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Copy a hard drive

The way I used to do it on machines like yours was to use Norton Ghost software:

1. Acquire Norton Ghost software.
2. Find an IDE drive that is larger than the fitted IDE drive.
3. Add that IDE drive to the computer as the second drive.
4. Use Ghost to make an image of the first drive (important: drive, not partition) targeting the second drive.
5. Remove the second drive, labelling it somehow as being a Ghost backup of the Gateway Destination.

On the second (backup) drive will be a very large Ghost file; it has the file extension of .GHO

So that you are confident about possibly using Ghost later to restore that image file, perhaps find another IDE drive, then practice using that drive as the target of a restore operation. I.e. Simulating failure of your Gateway Destination's drive.

At some point in the releases of Norton Ghost, Ghost started to recognise external USB hard drives, but I always found it hit-and-miss as to which make-model USB drives that Ghost would recognise.

Originally, I had Ghost on a DOS boot diskette, but later had to move to having Ghost on a boot CD.

I see that there is lots of information online about Norton Ghost.
 
I agree with Clonezilla.
I have used this at work cloning 20 gig drives to 20 gig or 40 gig drives for Windows 2000.
Then I upgraded to Windows 7 and cloned 250 gig drives to 250 gig. It is a true clone and once the process is done the spare drive is the identical copy of your original.
The one thing to watch is if you have your emails on your Gateway, if you crash the clone your emails are only as current as the day you copied from the original.
 
If your PC can boot a CD or USB then Clonezilla is the way to go.

P.S. Just because I've never seen or heard of running it off of a floppy doesn't mean it's impossible. But I'm thinking don't waste your time.
 
Older stuff I always use ghost v7, but I've used that for over 20 years. For XP or earlier, its a good tool. Clonezilla is ok, dont get me wrong, but my vote is for using Ghost. But I do own it legally, and paid for it myself , so theres another reason to use it i guess. 🤷‍♂️
 
twolazy said:
Older stuff I always use ghost v7, but I've used that for over 20 years. For XP or earlier, its a good tool. Clonezilla is ok, dont get me wrong, but my vote is for using Ghost. But I do own it legally, and paid for it myself , so theres another reason to use it i guess. 🤷‍♂️
Click to expand...
Surely not. One is ment to acquire software by any other means EXCEPT purchasing it! ;)
 
twolazy said:
Older stuff I always use ghost v7, but I've used that for over 20 years. For XP or earlier, its a good tool. Clonezilla is ok, dont get me wrong, but my vote is for using Ghost. But I do own it legally, and paid for it myself , so theres another reason to use it i guess. 🤷‍♂️
Click to expand...
Clonezilla is free to download.
 
I had very good success with this, cloning the HDD on my vintage HP computer running XP, it appeared to create a magnetic replica and I could not distinguish between the original & clone drive, both the drives were the same part number though.
www.paragon-software.com

Drive Copy Professional | Paragon Software

Essential tool for data storage, data migration and backup.
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However sector-level-cloning can be possible, I'd like to submit that file-level cloning is simpler and a bit more flexible on DOS systems. You can copy files over to larger or smaller drives with no downside, so long as you manage to pick up the "hidden" or "system" files.
 
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