I had a laptop that had a hardware malfunction. The hard drive is operational, and I can start up a DESKTOP off of it. What I want to do though is hook it up through USB using a sata to USB cable adapter, which I have, and then transfer/copy/clone it to a usb hard drive. I want to do this through the desktop while it's running. This seems feasible to me, but I want to know how I can get the exact copy of the laptop hard drive over to the usb drive. I want to do this because I was told that the hard drive may very well be wiped when it is sent in for repair. I haven't had to do this before so I was wondering the BEST way to do it this way. I realize I COULD PROBABLY start the computer off the laptop drive and clone it during set up, but I was wondering if the possibility of COPYING it to a usb drive wouldn't be simpler. Any help is appreciated.What OS is on the laptop drive ? ?
Why do you need it cloned to a USB drive ? ?
What program are you planning on using to clone the drive? ?I'm working with Windows XP. I wanted to clone the drive to a USB drive because when I send the laptop in to get repaired they say they might clear it. I want to do it to a USB drive in particular because there isn't enough room to just copy it to the desktop hard drive. I hadn't actually chosen a program to use, I'm open to suggestions.If I have to do it off the boot, I might just boot it and make sure I have all the files I want to save, as I don't necessarily need an exact copy of what I have now, just the files really, but if it's possible to do it just through the USB I'm interested in knowing how.XP is not able to boot from external drives by design...not without alot of headaches.
I'd get a 40 or 80G IDE drive for the desktop in this case...