clone or image?

i have tried to restore an image with ti10 and after 6 hours it did nothing!
i have since rearranged my drives and have a wd160gb internal(master) and a wd160gb in a removable drawer(slave). i also back-up or image to a wd120gb usb drive as i always have.
now, since i can't seem to recover from the usb drive i thought i would clone the master to the slave. can this be done without repercussions?

 

You wouldn't know if it can be done until you try it. TI is so finicky with the hardware it encounters. But you have all the resources to do a non-destructive Restore so go ahead and try it. Only one suggestion: do all of your Backups/Recovery/Clones using the bootable Rescue CD which you have to make after installing the software. In the event of a major failure of your hard drive, you'll be relying on that CD to Restore your system, so it's better to find out now if it will work.

 

Hello rc_pilot,

You have what I regard as the perfect hardware combination for making reliable, safe and fast backups and restores.
However some rearrangement should be done to get the best out of it.
Make your master drive removable instead of the slave.
Take the USB HD out of its enclosure and put it in as a fixed slave drive.
Your removable slave will now become a removable master drive.

You will be able to make scheduled backup images to the fixed internal drive. These should be run while booted into Windows and you do not even have to be present during the process.

Instead of running image verifications you should run a restore instead.
Remove your master drive after it has been imaged and before making any changes. Insert your second master drive and retore the latest image to it having booted from the recovery CD.

You will now have the perfect backup of your main drive safe in its removable drawer,it is after all the drive that was in use a few minutes ago. You will also have a proven image of your main drive and over time you will accumulate several generations of proved images.

Doing imaging and restores direct from one internal drive to another is by far the fastest and least complicated way to use TI. My restores of 15 GB or so on a rather slow old computer take about 10 minutes.

I have been working this way for some time now and I have three main drives in drawers in the mix for extra security.

Xpilot

 

Hello rc_pilot,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for the delayed response.

Ralphie and Xpilot gave you very good advices. I would also like to post so of them. Please take a look at this FAQ article explaining the difference between Clone Disk and Backup approaches in more detail.

Actually, Clone Disk approach is usually used to upgrade the hard drive (e.g. install a larger disk), while Backup approach is basically dedicated for the complete data backup and disaster recovery purposes. Since you are interested in backing up your hard drive for the disaster recovery purposes, I would recommend you to follow Backup approach.

As for the issue you have experienced:

Could you please describe it in more details?

- Please explain your step-by-step actions which you took that led you to this issue;

- Did you use Acronis True Image Bootable Rescue Media or did you use Acronis True Image in Windows to restore the image archive?

- Have you received any error messages? What exact error messages? When exactly have you received them?

- Did the restoration process finish after 6 hours or did you cancel the restoration?

Please also send us the log file from Acronis True Image 10.0 Home that contains the image restoration results. In order to do so please do the following:

- run the program;

- select Show log on the toolbar or from the Tools menu;

- select the log with error messages;

- click "Save the log entry to file" (the diskette icon)

Then submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov