How to install a Backup file on a new HD or another PC?

Hi,

How to install a Backup file on a new HD or another PC?

I made a backup of my whole System (drive C Windows XP using TrueImage 9 and saved the archive which is about 7.5 GB (System Partition C: = 20GB)

My questions are:

1. Is it possible to use this backup archive to install/restore it on another HD or PC? How to prepare the archive for this?
2. Does the new HD and System have to be in same size and configuration?
3. How to save this 7.5GB archive onto DVD?

Thx for help

 

In general, unless the two machines are identical, and equipped with exactly the same hardware down to make and model for each, the image from one machine will not work properly, or even at all in most cases. The most common result is the new machine will endlessly reboot as the drivers that it finds won't work with the hardware it has. There is a different software that can do this more general task.

The new hard drive, however can be bigger or smaller, and the restore process will let you adjust the size of the restore partition as you wish - of course it must be at least as large as the total amount of restored data, about 25% larger than the image file.

There is software that can break any file into pieces small enough to burn to CD's or DVD's, and then put it back together again. The problem is that Acronis must see the whole file again, so you would first have to put the CD's or DVD's back onto a harddrive and then restore from that reconstructed image. Each time you handle it, there is that chance to corrupt it. I wouldn't do it, but some do.

 

Adding to what Wanderings2 provided, if you first set the display adapter to standard VGA before making the image, you improve the chances of having the new system boot. There are lots of other drives that can cause problems, but the display adapter is a major one.

When you make the backup, you can select to split the archive into 4.7GB pieces which can be burned to DVDs. However, the restore will be faster if you restore from a hard drive.

The problem with hardware not matching the backup can be overcome if you have a real Microsoft Windows installation CD. That's not the same as the OEM disk that just puts the computer back to how it was when purchased.

If you have an installation CD with the SETUP command, Google "upgrade in place" and read the Microsoft KB article on how to do this. It will rerun the setup and find the new hardware. You will have to reinstall all the Windows updates after doing an upgrade in place.

Let us know how things work out.

 

The op was also asking about restoring to a new HD, I assume he meant a new HD in the same PC. In that case, there aren't likely to be any problems are there? As an example, I want to do some testing by saving an image of my system partition, then restore it to another drive in the same PC, then boot from this new drive. The current system drive is sata with 3 partitions (small Dell partition, system (C:, 20GB) and data). The drive I want to restore to and then boot from is an old 17GB IDE drive. This is just a test to ensure I can recover to a new drive. Both drives will stay connected to the PC. There shouldn't be any problems in doing this should there?

The IDE drive is currently drive E: When I restore to it should I keep it at drive E: or should I restore as drive C:, then I will have 2 drive C:s, what is the consequence of that? And the volume label of my current system drive is called "System". If I restore to the 17GB IDE drive and keep it as drive E: then does it matter if it has the same volume label as the C: drive.

 

Would appreciate if some ATI experts could provide some input on the questions I raised above. I am not going to buy ATI 2009 unless I can do a succesful restore of a system partition and boot from it. The easiest way for me to do that is as I described above, restoring to another hard drive in the same PC. I'm running under XP SP3 which I believe is not supported (officially anyway). I need to make sure this works before I buy. And before I try it I just need clarification as per my questions above.
Thanks

 

You never want to run 2 identical c: drives in the computer. If you restore your sata drive c: drive into your ide drive e: drive. Your E: drive will now be c: drive. The copy will also have the same label as your original.
Windows xp is very picky on drive letters, if letters don't match are not what they are suppose to be, windows won't boot.
The only way to have 2 identical windows xp on the same hard drive is to dual-boot. this is the only way to get both to boot properly.
True image will easily backup and restore to a different hard drive as long as it's on the same computer, but as soon as you bootup with 2 c: drives you will run into problems.

 

It's a lot better for everyone if you start your own thread rather than "hijack" a thread addressing someone else's problem.

You have an excellent question, it deserves it's own thread, and cb2410 deserves to have his questions answered without interference.

 

OK, I leave the E: drive (the one I'm restoring to) as drive E:, change boot sequence to that drive and boot to it. As far as windows is concerned my system drive will now be E: and C: will just be another drive, no big deal. I can then shut down, change boot sequence back to the original drive and I'm back to the original configuration. When I do the restore to the E: drive it will have the same volume label as C:, is there any problem with that, I expect not but just want to be sure. I guess what I'm doing is not a real life situation as I'm simulating a system drive failure and I should really disconnect the drive where C: lives, but I'd rather leave both drives connected if there is no issue with doing that.

 

Yeah, I thought it might be seen as hijacking but it was a part of a question by the op that hadn't been asnwered and I just expanded on it. It's a fine line sometimes....

 

dclayw,

Your terminology is confusing. See the section on "Drive Letters" in this thread and maybe rephrase your question.

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partbkgd.htm

 

Thanks and you're right, my terminolgy was confusing. I'm OK with the drive letters now, I was confused with that option to assign a drive letter when specifying the restore settings for the partition. But I'm going to take GroverH's advice in his "Partition Restore with Resizing" document where he says:

"Windows should not see both the new and old drives on first boot following a backup restoration or cloning. Disconnect one or the other before first boot otherwise, your system may not boot properly."

So I will make sure I disconnect my current system drive before booting to the new one.

 

Actually, it shouldn't have any problem booting. The problem will be that it will mark one of the drives as not a boot drive. Further it might treat one as the boot and theother as the system drive. So it will jump strat the OS off of one hdrive but look for programs on the other -- and things can get stranger than that.

 

Hello dclayw,

Thank you for your interesting in Acronis True Image

GroverH is right source drive should be removed before the first booting from the destination (cloned) drive. The issue usually takes place if the original hard drive is not removed from the computer before the first boot from the target drive. This happens because Windows gets somehow "confused" while trying to mount the letter for the system partition because it is already associated with the original hard drive.

In this case, please make sure you disconnect the original hard drive while performing the first boot from the target one.

Best regards,
--
Dmitry Nikolaev