On Sunday, April 12, 2020 at 8:58:37 AM UTC-4, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"rangerssuck" wrote in message
...

On Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 7:38:53 AM UTC-4, Jim Wilkins wrote:

...saving Seagate Disk Wizard backups ...

Beware of Acronis. More than once they've done "upgrades" which left old
image files unusable (ask me how I know). With drives being as cheap as they
are, the free version of Macrium Reflect can copy a drive pretty quickly,
and then it's just bootable.

=============================

I use older versions of SDW that I've tested by restoring and booting
scratch drives, and record the SDW version number in the log of backups
because as you say they aren't always backward compatible. Older versions
accept Alt+to (Tech Override) to continue with a non-Seagate drive.

Most of my applications don't need the Internet so they run on isolated PCs
that don't have antivirus or updates. These are the ones I clone or backup
before trying new programs. I have all MS versions back to DOS and a few of
Unix on bootable hard drives, for apps that need them.

Unlike Windows, DOS gives unhindered access to the hardware I/O registers
and turns the PC into a huge Gigahertz Arduino with keyboard, display and
HDD, plus the serial and printer port bits to talk to external hardware. I
made a quickie successive approximation A/D converter by driving a DAC with
the printer port's data bits and reading the comparator with a status bit.
Other control and status bits drove the test fixture, for developing an
experimental memory technology. I coded the non-standard serial interface to
my APC1400 true sine UPS in QBasic and run it in a DOS box.

The Apricorn Sata Wire adapter and software have worked well to clone to a
bare 2.5" drive lying on the static mat or one in a Dell caddy which is
merely a cover plate fastened to one end. Some drives need a powered USB hub
for more juice that the laptop's port can provide.


Have you ever used clonezilla? I've used it many times. Burn a CD with the ISO file, then boot and run from the CD. You can aalso make a bootable USB stick instead of a CD.

https://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live.php