How about this bit of kit.

True, but I've always had mixed results doing it that way, probably operator error :-(.
What appealed to me most about this is it can work outside of the O/S so no chance of locked files/files in use type errors.. Straight (well if the information is to be believed) disk to disk copy.

What if the disc had serious file errors on it, such as my notebook does? It frequently goes into chkdsk at startup, and I have to run chkdsk /r at least twice a week. Will the cloning device copy the bad, as well as the good? I do know that with backups it does.

I would think so, it's essentially a carbon copy. If done offline outside the O/S, it's simply imaging one drive to the other.

Inside the OS or outside the OS, it really doesn't matter. The drive either has errors or it doesn't. Cloning the drive will copy bit for bit regardless of errors. However copying a damaged hard drive could take a long time to complete that is if it ever does complete. If the drive is damaged to badly, cloning maybe out of the question.

Personally I wouldn't trust a cloned OS from a damaged hard drive. Under those conditions I would only clone to save data and then do a clean install or system restore.

I have to agree. There's no way that I would even think of placing a copy of the OS's that's on my dying disc onto a new one. A fresh, clean install of the OS & it's programs would be best. Only your personal data should be retained.

That must explain why it's taking me so long to backup now, it's taking an hour to do what it used to do in 15 minutes. And one of the backups was corrupted, and wouldn't install back on the drive. I was wondering what was going on.

Well I tried the cloning function and it's brilliant. I'm typing this message now running the O/S from the cloned drive. It booted up normally and everything is exactly the same. The O/S noticed the new drive serial number but otherwise identicle.

Cloning action took about 8 mins for around 28 gig.
All so easy, the only worry I have is you cannot see what your doing when your inserting the drive into the dock , you have to hope your getting the pins on square.

This was standalone, no PC or operating system involved.

To my mind it's the infinately perfect backup, if my MOBO were to never die I could keep this O/S going as it is for a very long time.

Data is allready on other drives with external backup.