new hard drive help

hello all. I currently have an old 40gig hard drive in my desktop that I would like to retire and install a new 160gig in its place. I have TI v 10.0 installed on my computer and I also have a 160 gig external drive available. Can someone please offer advice and step-by-step instructions on how to do this? I would prefer to not spend 2-3 days re-installing programs if not nessessary. I am new to this and NOT a very technical person. thanks in advance.

Windows XP home
dell dimension 4300-512mb RAM
Seagate external drive 160 gig

 

Read chapter 13 of the userguide. It explains how to do what you want http://download.acronis.com/pdf/TrueImage10.0_ug.en.pdf.
One caveat: After cloning disconnect the old drive and set the new one as master then restart the machine. These guides may also help https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=168165.

 

Geeeez. Confused now. I did read the manual that refers to "Cloning". Reference to using the "automatic" feature also. However, after looking thru the forum, I can find several posts that reccomend NOT cloning but rather "imaging" and restoring; then booting w/ a recovery disk. Does "imaging" refer to a regular backup? TI really needs to address the issue of having a diffenitive proceedure for this. I do not wish to my new disk broken up into smaller partitions; just 1 large drive would be OK. Please need simple plain english direction. thank you

 

Your disk will not be broken up into smaller partitions. Since I don't know what is running on your system, it is better to make the Bootable CD media and do the procedure. You can approach this in two ways:

1. Cloning. This makes an identical copy on the new 160 gig which is immediately bootable after you put it in place of the old drive.
2. Backup followed by Recovery. Backup makes a compressed Image of your old drive. This Image should be stored on the external drive. Next you do a Recovery of that image to the new 160gig which will already have been put in place of the old drive.

Either process can be done with the bootable CD media.

 

I'm in the imaging school of thought, especially since you have an external hard drive to use. There's less liklihood of a problem when you image and restore.

1. Create an Acronis TI Recovery CD and boot from it with the external drive attached and turned on. Confrim that you can see your 40GB drive and the external drive.

2. Make an image of the entire old 40 GB hard disk (all partitions if there are more than one) to your external drive.

3. Shut down.

4. Remove or disconnect the 40GB drive and install the 160GB drive as the Master or first drive just the way the 40GB drive was connected.

5. Boot from the TI Recovery CD and restore the image from the external drive. If there is more than one partition, restore the C partition first along with the MBR. Then restore the second, third, etc. partitions one at a time. Work slowly so that you see the screen where you can increase the size of each partition during the restore.

6. Shut down and remove the CD. Check whether you can boot to the new drive.

7. Decide how you want to use the 40 GB drive and either remove it or jumper it for that use as a Slave or as the second drive or on a different cable, etc.

Let uus know if there is any problem.

 

Sorry, I am new to TI.


1) where is the "recovery cd" created?

2) Is not my retail box version cd bootable?

3) do you mean "create bootable rescue media"

 

I've never had a retail box version so I don't know if it is bootable just like the one you can create.
Yes to #3.

 

yes, the retail is bootable but highly probable that the retail version is an earlier build. You would need to compare the build version and see which is newer. If a new install is needed, be sure and un-install the older first before installing the download.

 

Hello tbone52,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Along with the description DwnNdrty provided I would recommend that you have a look at this KB article explaining the difference between Clone Disk and Backup approaches in more detail.

Note that while the boxed version purchased in one of the Acronis retail stores can be Bootable, we recommend that you create a new Acronis True Image Bootable Rescue Media using the latest build of the program, because each new build brings such improvements as better hardware support etc. The latest build of Acronis True Image 10.0 Home is 4942. To get access to updates you should first register your software.

Additional information on creating bootable media can be found in the Chapter 10 of Acronis True Image User Guide.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

Cloning is the best way to go. Imaging is not meant for establishing a new drive but for restoring partitions, files, etc. Cloning makes an exact copy of the old drive and works very well. There is a reason that Acronis includes cloning!! Cloning is a long established method used by Norton Patition Magic, Norton Ghost and virtually every disk management program. It esentially uses DOS by rebooting the system out of Windows and into DOS to do the cloning. DOS is still the basis for disk management in non Apple PC's. In addition there are hidden Windows XP files which establishes the serial number of the HD that Windows was installed on as a security measure. If the new HD number is not written to these files you will wind up with an unbootable HD, presuming you are changing your system HD. Acronis is excellent in this regard when using cloning.

 

Well I've used TI to restore an image to a brand new hard drive in my laptop (only has one drive) with great success. I have successfully used both methods. Either method works although there are lots of reports of issues with cloning. If you are using the rescue CD your not in DOS but Linux. If your not using the rescue CD then you are in Windows not DOS with TI.