clone a clone? Copy a clone?

Please forgive but is it possible to clone a cloned hard drive.

For example, I am thinking of getting 2 HDD (200GB each), clone my old 40GB onto one of the new 200GB. Throw out my old 40GB and then make a clone of the 200GB cloned drive? In effect have two identical 200GB hard drives?

Then, at regualr intervals, keep backing up my 200GB to the other 200GB via clone disk.

Possible?

Just thought I'd ask before reaching for the wallet.

- MagD

 

Yes you can clone a cloned disk.

 

Most interesting...

A colleague of mine tried it with 2 new Maxtor HDD and it didn't work. He was able to make a clone from his original 60GB Western Digital to one of the new Maxtors but upon removing his old hard drive and putting the second new Maxtor in and trying to clone onto it a message appeared and told of a bad error and was prompted to press a key to reboot.

He thought it might have been the new Maxtor that was faulty (the first one being ok) but again he tried cloning to the 2nd Maxtor (supposedly faulty) from his original 60GB and was successful. So it wasn't a faulty Maxtor.

However, he was still unable to clone from the cloned Maxtor to the 2nd new Maxtor. He thought it might be either a bug in the program or a prevention.

Here's a thought.. - does the TI program need to be re-installed on the 1st cloned Maxtor HDD to be fully effective again even though in effect it would appear to work normal after the clone from the 60GB like the rest of the programs on the cloned 1st Maxtor.

I want to buy this program and use it regualrly to back up. But I'm having slight doubts to its true cloning capabilities.

 

There is no reason why you can't clone a cloned disk. I am sure that Acronis will confirm that fact. You can also contact Acronis here ... support@acronis.com

 

If I understand your intentions, you can not only clone the clone (because a cloned disk is an exact duplicate of the original) but you can also create an image of the newly cloned 200Gb drive and store it to a second drive.

As long as you restore the image to the same machine, even if you have to replace the drive with another of the same specs, the image will restore properly.

I find it most convenient to create images of my internal hard drive and to store them on an external hard drive. That may or may not work better for you than wrestling with clones because in my scheme I do not have to physically change drives (as long as my internal drive still works). I can simply restore the image to my internal drive.

 

Perusing the forum, getting ready to buy, and came to a sudden stop right here.

Does this apply to backups? Are clones distinct from backups?

If the main hard drive crashes and I need to restore from a backup, must I search for a new drive of exactly the same geometry as the old?

mikesil@teamlogic.com

 

I have done this many times WITH the boot disk, both cloning and imaging. In fact I haven't installed it and used it in windows in years. I only use the boot disk and it works flawlessly.

 

hello mikesil

No you don't need to restore to a drive with exactly the same geometry. bobdat's reference to 'the same machine' and 'one of the same specs' is talking about motherboard chipset. If you restore an image made on a particular machine to a different spec machine (ie different chipset) then it will restore ok but you then have to do a repair installation of Windows because the hardware has changed and Windows will re-enumerate the hardware and install the correct drivers for the new hardware. Don't worry it's quite painless!

 

Hello magd,

pjb024 is absolutely correct, as there should not be any problems cloning the cloned hard drive. Actually, the software will never know that the source hard drive was cloned some day

As for your colleague having the issue, I advice him to contact us via e-mail. Please tell him, that he should create Acronis Report as it is described in Acronis Help Post and send it to support@acronis.com along with the detailed description of the actions taken before the problem appears. We will investigate the problem and try to provide him with the solution.

Please note that he should keep both hard drives connected while creating a report.

I would also agree with bobdat, since there are two approaches available:
Disk Clone - moves the entire contents of one disk drive to another.
Create Image - creates a special archive file for backup and disaster recovery purposes.
Please read http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/faq.html#9c

Disk Clone approach is usually used for the hard disk upgrading purposes, while Create Image approach is basically dedicated for the complete backup and disaster recovery purposes. However, the final choice is always up to your needs.

We recommend you to download and install the free trial version to see how the software works on your computer.

You can find more information on how to use Acronis True Image 8.0 in the respective User's Guide.

In case you will be satisfied with the work of the trial version, please visit Acronis online store to purchase the product.

Please also note that we have a flexible system of discounts and the amount of the discount varies depending on the number of copies you want to purchase.

In case you are planning to purchase many copies, please contact our Sales Team at sales@acronis.com.

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

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

This is the error that is displayed after trying to clone a clone:

CHECK ERROR: Block Bitmap Corrupted

Yet, it the program successfully cloned the original hard drive and now it won't clone to an identical spare drive.

 

Hello mafd,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please make sure that you use the latest build (937) of Acronis True Image 8.0 which is available at: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/updates/

To get access to updates you should create an account at:
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/
then log in and use your serial number to register your software.

Please also check each partition of your hard drive by Windows utility:

- For Windows 9x please use Windows menu Start\Run
then enter the command "scandskw" and test all drives;

- For Windows XP please use Windows menu Start\Run, then enter the command
"chkdsk c: /r" "chkdsk d: /r" for every partition of your hard drive;

Please note that you will need to reboot your computer in order to scan the system partition.

If the problem still persists after installing the update and checking your hard drive then please create Acronis Report and Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

Send these files to support@acronis.com 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 the solution.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov