Clarification on Clone Disk

This may sound like a dumb question but...

I know the DI 9.0 documentation says after doing a Clone Disk.. I should remove the original (source) hard drive when done and place the new HD in the first logical drive position.

BUT.... is there any reason, I could not just remove the destination (cloned) drive and keep working off of the original hard drive? i.e. won't the original hard drive still boot up?

I understand this is not the recommended backup strategy but it would allow me to keep a bootable backup around... just in case.

THanks,

George

 

No reason at all. You have done nothing to your original hard disk.

 

you might want to try the cloned disk just to make sure it works. I'm trying to upgrade my laptop hd and did the clone thing and can't get it to work. I've used both Ghost, DriveImage and Acronis and get the same result with all three, the drive boots up but hangs at a black screen with the cursor flashing. Haven't figured it out yet.

 

A lot of people on here make a cloned disk, and then store it to replace the one in their computer when that one goes bad. Nothing wrong with doing that. In addition to that though, I would make some regular images of your whole disk, and store them on some removable media also, so you always have a current state to restore to.

 

Hello wxperson,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please be aware that we recommend you to unplug one of the hard drives right after the disk cloning process has been finished, because keeping both original and cloned hard drives connected might cause different boot or drive letter assignment problems. However, there should not be any problems using these hard drives separately.

Please also note that there are two approaches available:

Clone Disk - moves the entire contents of one disk drive to another;

Backup - creates a special archive file for backup and disaster recovery purposes;

Please take a look at this FAQ article explaining the difference between Clone Disk and Backup approaches in more detail.

Actually, Clone Disk approach is usually used to upgrade the hard drive (e.g. install a larger disk), while Backup approach is basically dedicated for the complete data backup and disaster recovery purposes. Since you are interested in backing up your hard drive for the disaster recovery purposes, I would recommend you to follow Backup approach.

Moreover, there are several advantages of creating an image over the disk cloning procedure, such as: you can create an image without rebooting your PC, image creation can be scheduled for the particular point in time, you will be able to create incremental and differential images, image archive contains only the actual data and so it has a smaller size, image archives are ordinary files and so they can be stored on any type of the supported media, etc. However, the final choice is always up to your needs.

You can find more information on how to use Acronis True Image 9.0 in the respective User's Guide.

If you have any further questions please feel free to ask.

Thank you.
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Alexey Popov

 

This will be the first time I've cloned a HDD, so I just want to confirm I'm doing it correctly.

I will be replacing my C: drive with a new larger drive. I have a second HDD (D with data.

Should I remove my 2 CD drives and make the new HDD the master on that cable. Then proceed with the clone. When clone is finished, shut the computer down, pull the old drive and install the new cloned drive in its place. Re-install the CD drives and reboot. Everything should be as it was with the old drive. Right?

Am I missing anything?

Thanks for your help.

Ted

 

Hello teding,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Yes, you can use this scenario to clone one hard drive to another one.

However, you are able to use other method to clone your old hard drive. You can connect a new hard drive as Primary Slave drive and clone old hard disk without removing 2 CD drives. After cloning, please replace the old hard disk with the new one.

You can find more information on how to use Acronis True Image 9.0 in the respective User's Guide.

If you have any further questions please feel free to ask.

Thank you.
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Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

I just used TI 9 's CloneDisk to duplicate a hard drive, so I can install it on an exactly equal pc ... of course I do have licenses for the OS and all other software< I just thought that this might save me a lot of time, and it did! in 10 minutes I was ready. I pluggd the cloned hard drive on the new machine, and it booted up *Acronis did step 2 of 2(, and Windows 2k pro loaded.

There's where I am lost. The pc has all the software, can load anything, bit there is no "C" drive !!! I can't find it !

Funny, the OS is running from there, the software tuns, but it is not visible under windows. If I load a DOS window, it will leave me on C:

Any comments ? ideas?

 

Hello yikad,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Could you please describe your actions step by step during the cloning process?

Please create Acronis Report and Windows as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

Please create an account, then log in and 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.

Thank you.
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Tatyana Tsyngaeva