disk image vs. clone

[corinthian]

If a full disk image is restored to a new hard drive, is the end result any different from cloning the old hard drive to the new? Are there any pros/cons?
Bill

[Xpilot]

-{ Quote: "If a full disk image is restored to a new hard drive, is the end result any different from cloning the old hard drive to the new? Are there any pros/cons?
Bill" }-

The final product is the same.

I prefer restoring a full image rather than cloning to a new hard drive because:-

It is how one would recover in a real emergency situation so it is good practise.
The old drive is not in the computer while the recovery takes place so it cannot come to any harm.
There is no possibility of Windows seeing two C drives at the same time and thus avoids any MBR problems.
Re-sizing of partitions can be done but in a different way from cloning. My favourite way is to take up any spare space with a temp. secure zone which when removed allows the space to be allocated to the existing partitions. The whole resizing job only takes a couple of minutes.

Xpilot

[corinthian]

Thanks, XPilot! That tells me that restoring the image will probably have some advantages, especially resizing partitions. So you make the temp secure zone before the original disk image, prior to restoration, I would guess?
Bill

[bVolk]

No, the Secure Zone comes into play only after you have restored the whole disk image of the small drive to the larger one. Such a restoration results in originally-sized partitions plus unallocated space. To assign the unallocated space to the existing partitions, enlarging them so as to take up the whole new disk space, you create a Secure Zone in the unallocated space and then delete the SZ, now assigning it's space to the existing partitions. (I wasn't aware the SZ space could be distributed over more than one partition when it's deleted, but Xpilot knows his SZ inside out.)

The other method is to restore the image to the new drive as partitions restore with resize. You select the first partition and set the new (larger) size for it. Further on you tell the wizard that, yes, you want to restore another partition and you are taken back where you can select the second partition and then resize this one as well. When you have selected (and resized, if required) all the partitions, you jump back the last time to select MBR and Track 0 and finally you click Proceed. If you resized properly there is no unallocated space to deal with.

[bVolk]

Partitions restore with resize also comes very handy when you want to add a new partition to a working drive and you have no special software that does that nondestructively.

In this case you create an image of the drive and restore it's partitions with resize, only this time you resize down, with the purpose to create some unallocated space. Then, with the Windows Disk Management tool, you turn the unallocated space into a new partition. That simple, and performed with the use of tools you are already familiar with.

[corinthian]

Thanks, BVolk.

[bVolk]

You are welcome corinthian,

Moreover, there is another important point I forgot to mention before.

If your old drive had some bad sectors and you restore it's image to the new HD as a whole disk restore, the corresponding sectors on the new disk will be marked as bad too, though unjustly so.

If, on the other hand, you restore the image to the new drive as a partitions restore with resize (with the MBR also included), the bad sector flags won't get transferred to the new disk. To obtain this benefit, every partition has to be resized - even by a small amount (in the case when an effective change of size for a particular partition was not wanted).

[corinthian]

BVolk, that last post seems like it will be quite useful. May I ask you and/or Xpilot ( or other helpful experienced folks!) another question about disc restoration? I now have an image made to my external hard drive. I had been doing some testing and had been able to mount an image, copy and/or restore individual files from this image. I have also been able to do this either under normal Windows XP or using the Acronis rescue boot disk that I made under version 3677. I'm now ready to try my first image restore from this external hard drive to a new larger hard drive using the resizing techniques that you have mentioned.

So all I'm wondering now is, will I be able to simply remove my old hard drive and connect in its place the new larger never used hard drive, and using the Acronis boot disk, restore the disc to this empty, non-formatted hard drive? I have done cloning before without any problems, but that of course required me to have two hard drives connected at the same time, and switching them back and forth after the cloning. It was just wondering if I needed to do anything of that nature when doing a restore rather than a clone?

I have seen reference to "bare metal restore" at the Acronis website. Is this what I would be doing by disconnecting an empty hard drive in place of my old hard drive and trying to restore to it? And is this something that Acronis true image 9 home can do, or does it require one of the more industrial-strength versions of the software?

Thanks for any more information that you have time to provide.
Bill

[Xpilot]

In short YES.
That is a full recovery, bare metal restore or call it what you will. Doing it to a replacement drive is just about the safest operation you can do . If you make any wrong choices just as the strict teacher says " Do it again till you get it right" !

Have fun

Xpilot

[corinthian]

Thanks, Xpilot. Well, here goes!
Bill