True Image Disk Clone works sometimes...

Hello tschleis,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please notice that the issue usually arises when something (a newly installed third-party software, a Windows update, etc.) interferes with operations of Acronis drivers.

Please make sure you use the latest build (4942) of Acronis True Image 10.0 Home. To get access to updates you should first register your software.

If updating doesn't solve the problem, please download the latest version of Acronis drivers, unpack the archive and install unpacked MSI package.

If the issue persists, 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.

Please make a screen shot of the Device Tree application the way described in this previous post.

Then submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

I just got TI and have the same problem.....Has there been any progress
since this last post in early Aug.??

 

Same problem here.TI 10.0 won`t clone my drives either.I posted this problem here 7 months ago and acronis still has no solutions.I`ve updated to the latest build and drivers and it still won`t clone.
C`mon acronis tech`s------you can see many people here have drive cloning problems.It`s time for a solution---you`re reputation is sinking fast.

 

Re: alpha vs. beta

Hi,

I had this problem too. The Acronis software came with my Seagate HD. I was quite pleased with the process, up until the point where it did this strange behavior. Seconds after it had rebooted to an XP "installation screen" (not sure what services are started in this case but there must be some; a mistake obviously but DOS is limited in XP eh?), did its preliminary functions (prior to copying), then FLASHED thru the copy phase (130GB of data...) and said, "TA DA! Congrats dude your HD is clones (sic)." Dang, who needs SATA?

Well, thanks to Johnny for going thru this and posting a solution - the bootable Acronis CD - which worked (didn't need to download any other drivers with the version I have). The one caveat I could not check was another poster's USB driver conflict, because my USB mouse wouldn't work in the Acronis bootable CD environment. I used that ole' PS2 mouse again!

In all this has been a pain in the arse - big waste of time, when Acronis could write code that ensures the program directs you to the bootable CD option if the burn does not complete. But I have a side benefit to this affair: once you have the bootable Acronis CD you can uninstall the software, which has some services that run (in the background) all the time. I think they are called: Nagware

BTW, my uninstall of the Seagate software left some of the Acronis services installed (and running in the background) so I had to find them and delete the folders manually... more great programming but that might be Seagate's fault.

Ta...

 

Downloaded Acronis's trial version 11 yesterday and have tried five times to get it to do a disk clone of my boot drive (C to a USB drive. Go through the Wizard, it asks for permission to reboot, then when restarting, gives several messages about "analyzing" partititions, etc., then finally says "Congratulations - your drives are now synchonized...". Then, windows starts and my "cloned" drive is just an empty partition.

Have read this forum info and about concluded that Acronis is NOT correcting this problem or is responsive to customers. Tried three times to go to "live chat" on the Acronis site and promises of an available agent in x minutes does not happen in 4x minutes. Unless get a solution, need to look at other software. Interesting that Acronis advertises their system as a perfect cloning piece of software. My system is XP home with all updates.

If anyone has suggestion to fix it (including Acronis - if you are out there somewhere - would be very grateful. Thanks in advance for any help!

 

I think you might be being a bit unfair to Acronis. My version 11 clones XP perfectly but it is Vista I am having problems with and I suspect that Vista is the problem and not Acronis.

 

Tom Thirkell,

Do you have a laptop or desktop? Which brand?

How large are your HDs? How much used space and free space are in your internal HD? We can copy your old HD. One way or another.

 

Brian,

Have Desktop - intel board, 3.2 intel processor, 2gb ram. Using XP home with latest updates (incl SP2.) My drive C is 70gb used; 60gb free. Trying to clone to WD 160gb USB drive.

Appreciate any suggestions you have.

Tom

 

Brian,

FWIW, made an Acronis Boot disk and tried to clone with it. After going through Wizard, get message "Trial Version does not permit Cloning from CD - use Windows..."

Of course, Windows (still) doesn't work.

Tom

 

Tom, thanks for those details. I guess your old HD is around 120 GB total. I prefer using images anyway so this is how I'd do it.

Install the new HD as a "slave" in your computer. Start WinXP and from Disk Management delete all partitions (if any) on the new HD. Then from Disk Management create a primary partition, NTFS, 100 GB size. Create an extended partition in the remaining space and create a logical drive in the extended partition. Now delete the primary partition on the new HD. We want that area to be unallocated space.

Now defrag your C: drive. I suggest the trial version of PerfectDisk as we want all your data to be (70 GB) shifted to the "left". ie the outside of the HD.

http://www.raxco.com/products/downloadit/

Using TI from Windows, create an image of your C: drive, writing the image to your logical drive. When completed, remove the old HD from your computer and set up the new HD as the "master". Using TI from the boot CD, restore the image to the unallocated space on the new HD. When it's finished boot to your new HD.

Let me know if you would prefer different partition sizes. You may be concerned that your C: drive is smaller than the original. But the plan is to later move your My Documents contents to the logical drive to make your C: drive lean and mean.

Or have I misunderstood your aim? Did you just want a backup of your 120 GB HD?

 

Brian,

Thanks much for the advice & instructions. At this time, just want to create a clone drive that I can install in place of drive C should my drive C fail.

My BIOS permits booting from a USB drive so what I'd like is to clone my drive C to my USB drive (it's 160gb.) Then, should drive C fail someday (it probably will!), just put a new drive C in place then clone from USB drive to new drive C.

My present status is just can't get clone disk made onto my USB drive.

Tom

 

Tom,

OK. I suspected I was on the wrong track. I think you are on the wrong track too and I mean that in a friendly way. Cloning is for upgrading to a new HD, not for backup purposes. You will waste a full HD on a clone when you could have stored several images on that HD and used it for data purposes as well. Please read Dan Goodell's comments on clones vs images as backup.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=1132968474;start=7#7

See Reply #7

 

Brian,

You are cruel - but in a nice, friendly sort of way! Having read this, and other comments on this forum in the past hour, I must agree with your recommendation.

When I initially read about Acronis' software and the ability to clone, my simple mind just said "clone your hard drive, then when it fails, just plug in the cloned drive." I am essentially a lazy person and thought this was a great solution! Now (if I'm reading the forum correctly), people who have cloned then tried to use that cloned disk as their boot disk/system disk, get nasty error messages from Windows when booting up.

I understand this is due to different drive BIOS, drivers, drive geometry, etc. etc. etc. which I do not understand and am not inclined to learn it! So, will take your advice and do incremental backups.

Now, with your experience, please guide me on this: I was using an incremental backup system called "Retrospect" (which came with my USB drive) and my drive C failed recently. I used retrospect to restore it, and it worked reasonably well but took nearly 24 hours to complete the restore (about 70gb.) Also, I lost e-mail files, key files for some purchased software, and had to re-install a few software systems that behaved badly after the restore. So - about three solid days of head-scratching and this and that to get my system restored close to its original state.

With Acronis' incremental backups, what "surprises" should I expect on doing a restore? Don't mind the money to buy Acronis but if it does not perform better than Retrospect, no point in shifting to Acronis. But - if Acronis is perhaps faster and restores more reliably, Acronis has a new fan! (me!)

Your candid counsel would be appreciated, and thank you so much for opening up my thinker and setting a better direction. PS: I'm 71 now and got into computers in 1960, programming a General Precision LGP-30 in raw hex, with absolute addressing. After a career in IT, including the IBM big blue boxes and in later years, PC networks, my home computer is my playtoy. But, my techie skills (or more accurately: patience) is limited these days. Always looking for the easy way to get things done.

Best Regards,
Tom

 

Tom... it is interesting to note that your thinking went along the same road as mine.. I too have a 160gig drive and I cloned my drive to it and it worked fine. In fact at the shop where I work the system failed due to a bodgy drive but we had already cloned it earlier because we knew it was going to die... we put the new drive in and hey presto we were back in business. It doesn't work with Vista though. As soon as you boot you get an error message to the effect that Winload.exe can't be found and it takes a repair to get the system up and running again.

 

Ewen,

Glad to hear of at least ONE success on using Acronis to clone a drive! I'm still on XP but still cannot get Acronis to clone for me. I've given up on it. Brian gave me some private suggestions I intend to pursue. Curious, were you able to clone your system drive to a USB drive?

Tom

 

Subsequent to my comment regarding Winload.exe I tried MudCrab's fix for the BCD file (Fix Vista so a Repair is not needed after a restore or clone) and it worked like a charm.