Disk Cloning Problems

I downloaded the trial version of True Image and am trying to use it to clone my primary internal drive to a second internal drive that I bought specifically for that purpose. Unfortunately, the clone process doesn't seem to be doing anything. I select the source and destination drives as prompted and eventually get to a point where my system reboots. Upon rebooting / before I get to the login screen, a few tasks run (including an analysis of the drives). After these tasks run, I get a prompt saying the cloning was completed and to click any key to shutdown. Up to this point, only a few minutes had passed, which seemed way too short for the cloning to complete. After shutting down and restarting, a few more tasks ran before I was able to login. After everything had loaded, I checked the 2nd drive and found it in the same state as prior to the cloning -- namely freshly formatted with no data on it from the primary drive.

What am I doing wrong here / what do I need to do in order to cloning working correctly? Saving my primary drive to an image file works without any problems; however, I would like to get cloning working as well.

The source drive in question is a 60 GB Western Digital while the destination is an 80 GB Western Digital.

I'll provide any additional info as needed / requested.

 

If you're cloning to replace the original drive with the larger you must disconnect the old drive and set the new drive to as the boot drive. If you didn't do this then that may account for your issues. XP gets confused if it sees two boot drives. Check out this site; http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm.

 

Actually, I'm not intending to replace the drive. I simply want to clone for DR purposes basically -- if the primary fails, I change the jumper on my secondary drive and off I'm going. The fact that the secondary drive is larger is due to the fact that I wasn't able to locate a 60 GB drive to replace the old 60 GB drive that had failed.

I have been using Ghost, which was able to clone the drive without any problems or disconnecting any cables so I was expecting to encounter similar behavior, which doesn't appear to be the case here.

 

I have what appears to be the same problem. However with one difference. If I unistall Acronis TrueImage and re-install it the drive gets cloned fine. Incidently I have the paid version of 9.

 

Interesting. Perhaps I'll try uninstalling the trial and reinstalling. It would seem odd that this functionality would be disabled in the trial (I've seen nor read anything that gives this indication and it's supposed to be fully functional AFAIK) but I'm not about to pay to find out though either. Maybe I'll try contacting support with this question.

 

I updated my version to the latest last night and then I started seening a message "Warning, Action canceled", just after the message "reboot to continue"

My laptop has a SATA drive and the external HD is also SATA in a USB box.

 

Now that you mention that warning mention, I also received that message as well. I wonder if that is contributing to the problem at hand. My desktop has 2 IDE drives so it shouldn't have any issues with that.

 

Well, I have sent to support this issue and waiting for their reply. There is one other possibility that it might be the USB to IDE/SATA convertor

 

Please keep me posted with any updates. I would like to make the move to TI but would want to see the disk cloning work as I expect first.

 

Hello everyone,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are very sorry for the delay with the response.

If you encounter a problem with Acronis True Image 9.0 Home failing to clone the hard drive then, first of all, please make sure that you use the latest build (3677) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home which is available for downloading in the Product Updates section of your account at Acronis web site.

You can find the full version name and build number by going to Help -> About... menu in the main program window.

To get access to updates you should create an account then log in and use your serial number to register the software.

Please uninstall any previously installed build by following Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs -> Acronis True Image, prior to installing build 3677.

Note that you should create new Bootable Rescue CD after installing the update.

If the problem still persists with the latest build (3677) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home or you cannot update because of using the free trial version then please check each partition of both source and destination hard drives by Windows utility:

- For Windows 9x please use Windows menu Start\Run then enter the command "scandskw" and test all drives;

- For Windows XP please use Windows menu Start\Run, then enter the command "chkdsk c: /r" "chkdsk d: /r" for every partition of your hard drive.

Note that you will need to reboot your computer in order to scan the system partition.

Please also download the latest version of Acronis drivers, install it with disabled logging and see if the problem still persists.

If the problem still persists after checking the hard drives and updating the drivers then please also try cloning the hard drive when your computer is booted from Bootable Rescue CD created using the latest build (3677) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home. Note that the free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home does not allow cloning the hard drive in Acronis Rescue Mode, i.e. when using Bootable Rescue CD or Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. One can clone hard drives when the free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home is running from under Widows only.

Please also note that after the disk cloning is finished you should completely unplug one of the hard drives prior to booting into Windows for the first time, as keeping two hard drives having identical "digital signatures" is unpleasant for Windows and might cause a number of boot or\and drive letter assignment problems (please see this previous thread for details).

If nothing of the above helps then please create Acronis Report and Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post. Please keep both source and destination hard drives connected while creating Acronis Report and Windows System Information.

Please also provide us with the exact text of any warning, error or informational messages that you receive during the attempt to clone the hard drive.

Then please submit a request for technical support. Provide the files and information collected in 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 the most suitable solution as soon possible.

Note that if you didn't purchase the software (using the free trial version) yet then you can submit a request for technical support using Ask a question before you purchase Acronis software link or send a letter directly to support@acronis.com

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Thank you for the response. I am actually working with a support engineer now since I am using the trial version. I feel pretty confident that we'll get to a resolution in due time.