Read a piece that said Microsoft had as an objective for XP, "prevent HD cloning". I do it all the time on my Win2000 machine, but never tried it on XP.
not sure what you mean by cloning, but I make image files all the time of the whole drive, which of course I use when the whole thing goes to hell in a handbasket. So far, I've never had trouble recovering via the image file.
"Cloning" is where you make an exact copy of your HD on another HD. XP has the "system restore" function which is a form of imaging, but that's not what I had in mind.
Here's a Forum Discussion that might help. Check the second poster down(Bistro). They have a link to how it could be done. Actually, I think the whole thread is relevant.
As there might be a "work around", it's not going to be a simple process like in Win2000. Microsoft designed it that way.
Right on. It kinda pisses me off the Microsoft engineered XP so that I can't make back-up copies of my HD to protect valuable data and to manage the risk of HD failure or corruption. PS I ran on W98 for years. Win2000 is WAYYYYY better!
It can be done - reference the article posted in this thread and the MS Knowledge base. Because of this and other administration issues conencted with XP our companies have decided to not upgrade from Windows 2000 which is an excellent client and server OS. In our opinion, these administrative changes have actually RAISED the cost of windows clients: couple this with the increased license fees that MS invoked last year and we have a big problem with Microsoft as an ongoing vendor. If MS does not change direction then we will just continue to replace systems and OS units as they hit lifecycle end with alternative solutions .....
If I had no choice, I guess I'd learn to live with it. However, with Win2000, one can "plug in the 2nd HD, boot from a floppy, enter a couple of keystrokes... and Voila!" Cloned HD.