Any danger of messing up disk being cloned?

[Bill Renfrew]

I have Acronis True Image 9.0 (build 2.337- I probably need to update) running on XP w/ SP2.

Is there any danger of me messing up my current NON-SATA C:\ drive by cloning that current C:\ drive to a newly formatted internal SATA drive? My understanding is that after creating the clone on the SATA drive, I can shut down my computer and...

1. if I can take out the new SATA clone and re-boot my system, the system will boot from the old (current NON SATA) C:\ drive just as if nothing ever happened.

2. I can take out the current NON SATA C:\ drive (that I just made a clone of) and re-boot, and the system will boot from the newly created SATA "clone drive", just as if it were the original.

I do NOT want to risk messing up my original C:\ drive and I get scared reading reading reviews/posts from people who had trouble using the disk that they just cloned after they cloned it. Does the original disk get re-written, updated, re-partitioned or re-formatted in any way in the cloning process?

I'd greatly appreciate it if someone could please clarify....I should have been able to figure this out from the posts, and I think the above assumptions are correct, but I want to be absolutely sure for obvious reasons. Better safe than sorry...

Thanks! A great product.

Bill

[Chutsman]

Yes, you should upgrade to build 3567. Then make the bootable TI Rescue cd, boot with it, and use the Clone feature.

The process defaults to NOT erasing the source (C) drive. Just make sure it does that and that you do not change it.

The steps you outlined are correct. You don't have to physically remove the drive, just disconnect will do.

[Acronis Support]

Hello Bill,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/).

Please accept our sincere apologies for the delay with the response.

Chutsman is quite correct, we recommend that you always use the latest build of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home available for downloading in the Product Updates (https://www.acronis.com/enterprise/my/updates/) section of your account at our web site (the current one is 3633). We also recommend that you perform the disk cloning process using Bootable Rescue CD created with the latest build (3633) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home and unplug one of the hard drives prior to booting into Windows for the first time as keeping two identical hard drives connected might result in the different boot or drive letter assignment problems. I would also recommend that you read Chapter 12 of Acronis True Image 9.0 User's Guide (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/docs/) carefully prior to cloning the hard drive.

Please be aware that the cloned operating system might not boot because of the lack of the appropriate drivers for your "new" SATA hard drive\controller. In order to avoid this problem we recommend that you prepare Windows for transferring using Microsoft System Preparation Tool (sysprep) as it is described in this FAQ article (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/faq.html/#30). This should allow you to load the appropriate drivers for your SATA hard drive\controller on Windows first boot.

Please also note that even in case of using Microsoft System Preparation tool (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/faq.html#30) (sysprep) we cannot guarantee the successful transferring of the operating system to a computer with the hardware configuration different from that of the original machine. The point is that sysprep allows replacing drivers only for Plug-and-Play devices (sound cards, network adapters, video cards etc.). As for system HAL and boot device driver, they must be identical in the source and target computers (see Microsoft Knowledge Base (www.support.microsoft.com) articles 302577 and 216915).

If you want to be completely sure that the restored operating system will boot and function normally then we recommend that you use Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation (http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATICW/) in conjunction with Acronis Universal Restore (http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATICW/universal-restore.html) for your purposes. Acronis Universal Restore technology provides an efficient solution for hardware-independent system restoration by replacing the crucial HAL and hard disk controller drivers. Please read more information on how to use Acronis Universal Restore in Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation User's Guide (http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/download/docs/).

We also recommend that you download and install the free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation (http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/download/ATICW/) to see how the software works on your particular software\hardware configuration.

If you want to obtain the free trial version of Acronis Universal Restore then please submit a request for technical support using Ask a question before you purchase Acronis software (http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/support/) link. Explain your wish to obtain the free trial version of Acronis Universal and provide the link to this thread in your request.

Please visit Acronis online store (http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/sales/online/) to purchase the full version of the product. Note that we have a flexible system of discounts and the amount of the discount varies depending on the number of copies you want to purchase. In case you are planning to purchase many copies, please contact our Sales Team at sales@acronis.com.

If you have any further questions concerning Acronis software, please feel free to submit a request for technical support (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/support/) or post any of them on this forum. We will certainly try to help you in resolving any issues.

Thank you.
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Alexey Popov