Advice/instructions needed

Hello,

OK; I know this post will infuriate some, however I am hoping to find a sympathetic member who is willing to help; I simply do not have time to scour the web, the forums, the manuals, etc. and play around with trial and error. I have to get this right the first time.

Tomorrow, the Geek Squad will be taking my laptop (home/business/lifeline) and shipping it to G-d knows where for repair.

I have two problems...one, I feel the need to wipe the harddrive clean for privacy reasons; and two, I will need a replacement machine for the two-three weeks while the laptop is gone.

I have TI8.0 and have an image created (also have Iomega Automatic Backup Pro both on an external HD).

What is my best shot of an easy and safe recovery when the laptop returns? What should I do now to insure this?

Second, what can I do in the meantime? Can I upload/restore my harddrive onto my desktop and use it as if it were the laptop?

I know I can access my files on the external, but what about programs (HomeSite+, WS_FTP Pro, UltraEdit, etc.)?

I am sure I can survive while it is gone; I am mainly concerned with the restore working without a hitch.

I know the software works from all the success stories I read here, however I do not want user error on my part (or simply forgetting to do a specific task) to cause failure.

Please, if you don't mind taking the time, I would really appreciate your knowledge and exerience.

Thanking you in advance for your kind response,

Aaron

 

If you image your entire C drive you should be able to restore it when the Laptop returns. As for imaging your laptop to your desktop You might try it but I'm highly doubtful it will work. I believe it would work for similar hardware configs but laptop to desktop is stretching it real far. You might also have to use SYSPREP to remove your machine ID which is beyond my understanding. Good luck!

 

Hi, emsAARON

Welcome to Wilders and Acronis Forums.

make sure the Image you have created is of the Full HDD [all Partitions] and that you also verified the Image.

You do not say what OS you are using so I will assume it is XP.

It is possible to do what you want to do, but you will need to do a Repair Install because the Because the Abstraction Layer of the Laptop will be different to thet of the Desktop, please see this old post which is similar to what you are wanting to do:- #2

Take Care,
TheQuest

 

For this you want to erase everything on the disk. Do a Google for "Darik's Boot & Nuke" which will do just that.

As stated by others, make sure the image is of the entire hard drive not just the bootable C partition. Use the Check Image to confirm that you have a good image. Restore this image when the notebook is returned to you. Of course, you might want to make an image of the returned notebook since it will have a clean installation of the operating system.

Use the image or other copies to access your data. Trying to restore the image to another computer that isn't essentially identical is likely to be very unsatisfactory.

Make an image of your Desktop, install any programs that are on the notebook and not on the Desktop from their original installation disks. After you get the notebook back and running, you can restore the image of the Desktop to put it back to it's normal configuration.

 

Awesome...I am feeling better now.

First I will...

I have XP Home on the laptop and XP Pro on the desktop

The repair install seems too messy for me. I think I can survive by simply accessing the data files from backup and installing any software I will need on the desktop. (I hope I do not have any licensing issues)

I will look into that...thanks. I have Ace Utilities and Spybot S&D. Both have some kind of file erasers. I will also see if they will work for an entire HD.

Great idea!

I have been reading about a Boot Disk...should I have this too?

I really appreciate the great advice and so fast too.

 

"Boot Disk" - dear child has many names.

I am not sure what the official Acronis term is, but I think the program to create it is called something like "True Image Rescue Media Builder". This media builder can create a bootable CD (or a bunch of diskettes) with a special, stand-alone version of True Image. I prefer to call this CD for a "True Image Rescue CD", or simply "Rescue CD" when discussing it in this forum.

Since it is a stand-alone version of TI it can be used to create & restore images when no operating system is installed on the disk(s) - very handy in case of a total disk failure, or a totally damaged and un-repairable operating system, or when you want to create/restore images without interfering from the on-disk operating system. And while True Image is able to make images of a running system (most of the time anyway), I personally feel better and more secure when I can image my system without having Windows peeking and poking about in the background, so for that reason alone I use the Rescue CD extensively.

 

Hi, MiniMax

I agree 100% with you there MM no interference from anything.

Take Care,
TheQuest

 

Thanks MiniMax,

I have not done anything as yet. So I should create a "Rescue CD", boot from that...then create an Image of the Full HDD [all Partitions] and also verify the Image.

I should then be confident in erasing my personal data (using some type of shredder software) and send her away.

When she returns, I can boot from the "Rescue CD" and restore the image.

I think I've got it now.

Thank you so much...all of you.

Aaron

 

OK, I am ready start stripping this laptop.

However, I noticed when I ran the Image creation from the Rescue/Boot CD it took over two hours...is this normal. Also, during I got a "sector 9306 error on harddrive 0". I hit "retry" and it continued on. The image verified OK.

Wish me luck!

Thanks for everyones help on this.

Aaron

 

Hello everyone,

I have my laptop back...finally.

So, I rebooted from the rescue CD and I am in the process of restoring the entire HD.

When that is complete I will be restoring my backup files from my external HD which I have been using will the laptop was away.

Thanks sooooo much to all those generous and knowledgable posters that were willing to take time to share their experiences with me.

Aaron

 

Thanks for the nice words, Aaron, and thanks for the progress report.

However ... I want to see the bear alive and well after you have put the skin back on before celebrating

 

After you restore the image to the new drive, be sure to run ErrorChecking. You want to correct any problems with the bad sector from the old image.

 

I am glad you brought that up. I received the same error when restoring. I hit retry and it continued on until complete.

I was able to overwrite all the files with the most recent on my external and everything is beautiful.

I ran WinXP disk-check on the external to find the error (it finished-not sure if it did anything).

I am able to "error check" the back up, but how do I error check the restored drive?

Aaron

 

Open Windows Explorer. Right click on the C drive and select Properties. Click on the Tools tab. Under Error Checking click the Check Now button. Click both boxes to check them then click Start. Windows will tell you that the check will be run the next time Windows starts. Reboot and let the full test run.

This is a good thing to do once in a while. I always run ErrorChecking but without checking either box before creating an image. If there are errors found, I run the full check by rebooting before making the image. If there are not errors, I run DiskCleanup, Defrag and make the image.