AFAIK from my own experience most consumer hard drives are about the same these days. Most people find a brand that works for them and stick with it until it pisses them off and then they move on. About the only thing to differentiate them is the length of warranty.
Gpartd should be able to copy the partition to the new drive and set flags, but it's not a cloning too per see. It's a partition tool like fdisk or partition magic. I use Acronis for my cloning/backup but it's not free. ------ Brian On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 8:54 PM, Ben Ruset <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I think the GParted Live CD will do what Ghost does, for free. > > You should be able to put the new drive in a USB to SATA enclosure and > clone the old drive on the new. > > > Gary Udstrand wrote: > >> Really two questions here. First, I have a new laptop which came with a >> 160G drive. Since I cannot add a second drive I am planning on replacing >> it >> with a larger (hopefully faster) drive. The Seagate Momentus 320G/7200RPM >> would give me the space I need and it appears to be a very fast drive. >> The >> Hitachi and WD Scorpio also get decent reviews, any of these head >> shoulders >> above the others or are they all about the same? >> >> Secondly, I would like to avoid re-installing all my apps (again) and >> moving >> data. What is the best way to clone my current drive to the new drive? >> xcopy? Ghost? Free alternatives? I would like to be able to clone the >> drive, and then simply pop it into the laptop and have it boot up and be >> ready to go. :-) Oh, and I am running Windows XP Pro if it makes any >> difference. >> >> Thanks! >> >
