Cloned Disk doesn't play nice as non-boot. HELP!

I have an external usb drive and thought I would clone my OS to this drive, then mount it on occasion to update my data files. It seemed like a good plan. If my OS drive crashes not only do I have a HD to drop in right away, but I have my latest mp3s, quicken file, and digital photos.

I cloned the disk, and when I arrived back at my computer everything looked good; there was my cloned disk mounted as drive F:. HOWEVER, once the external drive was turned off I couldn't get the drive to mount. Actually the external drive case wouldn't even turn its "drive active" light on, though I heard the drive running. Until now I've had no problems turning my external drive on and off.

In and attempt to determine if the issue was my drive or external case I installed the newly cloned drive as if it was my real c: drive. The drive fired up and before entering the OS went to a True Image screen (similar to the one that did the actually cloning). I saw a message or two; true image was validating some data and then going to reboot. Once rebooted I entered my OS just fine. I was then able to remove the drive and remount it as an additional external drive, BUT like the first time, once I turned the drive off I wasn't abloe to get the drive to work again. I have a feeling that if I reinsert the drive in my case as the primary boot disk everything will work again....after True image does the weird boot settings.

It seems that whatever unique True Image boot tool has been added to the disk's start up is messing with my drive...at least this is my quess. I really hate the idea of proprietary apps imbedding themselves into something as low level as the OS. (Why can't it just clone the data without adding anything?) I might be completely off base, but when I get a chance tonight I'm going to see if the drive "fixes" itself once inserted as the main boot.

I'm just hoping someone might shead some light into the situation. This is really frustrating and in addition to their backup tool completely failing I'm really starrting to wish I didn't buy this app.

Thanks for the help.
Nathaniel

 

This is the strange part. A clone is an exact replica of the original drive. It should boot right into Windows as the original drive did.

On your original drive, do you have the Acronis TrueImage Startup Recovery Manager enabled and a Secure Zone anywhere?

 

I know I haven't set up a secure zone. Regarding the Startup recovery manager, I don't believe so. All I've done with true image is install the app, attempt a folder backup and then clone my disk. It looks I would have had to walk through a wizard interface to activate the startup recovery manager and I know I didn't do this.

 

OK, if there's no Startup Manager, then the clone should just be identical to your original disk and boot the same way when used in place of the original disk.

When the Startup Recovery Manager is loaded, you will see a brief Press F11 message to... when cold booting your system very early in the boot process. I assume you don't see this.

At this point, I would wipe the external drive by deleting the partion and then partitioning and formatting the drive. Repeat the clone procedure, but disconnect the drive before rebooting so that it is not mounted as F.

Remove the drive from the USB enclosure and replace your original C drive with the clone. It should boot normally into Windows just like your original drive.

Now, if putting it in the USB enclosure and viewing it in Windows causes odd behavior, it's because Windows doesn't like seeing two identical drives, so your plan of updating the files just won't work.

 

Thanks for the reply. Actually I think I'm going to hold out on my current config for a little bit, last night I attempted to turn the drive back on (knowing it wouldn't work since it didn't earlier) and *bamn* it fired right up. Maybe the drive doesn't like the way I'm turning it off without first unmounting it. I'm going to play with that and see if it works. If it still behaves odd I'll definitely give you idea a try.

Thanks for the help.
Nathaniel