cloning hard disk

[adelbardissy]

hello
recently I upgraded my 40 GB hard disk of an acer veriton 5600GT disk top (which includes a hidden partition for recovering the operating windows xp system)to a 160 GB disk using Acronis migrate easy for disk clonning. the new disk works fine but I tried to check the recovering properties of the operating system either by using a designated button present in the acer disk top or by pressing Alt-F10 but the only thing I got is starting screen with faliur to find ntlder (or some thing like this) and I managed only to get the pc working by reattaching the old disk and canceling the order for recovery. then I replaced the disk with the new one again. Also when I tried to use acer backup utility in the new disk I got error message : not installed image it or image it was damaged!!. Any idea how to regain the recovery properties of the hidden partition?
thanks

[Rush]

You need what they call a "bare metal" disc back up utility, to copy all the partitions, even the hidden one. I like Acronis, but I use their "True Image".
Heres some reviews.
http://www.pcnet-online.com/content/...l-recovery.htm

[Kees]

Use the free version of Macrium Reflect, which allows you to view the hidden recovery partition of your old disk. Copy it to an addressable partition (like C or D) or a DVD, then clone the old HD using either Acronis or Macrium. I don't know how to make the recovery partition hidden again on your new HD, but is that necessary?

[hellnoire]

My personal choice is the Linux (not a shock?) liveCD of CloneZilla. It can back up your data as well as copy it over, byte for byte. It should work flawlessly for what you'd like to do.

[Kees]

Does Linux LiveCD also clone the hidden recovery partition?

[adelbardissy]

hi
I did use Macrium Reflect to veiw the hidden partition content and I also used it to backup the c: drive.
regarding rehiding the partition actually Macrium Reflect creates a backup image of the partition that you can access without unhiding the original partiton and you will find a new drive for the image partition in your my computer folder, however this drive will disappear when you restart the computer. I will try backup the hidden partition from the original disk on a dvd disk using Macrium Reflect and restor it to the colonned hidden partition of the new hard disk and see if recovery function works or not.
thanks for the help.

[hellnoire]

CloneZilla does a byte for byte copy, Kees, so yes, it will.

[ding-dong]

Macrium Reflect did well for me

[sisqo696]

wat gapo tuu gorillazzz..