Clone your Laptop. How?

This is a recommendation.
 This is not my idea, the post here is for reference.
Hereis a brief summary from another forum.
Note the reference to e-SATA.

Clone from laptop hard drive to anther lap top hard drive in external enclosure?
Q.
... clone the drive to another nearly identical drive. Is it possible to CLONE from the internal 2.5" hard drive ... or 2) through an e-SATA connection to the other nealy identical 2.5" drive ....
A. Install the blank drive in the Hp and place the source drive in the enclosure. You also have the best chance of success if you boot from the TI Rescue CD which can be made from your software.
Any hidden or diagnostic partitions should be retained in the original sizes and my recommendation is that the cloning be performed in manual mode ...
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/6248

All new HP laptop shave  the e-SATA connector.
(But if you find one that does not, don't buy it.)

How to copy Laptop Hard Drive
http://www.ehow.com/how_4898255_clone-la ...

Backup software,system settings and files,,,
For your copy of Windows, programs,system settings and files to include a copy of the image,you can use the system.The system's image following the original programs,settings and files are stored in a separate location from.You have your entire computer's hard disk crashes or your computer's contents can be used to restore the files.

Clearly the above post has nothing to do with cloning anything.

Right. And XCOPY can not even create a bookable disk for you.
A true clone program has to copy even the files that are never seen by the user. Including the contents of the MBR and other system level data and code.
If you search for a program to backup everything, include the word 'Clone' in the keywords. Which would find this:
http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/
It is more than a  backup. Like Acronis, it makes a true copy of the drive. The personal version if now free.
BTW, Acronis is free for 30 days.
http://download.cnet.com/Acronis-True-Image-Home/3000-2242_4-10168093.html

[Moderator]

Acronis is also free with the purchase of a new Seagate HDD...
But you can get it still from the Seagate site...even without purchase...

My Free choice is Macrium Reflect.

Acronis is also free with the purchase of a new Seagate HDD...
But you can get it still from the Seagate site...even without purchase...

At least one of the drives must be Seagate in order for that to work, doesn't it?  I believe the same applies to the free Acronis product from Western Digital.  These versions of Acronis are intended for purchasers of new hard drives to have a tool to clone an old drive to a new one of a specific brand.

[Moderator]

What possible difference would it make what brand the hd is?

As you know, Acronis is normally a free product.  So, obviously, the hard drive makers aren't going be giving the standard Acronis software away for free for anyone to use.  So, I believe the versions of Acronis issued by Seagate, Western Digital, etc. are designed to detect the brand of the hard drive being used and only work with that make drive.  Otherwise, what prevents anyone from grabbing a free standard of software that's not intended to be free to everyone?

[Moderator]

I understood what you were saying soybean, i just can't see how the brand of drive would in any way effect how Acronis operates.  I certainly could be wrong, but I'd love for someone to explain the process to me if I am.

Is this and old story?   

One of the best HDD utilities is free
Seagate's new drive utility worth a solid gold
By Theo Valich
Tue May 22 2007, 19:51
EVERY HARD DRIVE manufacturer usually offers some piece of software that will ease the moving of stuff between the drives, but also proves a good backup tool.

Usually, the hard drive manufacturers team up with utility makers and offer baseline features. Until now, that is.

Seagate has released a version of Disc Wizard and Maxtor's Max Blast 5, but what makes these utilities highly on the "me want" list is the fact that both are based on the OEM version of the excellent True Image app. Disc Wizard and Max Blast utilities now offer a plethora of options that give people options previously offered only by commercial applications. Disc Wizard/Max Blast feature disk drive cloning, full disk imaging, formatting drives, creating partitions, erasing all the data on the drive - for the best price of them all.

There is a grand total of 14 supported languages, and is totally free for owners of hard drives manufactured by Seagate or companies owned by Seagate. You need to have at least one drive in order for this utility to work, but worst case scenario would be using those external USB 2.0 drives by Seagate... when it comes to distribution, you can find this utility on CDs that are shipping with retail drives, or simply download the latest version.

Acronis is a well known company in this biz, but we were surprised to see both Seagate and Acronis keeping their mouths shut and not talking out loud about the co-operation. We wonder is there some agreement over keeping this cooperation silent, but Seagate missed out the fact that this hack uses Seagate drives. If you own Seagate or Maxtor hard drive, don't think - just follow our complementary L'INQs to get the software. µ

L'INQ

Read more: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1022295/one-hdd-utilities-free#ixzz1RSHYlUFA
The Inquirer - Computer hardware news and downloads. Visit the download store today.

[Moderator]

Well, I'd still like to know how...........

I really don't for sure how it works but I presume it's a matter of the software recognizing the brand, and perhaps model, of hard drive.  I see it in the same vein as system reporting tools such as Belarc Advisor and Everest Home Edition being able to report the brand hard drive, processor, and other components.  And, I see it in the same vein as system monitoring tools such as SpeedFan and CPUID, where the software detects certain hardware sensors. 

So, in the case of hard-drive-maker-branded versions of Acronis, hardware recognition is the basis upon which the modified version only works with a particular brand of hard drive.

Acronis licenses the software to the HD manufacturers. The software isn't changed for each manufacturer.

Basically, Acronis "doesn't care" that these users are getting Acronis for free, because the HD manufacturers already paid Acronis so they could include the software with the drives.

Also, the tools are usually far less capable than the commercial offerings; much like how Windows XP's disk defragmentor is really a relabelled and stripped down copy of "Executive Software Diskeeper".  They are usually a version of the software's "personal" or "home" variants.

EDIT: however, soybean is right, if you don't have one of appropriate drives installed (like a Maxtor drive when trying to run MaxBlast) the program states as such and won't run.

[Moderator]

Acronis licenses the software to the HD manufacturers. The software isn't changed for each manufacturer.

Basically, Acronis "doesn't care" that these users are getting Acronis for free, because the HD manufacturers already paid Acronis so they could include the software with the drives.

Also, the tools are usually far less capable than the commercial offerings; much like how Windows XP's disk defragmentor is really a relabelled and stripped down copy of "Executive Software Diskeeper".  They are usually a version of the software's "personal" or "home" variants.

So it works fine regardless of the drive, yes?

So it works fine regardless of the drive, yes?

No, just did more searching and it looks like for the most part they are specific to each brand, as Soybean noted.

So it works fine regardless of the drive, yes?

I got a bundled copy of the old Norton Ghost when I bought a hard drive and it has worked with drives from 3 different makers apart from the one it came with.