Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community - View Single Post - Best way to clone a drive while it is running?

Hack&Lube · 11-29-2011, 10:42 AM

I have an institutional work/school computer right now and I need to make a perfect clone of the drive contents so I can keep working on it home as they are going to wipe and re-image them in a few days.

I do not have access to the actual hardware (ie: can't open the case and remove the drive). What is the best way for me to clone the drive and get a workable image that will boot at home? I don't need a perfect sector by sector clone, just an image that will work. The problem is that this system is running Server 2008 R2 and a lot of the software I normally use won't work on it.

I cannot use VMware to make a virtualization of the whole system because the point is that I want to work on the Hyper-V virtualzations that are already on it and you can't run a virtualization inside a virtualization AFAIK.

11-29-2011, 10:42 AM	#1
Hack&Lube Atomic Nerd Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Calgary Exp:	Best way to clone a drive while it is running? I have an institutional work/school computer right now and I need to make a perfect clone of the drive contents so I can keep working on it home as they are going to wipe and re-image them in a few days. I do not have access to the actual hardware (ie: can't open the case and remove the drive). What is the best way for me to clone the drive and get a workable image that will boot at home? I don't need a perfect sector by sector clone, just an image that will work. The problem is that this system is running Server 2008 R2 and a lot of the software I normally use won't work on it. I cannot use VMware to make a virtualization of the whole system because the point is that I want to work on the Hyper-V virtualzations that are already on it and you can't run a virtualization inside a virtualization AFAIK. Last edited by Hack&Lube; 11-29-2011 at 10:50 AM.