Schedule a cloning task

[artmoe]

I had a dilemma this week where my gf jacked up my computer where it would not boot at all. I had just cloned my "C" drive 2 weeks earlier on a separate internal drive that was still installed inside my PC. I hadn't touched that drive since then. I took that drive and replaced it with my jacked up "C" drive and turned the computer on. It started fine. Even the Linux Ubuntu partition I had on that drive worked fine. The only problem I had was it was 2 weeks old. Not that much of a problem but is the reason I'm posting this question here.
Is it possible to set up a schedule to do a cloning on a regular basis, where I don't have to manully start up ATI.
Being able to simply replace the damaged drive with the backed up drive was very, very, easy. And being able to replace it with a very current backed up drive would even be nicer.
Maybe someone could chime in on whether this is even the best solution to what I want. Which is to simply get up and running easily and quickly without having to reinstall Windows and reinstall all the apps and reconfigure Windows the way I like it.

[Tabvla]

Acronis recommend that you don't use the Clone utility as part of an ongoing disaster recovery plan (DRP).

The Clone utility was designed specifically to migrate a "small" system disk to a "big" system disk. Essentially this was to help users who did not have software or the technical know-how to partition disks or setup a boot disk with the necessary MBR and Track 0. The Clone utility should therefore be seen primarily for one-off (or very occasional) use for migrating a system. Users with the technical know-how and experience would in all probability never use the Clone utility because they would probably have other disk management tools that would enable them to set up their disks any way they wanted to.

The recommended procedure for an ongoing DRP is to use the Backup & Restore utilities. Backups using the Backup utility can be scheduled, and most of the more experienced users on this Forum use this procedure as their DRP.

Acronis also recommend that you do not have 2 identical system disks installed in the same PC at the same time. There are some potential issues around doing this, which is beyond the scope of this discussion.

[Acronis Support]

Hello artmoe,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for the delayed response.

Please note that the current version of Acronis True Image does not have the ability to schedule clone procedure. We do not have plans to implement this option if the future and the reasons for that was very good described by Tabvla:

Clone Disk - copies/move the entire contents of one disk drive to another. It is usually uses to migrate the system to a higher-capacity hard disk.

Backup - creates a special archive file for backup and disaster recovery purposes;

There are several advantages of creating an image over the disk cloning procedure such as: you can create an image without rebooting your computer, image creation can be scheduled for the particular point in time, Acronis True Image allows you to create incremental and differential images, image archive contains only the actual data and so it has a smaller size, images are ordinary files and so they can be stored on any type of the supported media, etc. However, the final choice is always up to your needs.

You can find more information on how to use Acronis True Image 9.0 Home in the respective User's Guide.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

[Joe Presto]

But - the beauty of the cloning task is that if there's an emergency, it's easy to get back up and running - just swap drives. For some clients, I'd rather have something simple that forgos the multiple versioning, etc.

Is there any way to at least script off the command line, so it's just a few clicks to create a cloned drive?

Thanks - Joe

[Xpilot]

Originally Posted by Joe Presto

But - the beauty of the cloning task is that if there's an emergency, it's easy to get back up and running - just swap drives. For some clients, I'd rather have something simple that forgos the multiple versioning, etc.

Is there any way to at least script off the command line, so it's just a few clicks to create a cloned drive?

Thanks - Joe

Hello Joe and Artmoe.

The method I use is a combination of imaging and restoring. If you don't mind swapping drives it really does give the best of both ways. The essence is to restore before the breakdown rather than afterwards.

Images are made automatically to schedule. There can then be several generations of backups. The first manual operation after a backup is to swap out the current main hard drive for the previous hard drive and run a restore.

You will thus have, at that point in time, two identical hard drives. The one outside the computer is always as up to date as the last swap over and it is the perfect " ready to go backup".

The actual swap process is trivial if an exchangable drive drawer system is used. By only using internal drives the best speeds are achieved and because backup images are proved by actual restores the optional validation process can be dispensed with.

Of course Artmoe might find it to be easier to swap out his GF

[Bob13]

Gentlemen:

I just spent 5 hours recovering from the damage caused by doing a clone.

I just upgraded to Win XP Pro on a new machine with a 150 gig drive, after several years of using Win 2000 Pro on an 80 gig drive. On Win 2000 the clone function worked like a champ in both directions. Full mirror or full restore in 13 minutes. Unfortunately in XP the clone function saved only my data and folders. All settings and desktop icons were gone.

Looks like I'll be using Image or Backup from now on. I don't understand how they differ yet.

[Tabvla]

The solution as described by Xpilot is in principle (for a single PC or small home network environment) the most cost-effective, convenient and secure solution.

The method can be modified to suit individual circumstances or preferences but the principle remains unchanged. The key elements are:

* Restore images BEFORE a disaster so that it takes minutes rather than hours or days to get back "up-and-running"

* Use removeable drives (Rack and Caddie for IDE or Trayless Rack for SATA)

If you want precise details and links to vendors then please ask. Either Xpilot or I will provide a more specific and detailed Disaster Recovery Plan.