Cloned Instead of Transferring Files

I purchased Acronis True Image 9.0 (build 2,323) for ease of use (or so I thought) to transfer all my files onto a new external hard drive (WD MyBook Essential Edition 250 GB). Well, I chose "Clone" from Acronis to my new external HD and after really, really looking at the explanation for that, I found out it wasn't what I intended. I only wanted to duplicate what was on my desktop HD and put everything from there onto the new external HD. How can I revert back to the beginning and just put all my desktop files (entire backup) onto the external hard drive? I am using WIN-XP SP2.

I jumped into deep water without a life preserver when I saw "Clone" because, to me, clone meant a copy of something and assumed that it meant all files from my hard drive. After the fact, I am now under the impression that my external hard drive is the drive that runs my system. How can I start from scratch and do it correctly? I want my desktop hard drive to be primary and my external hard drive to be there as backup just in case something happens to my desktop. Can I do this now since I goofed? And, if so, can you direct me please, please, please. Thank you.

 

You need to use Backup instead of Clone. Are you saying that your system is now booting from the external drive? In any case, disconnect it, and start the computer. From the installed Acronis software make the bootable Rescue CD. When done, reconnect the external, boot the system with the CD you just made and use Backup from the menu to make a compressed Image of your system hard drive on to the external drive.

Clone does mean copy as you say ... but it is usually used when upgrading to a larger drive. Clone creates a bootable drive that is just like the drive you cloned. Whereas when you make a Backup Image a compressed file is created which must undergo the Recovery process to a drive before making that drive bootable like the original.

 

I disconnected the external HD, rebooted my desktop and it started with no problem. I am so leery about reconnecting the HD because I am unsure of my limited abilities. When I installed Acronis, I did make a bootable disc. Because my main system boots as it did before my mistake, should I do what you have suggested (reboot with bootable disc, etc.).

 

You didn't say what size your system drive is. You should also now reconnect the external drive, now that you have verified that the system drive still boots, and see if in My Computer the external still shows as being 250Gb - it will actually show a little less, maybe around 235Gb. The reason being that some users have found that after a Clone procedure has been carried out, the newly cloned drive shows a size equivalent to the system drive. For example if your system drive is 80Gb, the cloned drive becomes 80Gb also and there are steps to be done to reclaim the missing space.

So please boot up your system with the external connected and report back what size the external is now showing.

 

My extra drive doesn't show up under My Computer.

 

Once your computer is started up, you can reconnect your external USB hard drive. I would then reformat your external USB hard drive, so you won't have any more problems.

Now all you have to do is use True image to make image backups of your c: system partition and save that to your external hard drive. Any image backups you do of a system partition is automatically bootable, only when you restore it to a new hard drive.

Just make sure you remember when you restored your image to another hard drive, that the partition on the new hard drive is 1gb larger than your image backup. Example if your saved image partition backup is 20gb, you need to restore onto a 21gb partition, this will prevent drive letter changes in windows xp. (drive letter changes will prevent the new hard drive from booting up).

I would stay away from doing any more clones,
1. it takes too long to backup and restore
2. no reason to backup the entire hard drive everytime.
3. the possibility of erasing your original drive exists while cloning, if you check the wrong box.

The image backups you do are compressed and when saved on your external hard drive, leaves alot of room to store more data on the external drive.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=178417&highlight=hard drive erased

 

I disconnected the external hard drive, shut down, rebooted with the extra drive in and it isn't recognized. I will try it now without the external drive inserted in the USB drive and then plug it in after anothe reboot.

 

Still nothing is recognized when I open My Computer. However, I go to the "Safely remove hardware icon" at the bottom of my screen, and it shows "WD 2500JB External USB Device in Location 0"

 

R-click My Computer, choose Manage, then Disk Management. Does the external drive show up in the right hand pane?

 

It is not listed in the upper part of the screen (under volume) however, it is in the lower part as Disk 2 with 232.8 GB Unallocated.

 

Okay, that's True Image up to its old tricks again. When you did the Clone on it, for some reason it didn't take and left the entire drive with unallocated space. You have to format the drive and I'm not sure if that can be done in that Disk Managment window.

In that lower part where it shows as Disk 2, try r-clicking on the unallocated space and see if there is a Format feature in the menu that comes up. If there is, go ahead and format it. If not, I'm not sure what will work to format it. I've never had to format as large a drive as a 250Gb. Someone else will suggest something.

 

No, there isn't a "format" to be found when I r-clk. I am so upset now. A brand new external hard drive, a recent purchase of Acronis and I don't know what to do. I appreciate your time in trying to help.

 

Glorya, you have a very old and buggy build of TI9. Register the software at www.acronis.com and download either build 3677 or B3854. Uninstall B2323 and install one of the two I recommend. Make a new Rescue CD from the newly installed version. Boot from the Rescue CD and see if your external HD is recognized.

 

Ah, but of course <slaps forehead> how could I miss that you have an old build of version 9. Thanks for jumping in and catching that Tom. Let us hope the bootable True Image CD will see the external drive.

 

I deleted the old build and reinstalled 9.0 Build 3854, make a bootable disk (or so I thought). I shut down and put the disk in my E drive and no booting from that disk. After getting my PC running, I checked My Computer and Acronis was in my E drive but nothing related to my external HDD. Wow, that new build was sure a big one. Anyway, I am back at square one. I went to Disk Management and MyBook (G It is shown below as Disk 1 down below.

 

Did you mean to add an image to your post? Is the E: drive your CDROM drive and is the BIOS set to boot from the CD drive?

 

Glorya meant that in Disk Management, the external drive that was supposed to have been cloned, shows up at the lower part of the DM window as being unallocated.
I've notice that when True Image doesn't complete a process it leaves the target drive totally unallocated, which is how it is with Glorya's My Book external drive.
Now it needs to be re-formatted. Can you suggest an easy way to do this?
Would the "Add New Disk" feature format the drive? I've never had to use an entirely unallocated disk (or brand new drive) with True Image.

 

If Disk Management is showing the drive in the lower pane as unallocated, then right-click that drive and choose "create partition" (or something very like that, I don't have any unallocated space right now). After it has created the partition, right-click again and choose "format".

Mike

 

Thank you for pointing that out ... I kinda had a feeling that it could be done.

 

Well I wrote again to Western Digital (WD) for help in restoring my external drive on which I used Acronis. They had me download a program to wipe the drive clean. I used WD's program to write 0's to my entire external drive which took almost 3 hours. Imagine my surprise when I accessed my external through disk management (my PC still can't see my external) that the drive is the same way it was before I used WD's program. I have sent another email to WD. I was so distraught I forgot to tell them about the inability of my PC to recognize the external drive. That is soooooooo important. I am at a complete standstill now. I want to throw the drive and Acronis program out the window. It has caused other problems on my PC also.Below is what I sent to WD. What can the problem be


I followed the instructions in the download and it took about 2-3/4's hours when I chose Write Zeros so I could reformat my hard drive. After, when I went to disk management under My Computer, it still shows that there is still allocated and unallocated space and has Disk 0 and Disk 1, with disk one showing 232.88 unallocated and disk two showing three areas: 55MB Health, (C)70.71GB NTFS Health System, and 3.74GB unallocated. Both areas (Disk 0 and Disk 1) unallocated have black bars above them the others have blue bars.

Now, since I wrote 0's to the external drive, shouldn't this all be gone? I did use Acronis 9.0 True Image when I initially did the external drive. Would that be a problem? But shouldn't everything have been erased when I wrote the 0's and my external hard drive just have one area with 250GB's

 

Glorya, have donwloaded and use the formatting utility for your drive found at http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?cxml=n&pid=18&swid=34. Description: This utility formats your Western Digital external hard drive back to it's original FAT32 partition and format.

 

No, I downloaded the Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows which is the tool that Western Digital suggested to my question:
How do I reformat MyBook Essential? I want it wiped clean as it was when I purchased it

This is the response from WD

Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support.

If the data has already been backed up, I would run our Windlg program and "Write Zeros" to the hard drive. If you do not already have this program, it can be downloaded from our website at http://support.wdc.com/download. Download Data Lifeguard for Windows to your desktop and run the " Write Zeros" program. Once the hard drive has been wiped clean, try to recreate your NTFS partition under Disk Management

 

Did you try what was suggested by wenglish in message #18?

 

I think sometimes you also have to right-click on the left side (where the little disk icon is and the disk #) in Windws Disk Management and select Initialize drive before you can use it.

 

I don't remember! I am in such a tizzy back and forth with the help I have been getting I am thoroughly confused. The only thing I would like to reiterate is that it still shows two separate disks (0 and 1) both of which belong to my external drive. My external hard drive has a total of 250GZ and it is divided into the two Disks. I don't want that!

There is still allocated and unallocated space and has Disk 0 and Disk 1, with disk one showing 232.88 unallocated and disk two showing three areas: 55MB Health, (C)70.71GB NTFS Health System, and 3.74GB unallocated. Both areas (Disk 0 and Disk 1) unallocated have black bars above them the others have blue bars.