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We have a certain piece of software which is on a machine which is going to die any time soon. Very soon, by our estimates.

The problem is that that is the only machine on which a certain specialist software works. It is installed locally, but also takes some data from a network partition (which is on an office server, so that is safe - server is a new machine) - licence, some system and shared databases and some other files.

This is a temporary try to solve a problem, but since we currently have some licencing issues with that software ( :-) before you ask, no it is not pirated, but our company changed its name, and the software vendor is still in the process of handling that along with the software update to a new version, and still hasn't provided us with new license files that work ... the mailing back and forth is currently in progress ... it should be handled within a two week period or so) the idea has sprung up that we copy the contents of all partitions from that machine, and try to find a compatible (hardware wise) and then copy the partition contents to that one. Would that work in your opinion?

It has already been two days that it isn't working, and everyone is getting nervous about it.

What would be a good way to copy entire partitions to external HDD?

Rook
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3 Answers3

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So many options. And so hard to define what is best.

Community
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Hennes
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What would be a good way to copy entire partitions to external HDD?

Use Acronis® True Image™ 2014 Premium to create an image of the hdd and restore the image on new hardware. This will require a new license in an ideal world. There are several other alternatives that can do this some free some paid.

Clearly the issue with the license isn't something we can help you with. This would transfer Windows, if the software works on the new hardware, is an entirely different question ( one we cannot answer ).

Ramhound
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You really just need two things.

VMWare Converter and VMware Player

Both are Free Downloads!

Install the converter on another machine and capture an image of said workstation. Install the player on a different machine and fire up that image you captured. This isn't the most "professional" solution out there but I've used it to capture images of old systems that had software which basically had no chance of working on new operating systems. Give it a go! I've had plenty of success using this method.

mark brak
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