ODIN – Open Source Windows Disk Clone Utility

ODIN (Open Disk Imager in a Nutshell) is a free, user-friendly, utility for easy backup of hard drive volumes or complete hard drives under Windows Operating System.

Main Features

• Backup/restore of volume or complete hard disk.
• Backup only used clusters to save operational time, or all blocks.
• Compression on the fly option is available to save valuable storage space.
• Verify backup image files for damages.
• Support of all Windows file systems (both 32-Bit and 64-Bit).
• Split image files to chunks (e.g. for burning to CD/DVD).
• Utility is portable, it does not require installation, just start odin.exe.
• Can be run from USB stick.
• Supports Windows PE (BootDisks, BartPe, etc.).
• Use multiple CPUs.
• Offers snapshots of volumes.

New Version in latest version 0.3 (latest release 0.32 Beta)

New Features of version 0.3 are:

• Command Line interface
• 64-Bit version available

ODIN now can be run in two modes, either with a GUI or from a console as command line application. All options and functions are available from command line. See -usage for details. The command line application is started as ODINC.exe. The GUI application is started as ODIN.exe without any command line parameter. The console mode is for example useful for automated tasks running from scripts.

Important notes:

• To use from the command line under Vista or higher (with User Account Control enabled) start the console as Administrator!
• The 64-Bit version now allows making snapshots on 64-Bit operating systems. Due to Windows limitations this was not possible before with a 32-Bit application running on a 64-Bit Windows.

License

This program is licensed under the GNU public license.

Developer’s website: http://odin-win.sourceforge.net/

Hard Disk Copy with HDClone

HDClone Overview

HDClone creates physical or logical copies (clones) and file images of hard disks and other mass storage media. HDClone is quite an useful tool for backups and copies of entire software or operating system installations. A special 'SafeRescue' mode makes HDClone an invaluable tool for rescuing defective hard disks and other media. HDClone works independent of partitioning scheme, file system, and operating system. It also works with proprietary formats which otherwise would be inaccessible.

Free Edition

The Free Edition of HDClone clones an entire hard disk to another, larger medium. Use it for migrating an existing installation to a new hard disk or for rescuing data. The Free Edition is real freeware without obligation to buy and is intended for the short-term usage at no cost. In case of more frequent usage, we recommend using one of the higher editions since they offer higher performance, support for a wider range of hardware, and additional options which are optimized for regular or professional use.

Limitations

1. The free version functionality of this application is limited compared to the professional version offered by developers. The one major limitation of the free version of this application is that it can only copy to a target drive that is larger than the source drive. Not smaller, not the same size.

2. A second, lesser limitation is the fact that cloning your smaller hard disk to a larger one with Hdclone will leave you with a partition on the new hard disk the exact size of your old hard drive, with the rest of the drive left as unpartitioned space. This space can either be converted into a new partition for storage or merged with the system partition using a program like Partition Magic or any other partition manager.

3. You can process the entire drive only, but not the separate partition.

4. You can work with Physical images only, but cannot use the Smart Images and Compressed Images options, available in commercial versions.

Summary

The software performance is acceptable, but the free edition limitations allows using the software in particular occasions only, for example, when you upgrade your working Hard Drive to the bigger capacity.

Developers’ website: http://www.miray.de/products/sat.hdclone.html

Direct Download: http://www.miray.de/public/download/hdclone.fe.en.exe