TI11: Problems Cloning to new hard drive

I've been experimenting with cloning on a couple of PCs I own, using True Image Home 11.

On one spare PC I cloned from a 160Gb Western Digital SATA drive to an identical drive as an experiment and the clone worked and the system is stable.

However, on my main system I attempted to clone a 320Gb Western Digital SATA drive onto a 500Gb Samsung drive SATA drive. I have tried direct clone and also restore approach. In both cases the system boots fine and everything looks good, but then randomly crashes within 10-20 mins and reboots. The BIOS recongnises the drive as 500Gb. XP recognises the drive too. Samsumg disk diagnostics report the drive is 100% healthy.

Is there a step I am missing here? I've followed the procedures listed by the guides posted on the forum but clearly random reboots are not acceptable so right now I am back on the original drive

Many thanks,

Mark

 

On that 320, before you clone, clean out all temp, temporary internet files and cookies folders. Run chkdsk /r on it then try the clone again. Also if you tried it from the installed True Image software, make the bootable Rescue cd, boot with it and try the clone from there instead.

 

Hi,
Just recently in these forums - I reported that twice in the last year TI (10 & 11) left the source hard drive unbootable after cloning operations. This was with the bootable CD.


The latest failure was a new HP Vista laptop. Luckily, the target HD did boot. The source drive was fixed by using the Vista install disc, and allowing it to fix the partition table. This is clearly unacceptable behavior. TI has no business mucking around on the source disk - it is supposed to be reading it.

So be wary of cloning with TI. Just yesterday, on a customer's computer, I used an older Ghost (v. 11 corporate) to do my cloning. I do trust that one.

Just my two cents.
Packrat1947

 

Uncle Ook & packrat1947,
Often times, the procedures in my guide will work when none others will.
1. Do the cloning when booted from the TI Rescue CD and choose the manual mode.
2. Before cloning...The original drive has to be relocated to a different location such as another internal or external drive.
3. The intended clone is placed where the original was (same boot location)
3. After cloning, disconnect the original drive from wherever it is located) before the first reboot.

My guide to Manual Cloning using the TI Rescue CD (3.9 mb pdf download) Save to hard drive before attempting to use it.
http://grover.tabinc.com/gh-temp/gh_acronis_manual_cloning.pdf
If cut & paste needed. [noparse]http://grover.tabinc.com/gh-temp/gh_acronis_manual_cloning.pdf[/noparse]

 

I didn't spot the subtlety of point 2 & 3 when I read your guide in my attempt; I only swapped the drives *after* the copy... I will attempt this pre-swap method and see how it works out.

Many thanks,

Mark

 

Mark,
Please download the pdf guide and read the entire guide before cloning. The guide is much more than 2 or 3 summary lines.
It also contains some do's & don'ts about Vista and Dell.

If Vista involved, check 4th line of signature below which could provide additional help.

 

Well I followed the guide and even tried a couple of drives but still see the same issue - the PC boots and runs happily but 10-20mins down the line reboots without warning

All methods (clone/restore image) show the same problem.

I am now very concerned about what happens should the original drive fail as it doesn't look like I can restore my image and get a stable PC

I'm scared!

Mark

 

Are you using the latest build of TI 11 (8,101)?

Have you checked the "restore" drives using chkdsk /r to make sure there are no bad sectors?

Does the reboot always happen within 10-20 minutes? In other words, if it doesn't happen before 20 minutes, does the computer crash later or does it work properly?

If you boot into the Safe Mode of Windows on a restored drive, do you get the reboot problem?

If you install Windows normally to any of the other drives, do you get the reboot problem?

 

8053 on an XP Pro system.

Disks pass chkdsk /r. Also verified with manufacturers own tools.

It always happens.

Haven't tried. But could be worthwhile. You suspect a service/software could be causing the problem? Are there any such known conflicts?

Again, haven't tried. But if there were to be crashes that would suggest that the mobo doesn't like the new drives??

Thanks for the suggestions - I'll give the safe mode a try first and see what happens.

Mark

 

@uncle Ook

1. What hardware do you have (motherboard, RAM)?
2. Check hardware first: e.g. www.memtest.org
3. Run the memtest 6-8 hours.
if there are errors you have the reason of the restarts.

Did you ever try to start from the TI-rescue-cd and try your cloning from there?

 

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700
FOXCONN 975X7AB-8EKRS2H
Memory: 2Gb Corsair PC2-6400

OK, will do.

All cloning/restoring attempted via TI-Rescue CD...

Thanks for continued suggestions.

Mark

 

Memtest complete. No problems with memory...

More information: my setup consists of two drives, each with multiple partitions.

Drive 1, the one I am attempting to clone, contains:

C: (system)
I: (cygwin installation)

Drive 2 contains:

H: (temporary files)
J: (spare capacity)
L: (swap file)

Diskeeper is managing defragmentation on C, I and H

Working drive is Western Digital and the clone drive will be Samsung

I will try safe mode next...

Mark

 

OK, maybe starting to get somewhere...

Safe mode looks stable...

I suspected Diskeeper...

Rebooted into normal mode and uninstalled Diskeeper and so far the system is still standing after 27 mins... previously it had always crashed by now... I'll keep testing and if it's stable for 24 hours I'll look at reinstalling Diskeeper as a fresh install...

Mark

 

@uncle Ook
Hi,

thank you for the test and answers.
It seems that the hardware (especially the RAM) is ok.

Perhaps the diskkeeper is the problem. You are just testing it .
Please post the results later here in this thread.
THX

 

Well, it turns out Diskeeper is not the problem. I am able to force a crash immediately by running some other software (VVengine) even with diskeeper uninstalled (though VVengine works absolutely fine on the original drive so I suspect it's not the real cause of the issue either). I am tempted to give up at this stage... I've already broken one SATA cable with all the drive swapping I've been doing... I guess at this point I either look for a different clone package or accept that if I lose a drive I will have to reinstall the OS and use the images I have to recover data rather than restore a new drive to working order

I'm going to email Acronis direct with this issue and see what they have to say.

Thanks for all ideas and support.

Mark

 

Hello Uncle Ook,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for delayed response.

Could you please let us know your Acronis request number (e.g. [Acronis #123456]) which was sent to you in autoreply to your letter? We will find out how the investigation of your issue is going. If you have not received an autoreply then please send us a Private Message containing your e-mail address.

Meanwhile, please make sure you use the latest build (8101) of Acronis True Image 11 Home. To get access to updates you should first register your software. Don't forget to recreate Acronis Bootable Rescue Media after updating.

If the latest build doesn't solve the problem, please collect some information to let us investigate it thoroughly:

Please create Acronis Report and Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post on the original and cloned systems (if the latter is possible).

Please also collect Windows mini dumps the following way:
- Right click on My Computer, choose Properties and go to the Advanced tab;
- Hit Settings in the Startup and Recovery box;
- Choose Small memory dump in Write debugging information;
- Close all the dialog windows by clicking OK buttons;
- Reproduce the system crash;
- The small dump file will be created in the directory chosen in the Small dump directory box.

Please send the collected information with a reply to the message with your Acronis request number.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

#1618610

I've received the auto reply but no other follow up.

I'm using the version 8053. The release notes for the update from this suggest only changes for Vista are included and I'm running XP Pro which is why I've not updated yet...

Mark

 

Never count on the only changes being what the change log says. There are usually many more changes than those listed.

 

Hello Uncle Ook,

We are sorry for delayed response.

Thank you for clarification. Please collect and send the information requested in my previous post. We will do our best to investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov