On the same subject on cloning my experience has been

(1) Hard disk manufacturer software works OK but for mainly the MS partitions. This is possibly the slowest way one can clone a hard disk.

(2) Commercial software works well too and run at a decent speed.

(3) Using Linux is incredibly simple. Just think of one line of command that does the whole commercial package like Ghost.

The real killer is that a user can understand what it is all about, just reading "1" and "0" from one hard disk and writing the same to another hard disk. Still want to be milked by software vendors for the ignorance and limitation of the MS operating systems?

I couldn't agree more! In other general PC forums whenever the sugject of cloning comes up the first recomendation is Norton Ghost. It is seen as the creme de la creme of cloning software. However, in my opinion it is a total ripoff and, as you say just takes advantage of peoples ignorance. Much like Norton Security suite really?