Cloning pcs

Hi-i have three identical pcs and want to clone one of them to the other two.I cannot work out how to do this with Acronis. It says I cannot clone as I have only one disc in each pc. Thanks

 

You need a hard disk that you can move from one machine to the others. If the disk you want to clone is the system disk then you can clone it, using the TI boot disk, to a second harddisk then move that second hard disk to another machine and use it as the system disk.

If I wanted to clone to two other machines; I'd get a spare hard disk. Clone the first disk to it. Then move it to the other machines and restore the image to the system disk in each machine.

I'd want a spare hard disk on which to save backup images in case a drive fails. If each PC is going to have a diff image over time, I'd want a second drive in each machine onto which to save backup images. If all the drdives will be the same, one backup disk will do if it is easily moved form one machine to the next.

sh

 

Thanks schieber-nice of you to get back to me.I have a further query- is it not possible to use a dvd to clone onto and then move between machines?

 

You would probably soon have a hard drive that is larger than what would fit on a DVD. In any case I do not think one can CLONE to a DVD. You can IMAGE to a DVD though. There is a difference.

Much better to stick with the external hard drive as Shieber suggests, then if you want the extra insurance of having the images on DVD media, you could burn the image you have on the external, on to DVD media. But to do this you have to make sure to split the images into DVD sized chunks BEFORE you make the images on the external.

 

Hello hotcosmonaut,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

First of all, please note that there are two approaches available:

Clone Disk - moves the entire contents of one disk drive to another;

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

Please take a look at this FAQ article explaining the difference between Clone Disk and Backup approaches in more detail.

Thus you can accomplish your goal using one of the following methods:

1.) Create an image of the original computer's entire hard drive (read more in sections 1.3 and 4.3 of Acronis True Image 9.0 User's Guide) saving it to any type of the supported removable media (e.g. CD, DVD, external hard drive, etc.). Boot each computer you want to restore this image to from Acronis True Image 9.0 Bootable Rescue CD, gain access to the removable media and restore the image.

Please note that according to Acronis software licensing policy, you should purchase one copy of Acronis program per every computer where it will be used (the same applies to Bootable Rescue CD). In other words, you should purchase as many licenses as many computers you plan to recover from your beforehand created "master" image.

2.) Connect the other computer's hard drive to the original machine and then perform the disk cloning procedure (read more in chapter 7 of the above mentioned User's Guide). As soon as the disk cloning process is finished, turn off the computer, unplug the destination disk and install it in the PC it was initially taken from.

Please be aware that you should unplug one of the hard drives right after the disk cloning process has been finished, since keeping both source and destination hard drives connected might cause different boot or drive letter assignment problems.

Please also note that the software licensing policy in this case is as follows:

- If you are able to connect all the destination hard drives to the original PC at once then you should purchase only one license;

- Otherwise, you should purchase as many licenses of Acronis True Image as many times you will need to unplug\plug the hard drives in order to perform the disk cloning process (this only applies in case you plan to use these hard drives on another machines).

Please be aware that using Acronis True Image 9.0 you can clone the hard drive to another hard drive only. It does not allow you to clone the hard drive to DVD or any other media. However, using Acronis True Image 9.0 you can create an image of your hard drive saving it to DVD.

Please also note that the current version of Acronis True Image doesn’t write to DVD directly, instead it utilizes third party UDF packet DVD writing software.

You can find more information on how to write your images to DVD in this FAQ article.

Please also note that the ability to write images to DVD directly will be implemented in the future builds\versions of a particular software, but exact time frame is not decided yet.

If you have any further questions concerning Acronis software, please feel free to submit a request for technical support or post any of them on this forum. We will certainly try to help you in resolving any issues.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

I do cloning using an eSATA device.

Even if your PC doesn't have a SATA controller, you can install an eSATA PCI card. If the card and external closure support hot-swap, then you can swap drives in and out without shutting down.

There are several vendors that make controllers/enclosures for this purpose and they are quite reasonable in price. The vendor I use is Addonics - and have been very pleased with their value/performance.