Good program to clone hard drive?
 

Hi,
I'm about to get my gf a new hard drive to replace her old 500gb. What's a good and preferably free program that can simply clone the old drive into the new drive? It's the primary system drive with windows on it if that matters. I did google around but I'd like some experienced recommendations so I dont screw up the hdd. Thanks

Macrium Reflect.

Free and paid editions. I use free to that exact purpose often.

http://download.com/

Also, most new drives that come in a retail box include decent software for that purpose.

Bulk drives (bubblewrap, no box) usually do not include software but it can be download at drive makers website.

Thanks for the tips guys! I'll check out macrium. Not sure what HDD I'm going to get yet so I guess I'll see if it comes with the software when I get it.

I've always used Nprton Ghost because it used to be bundled free with motherboards etc.. They've had a 30 day trial version... should be long enough :)
http://us.norton.com/downloads-trial-norton-ghost

I still use norton ghost from 2001 which is working in DOS environment only

but is cloning like crazy

I used a program called rdrive... it was fantastic till the version i had stopped working.. no idea why. But it was able to do a full backup image that could be restored on a hard drive without skipping a beat while in windows.. of the same drive your running on. A lot of programs cant claim that.

I wish it still worked.. probably need to buy the new version.. but here's the link
drive-image dot com