? OK to use Original Cloned Disk ?

Hi Folks,
Have had great luck creating cloned disks with "True Image 10". I noticed in the manual that it mentions the original disk must be removed once cloned.

Is that absolute?

I am creating a clone to be put away. It is for a laptop and I kill hard drives on a regular basis, or the computer gets stolen.

If possible I would like to clone the original drive and just leave it the original machine. Later as required I would install the clone drive and update against another separte "weekly back-up drive."

Has anyone had any problems doing so?

Tks

 

You can leave it in the machine but you have to disconnect before rebooting after the cloning is complete. If its a laptop drive you can put it in an external enclosure. Windows gets confused if you don't disconnect the original drive before rebooting with the new one.

 

TKS has given you the reasoning. Some ignore the "rule" and suffer no consequences while others create all kinds of grief for themselves. It may depend upon what type hard drive are used--but that's a guess.

If you do the cloning and do not check to see if it boots up, you have no way of knowing whether your security disk is functional. It would make no sense to clone a drive and then not check it to see if it works. I don't think that was your intention but removal of old is recommended.

Your solution is a matter of personal preference. Search the forum for other solutions which include a mix of drive caddies for easy swapping of replacement drives; backups to alternate internal or external drives, etc. There is no "one size fits all" when it comes to backup security.

 

Hi birdstu,

I think the instructions assume you are cloning a drive to be a permanent replacement for your original, usually to increase drive capacity, and not to maintain a complete duplicate standby drive. I clone and reclone my laptop hard drive on a regular basis for standby/backup purposes. I use a second, identical drive in an external firewire enclosure and the TI7 boot CD to do this. After the cloning procedure is complete, I install the new clone in the laptop, replacing the original, although I don't HAVE to. The original now becomes the standby and the clone becomes the working drive. The next time I reclone, they swap service, the original becoming the working drive again and so on. This procedure evens out service on both drives but more importantly verifies that the new clone boots properly and there are no surprises. That works fine for my purposes and I have a ready-to-install duplicate of my dual boot system that can be in full service in a matter of a few minutes. I will typically reclone about once a month or whenever I make any significant software changes. In addition, any work files are direct copied (backed up) to a home network drive on an as needed, as available basis.

Rod

 

Once yu have booted the clone, in most cases you can connect the original drive provided that BIOS does not list that hard drive in the boot sequence. The original drive should just appear as another drive with all the original files but windows will not try to boot from it or confuse it with the clone-- it will mark it as a non-system drive. Note that the drive the original drive will not be bootable after you do this.

 

Hello birdstu,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please note that as it was mentioned above after the disk cloning is finished you should unplug one of the hard drives prior to booting into Windows for the first time. The point is that keeping two identical hard drives (hard drives having identical digital signatures) connected at the same time is "unpleasant" for Windows and might cause a number of boot and\or drive letter assignment problems. After you boot into Windows from one of the hard drives at least once, please feel free to turn off the computer and connect another disk.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov