cloning.

I have AcronisTI8 and have been cloning my 'C'drive I now want clear some stuff off my 'c' but still retain it on my external does this
mean I will have to cease cloning.? what method do I use to back up so that I don't lose the stuff I clear away?
Hope this is clear to understand.

 

If I understand you correctly you made a clone of C on your external drive and now you want to modify C. If you modify C your data will be on your external UNTIL you clone C to it again. After this cloning, the external drive will have a copy of the current C and your "old" files will be gone.

This being the case, you have come across why cloning is not a good way to do backups - you can only have one copy on the destination drive.

Make images of C and you can store as many images as will fit on your external drive. Be sure you validate your image after creating to get some confidence in it if this is the first time you have made images. Also, mount the image and see if you can explore the files contained in it. The most reliable way of confirming a backup is to do a restore to a spare drive!

 

Thanks
it's a little clearer can I put an image straight onto a cloned drive?

 

Hi, coldstreamer.

Why would one store an image on a cloned drive?

That would be like taking a picture of a picture, then xerox copying that picture and putting the xerox copy in the frame and displaying it proudly on your mantle.

Maybe there's a terminology issue here.

 

what I meanmy external drive is cloned do I need to format it before I do an image

 

Ah, I see. I suppose you wouldn't HAVE to reformat, but reformatting your external drive would probaly be the most efficient means of doing away with the drive clone and beginning to use it for images. If you prefer to keep the cloned image and available space is not an issue then I suppose you could leave the drive as is assuming it's already in a compatible and acceptable format.

NTFS format is probably your best bet, IMO, unless you will have other files on the drive that must be accessed by software that can only access FAT type formatted partitions. If it's currently FAT32, for instance, and you would rather use NTFS, you're better off using a destructive FORMAT rather than CONVERT, especially for sizable drives such as externals usually are.

 

cleared the drive that was the easy bit, struggling setting up the image.

 

That shouldn't be a struggle, coldstreamer, but it's been a loooong time since I did it for the first time. What 's the problem ?

 

when I try to set up the image it shows my 'C' drive which has a small partition'D' and my external 'G' which is empty.My 'C' is highlighted but when I press the next button it says I'm trying to image to the same disc. I seem to remember having this same problem when I first set up cloning a couple of years ago but can't recall the answer, old age affecting memeory.

 

I have just been trying again but no joy, disc is not shown in my PC but shows up in computer management and device manager.The drive is in a caddy and fits into a spare bay, will it not appear because it is empty?

 

Don't be so quick to judge; you jsut have to think about this to understand why it can be useful. First of all a clone can be a fast way of getting up and running is your ssy drive crashes.

Subsequently putting images on it means you can restore later sys drive images but still have the ability to plug in the drive to be instantly up and running should the original sys drive fail.

Lots of folks make a clone and then make image files. Doing them both on one drive can be useful if you don't have a lot of drives for backup storage.

One might ask why make clones if you're making images or vice versa, but given the sense of doing that, and a number of people see value in doing that, ding it o9n e one drive isn't a valueless technique.
sh

 

shieber, i asked why one would store an image ON a cloned drive ? You did not address that question. I have judged only what I read, NOT what you described. Perhaps YOU have judged too quickly.

So, are you saying there is value in cloning a drive, unplugging the original drive, plugging in the clone drive and then creating and image ON the cloned drive, and then unplugging the cloned drive which contains an image, and plugging back in the original drive and now you have a much more secure image stored on the cloned drive ?

That's belts and suspenders at the very least. If I want belts and suspenders, I backup or image with multiple programs, I don't store copies inside of copies.

THere's nothing wrong with both coloning AND imaging, but storing an additional image WITHIN a clone seems a bit redundant with no added security.

 

crofttk
I am back to square again,could not do anything after I cleared my drive'G' have re-cloned and my drive has now been recognised., but still want to image.

 

OK, coldstreamer, since you are at square one, I will get back there with you. Let me summarize and you tell me if I have the picture wrong anywhere:

1. You want to make an IMAGE of your C: drive.
2. You want to create that image on your G: drive.
3. Your G: drive is a USB2 external hard drive with one large G: partition and nothing on it - you have cleared it.
4. Something is going wrong when you attempt to image your C: to your G: drive, i.e., the G: drive is not showing up in Acronis True Image.

First, let me know if any of that picture is incorrect.

Here is a picture of the steps I would see you taking:

(1): You select "Backup"
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v351/crofttk/Step1.jpg
THEN,
(2): You select "The entire disk contents or individual partition" and click "Next"
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v351/crofttk/Step2.jpg
THEN,
(3): You select "Disk 1" for backup -- You may only have C: drive on your Disk 1. If you have other drives on Disk 1, it's easiest to recover if you backup the whole Disk 1. Even if you only have C: Drive, it's better to select "Disk 1", and click "Next
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v351/crofttk/Step3.jpg
THEN,
(4) You select the Drive (and Folder, if you want) where you want to create the image and type in a name for the image. Here, I have selected the "Acronis Backups" folder on my I: drive. The I: drive is my external USB2 hard drive, like your G: drive, right ? I am naming my image "CDriveImage" -- then click "Next"
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v351/crofttk/Step4.jpg

Now, I will stop with the step-by-step and ask: Is this how you do things up until this point? Or, does something go wrong somewhere in these steps? Are you saying that your external drive "G:" does not show up in the 4th step, above ? Does it show as Disk 2, or at all, in the 3rd step, before that ?

 

I cleared my clone off 'G' but then the dirve never appeared on my PC cloned again it then reappeared. My 'G' drive is in a caddy and slots into a spare bay when I clone.None of the diagrams match the ones in my Acronis8. Don't ask for copy of them don't know how.this is what appears;
create image restore image
explore image unplug image

disc clone add new disc
schedule task
Thanks for your patience.

 

Exactly how are you going about "clearing" the clone off of your G drive?

If the G drive is not formatted after it's been cleared, it's not going to show up much of any place.

 

You hit the nail on the head I've been puzzling how I did it originally formatting which I am now doing. Short term memory loss happens a lot when you reach 21x anyway it's well on the road now.

 

That's great, coldstreamer! I was starting to question my own faculties there for a bit, I just couldn't quite grasp where you were at much less how ya got there !

 

Been out bowling. All finished now drive 'G' has 149GB unallocated.
I have 10GBs of music and photos on my 'C' which I want to move and then erase from 'C'

 

Did you intend to use Acronis True Image to image or back them up to get them off of C: ?

You should consider that photos and, generally, music (unless in some lossless formats) will not compress much and there may be little to gain by storing them in an image file as opposed to just moving them as is to the external drive using Windows Explorer. But you may have good reason to do otherwise and I wouldn't know -- I just thought I'd mention it.

 

I don't know which is the simplest?

 

That depends on how well you have the photos and music organized and how comfortable you are using Windows Explorer to move stuff around. The benefit of simply moving them to the external drive is that they will be more or less instantly accessible to your graphics or audio program(s).

If moving the files with Windows Explorer is not clear cut to you, you may well find it simpler to "image them off" to the external drive. But the drawback is having to extract the photos or music from the image if you want to use them.

You'll be the only good judge of which to do, coldstream.

 

Don't have a problem using Explorer I think so will give it a whirl. i presume that when I start to image my other stuff my photos, music will not be affected.

 

I have bitten the bullet and imaged my 'C' drive didn't use any compression feeling chuffed.

 

If you move the photos and music off onto G Drive, then IMAGING to G will not affect them. If you were to CLONE, however, then it would write over top of them. Stick to the imaging. Cloning is for when you have an entire drive dedicated to it.