they can back each other up. I would like to have 1 HD set up with a good image of WIN98 with all the updates and drivers, etc. Then, when I need to setup / fix / whatever one of the laptops, I can just "copy" the reference HD to a blank / formatted one, without having to go through the whole install / upgrade / upgrade / install drivers / install programs and data files every time I set one up.

I formatted & sysed a drive, then I tried using windows explorer, but the copy drive fails to boot with "no rom basic system halted"

Any ideas?

When you cloned the drives did you also clone the MBR (Master Boot Record). I have scene cloning programs that allow these to processes to be performed separately.

Sitting on the wall here, just incase someone talks about doing this with "Windows ME" ... " "

If not, then when, if or eventually my "Windows ME" PC ever crashes big time again; I'm convinced Linux Ubuntu is the way to go for me...

First try, I didn't do anything with the MBR. Then I thought of that, and did fdisk /MBR, but it made no difference.

I used to do this "manual clone" thing with WIN3.1 but it looks like I need some kind of utility to do it with WIN98.

Does anyone know of or have experience with a few?

I would prefer one that doesn't add a lot of baggage. I tried a freeware one, but found that it was too basic. It would only copy say a 4GB drive onto a 4GB partition on a 10GB drive. I don't want to be locked into that. I can handle partitioning and stuff like that.

Thank you,
Dave

Acronis True Image is on sale at Newegg.

Acronis has another program called Drive Image that I've use before and liked, and of course Symantec's Ghost.

I was misinformed, the price of the True Image at Newegg is not a sale price, but at $29.00 it's still a good deal.

This post has been edited by dc3: 04 November 2006 - 02:43 AM

Hi Dave.
What type of clean drive are you attempting to clone to? (backup drive)
The problem with laptops, unlike desktops, is that most are only capable of handling one bootable drive at a time. The "no rom basic system halted" error comes from the drive not being marked as a bootable drive. That's a limitation with the laptop itself in which there may be no way around. I have a feeling that may be the issue here.
I clone my laptop HD using a second internal laptop drive, mounting in a desktop pc with two adapters and booting with an Acronis disk. Once it's done I have two identical booting drives. If one dies, I just install the other and I'm back up in 15 minutes. Incremental backups I keep on cd's\dvd's. I don't believe in backing up to a seperate partition as it will do me no good if the drive itself fails. It's not as complicated as it sounds and is the most reliable way IMO.

Edit: BTW, if you decide to purchase ATI, the new version 10 is not compatable with 95\98\ME. Version 9 is.

This post has been edited by HitSquad: 04 November 2006 - 09:16 AM