In January, I wrote about my experience with PC Mover from Laplink Software, an effective solution for migrating your applications from one Windows PC to another, even (with some caveats) when those computers are running different versions of Windows. But there is another kind of migration that PC users often face, upgrading their hard drive. Unfortunately, backup applications that rely exclusively on file-based backup can't restore a working Windows installation because they don't capture what is known as the master boot record. (Apple, incidentally, notes that Time Machine, which creates browsable, file-based backups, can be used to restore or migrate to another Mac, but that Time Machine archives themselves are not bootable.)

So, in recently upgrading a PC hard disk, I tried Acronis True Image 9, a utility that can create an "image" or exact copy of one's hard drive as well as file-level backup. TrueImage automates much of the hard disk migration process, even expanding the partition on the target drive to its maximum so that your new drive is ready to go after reinstalling.