Help to understand , please

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by rayh78, Feb 6, 2007.

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  1. rayh78

    rayh78 Registered Member

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    Still do not understand the difference between Cloning or Imageing
    Both give you and exact copy right?
    Imageing for backup
    Cloneing for moveing all data to a new disk?
    seems you could use both to do the same

    Thanks
     
  2. Ralphie

    Ralphie Registered Member

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    Cloning gives you an immediately bootable hard drive exactly like the original.
    Imaging gives you a compressed image of the original and you have to Restore/Recover that image to a hard drive before it becomes bootable.
     
  3. thomasjk

    thomasjk Registered Member

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    Yes you can use either but Cloning is typically used to migrate to another disk. Cloning makes an exact copy of your entire drive and copies it to the new drive. Imaging the drive creates an image of all the in use sectors on your hard drive and stores it as a file where ever you choose, ext hd, DVD etc. A complete disk image which is the most commonly used can also be restored to a new hard drive if needed. With imaging you can also backup partitions only or the complete drive. Cloning can't do this. IMHO imaging is more flexible.
     
  4. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    It's confusing because of the silly use of jargon in technical industries and marketing. Perfectly ordinary things are given "new" names t make them sound special or diff or to make the speakers sound "expert."

    Cloning is making one drive look just like the other, with the very same content (that is, same partitions, formatting, all the files, etc.

    Once you have cloned a drive, you have a twin ready to use. You can't have two clones on one drive anymore than two human twins can be in the same body.

    Everything else other than cloning is copying what's on one drive or partition, or directory into one big file so you can use that backup file later to copy back the drive contents (or partition contents or directory contents). Such a backup file (sometimes confusingly and for no really good reason called an "image") can be copied to any drive it will fit on, and you can have on a drive as many backup files (image files) as will fit.

    It's only hard to understand because guidebook/manual writers lack skill at explaining. I do too, but I'm an amateur; they get paid for it ;-)


    good luck,
    It
     
  5. rayh78

    rayh78 Registered Member

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    So it sounds like if I buy a external hard drive and only want to backup one PC the cloning would be better. If a PC problem just boot from the external drive. Reformat the internal drive and clone that to the external to get back to were I need.

    With imageing you have to reley on the software to restore and could have a problem. But this way you can backup just as much info of your system but can to it to a file on another PC or can backup of 2 PCs on one external hard drive.

    But I guess the imageing is more easy just not quite as safe.

    DoI understand this right?
    Thanks
     
  6. Ralphie

    Ralphie Registered Member

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    I don't think there are any motherboards yet that are capable of booting a usb hard drive into Windows. I would love to be proved wrong as I'm looking for this feature.
    If your internal develops a problem, you have two options depending on the kind of backup you made:

    If you did a Clone, you would have to remove the cloned drive from its external enclosure and put it in place of the internal, OR if you replaced the bad internal with yet another hard drive, you would then do a Clone from the external to the new internal drive.

    If you have a backup Image on the external you would replace the bad internal with another drive then boot with the bootable Rescue cd (hope you made one) and use the Recover feature to make the new internal bootable like the old drive was.
     
  7. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    I thought it was a Windows restriction not a HW restriction. I believe I have seen some posts somewhere where people have done it but it requires some fiddling.
     
  8. Ralphie

    Ralphie Registered Member

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    I really don't know the reason, but so far I've not needed the feature - but it would be nice to have.
     
  9. rayh78

    rayh78 Registered Member

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    maybe I am making this to complicated for me but is this a good idea or would you do different.
    Hava an external drive on order and have 2 PCs on my home network.
    So use the external drine as a clone on my important PC.
    And just do a image backup for each PC to the other PC.

    Is this best?
    Also would I be able to get to my home network to connect to other PC with just the recovery CD and then could get to the image for a full restore

    Thanks again
     
  10. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    I would just use the USB to store images of the 2 PCs regardless which one is the "important" one. You can also create or copy the image of one PC onto the other PC giving you 2 locations for both machines which is a good idea. You will also be able to make a number of images and store them on the USB. Cloning only gives you the last clone and thus is very inefficient as far as making good use of the space.

    Yes, you should be able to boot the TI recovery CD and find your other PC on the network. As always, I strongly suggest you actually test this and any other recovery mechanism out before you need it to make sure it works with your NIC and you know how to do it.
     
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