Cloning drives - advice please

I'm planning a project and could use a little advice.

I routinely use Acronis True Image to clone hard drives containing XP systems onto new, empty ('unallocated') hard drives. The system works well.

But this time I'd like to try a variation of the technique; I want to start by cloning a system drive to an empty drive in the usual way, but then I want to add another drive's contents to the new drive, in the form of a new partition.

To put it another way, let's say I have three drives. Drives 1 and 2 are currently attached to a functioning system. Drive 3 is new and unused.

Drive 1, C, contains Windows XPP and is active.
Drive 2, D is not active; it functions as data and program storage.
Drive 3 is brand new, empty and unallocated.

I'd like to end up with both C and D transferred to the new drive.

The cloning and partition transfers would be carried out with all three drives temporarily mounted in another host system.

My question concerns how I'll proceed after C is cloned to the new drive. Acronis True Image seems to work best when the target drive is 'unallocated', which is the state of brand new drives. Obviously, after the first stage of the cloning process, the new drive will no longer be in this state.

Advice would be appreciated

 

Hi Porty,

You may find that the "Clone" tool is not the most appropriate method to achieve your desired result.

If I were performing this operation then this is how I would do it :

1. Prepare the new disk. Use a partition tool (Windows or a 3rd-party utility) to setup the new disk with the 2 partitions that you require.

2. Create the Images. Image C: and D: into separate .tib files.

3. Restore C: to Partition 1

4. Restore D: to Partition 2

IMPORTANT : You should only have 1 Active disk present with the same instance of Windows with the same Product Key at the time of boot. So you should therefore have ONLY your existing disk OR the new disk present at the time of boot, not both.

T.

 

Thanks, Tabvla - I wouldn't have thought of that.

Just one more query; you say;

I assume you mean that, once the operation that you describe has been carried out, then only the new drive should be present at boot, not both?

Yes, that's how I saw it. I'll do the imaging and transfers in another computer, so that all three drives, C,D and the new unit, will be mounted as secondary drives, or slaves, in that machine's system. Then, once the new C\D drive has been created, the old C and D drives will be reformatted.

What software would you suggest for setting up partitions on the new drive? I've always used Partition Magic, but it's occasionally let me down. Does Acronis have an effective app for this purpose?

 

For partitioning software, the only one I recommend is "vcom partition commander pro 10" . The reason is that it has a utility in the bootcd called "boot corrector" which I have used to repair restorations on windows xp pro, which wouldn't boot because of drive letter changes. When you have multiple hard drives and partitions inside a computer , you have a chance of running into this type of problem. Also this program is vista compatible. I recommend it mainly for the "boot corrector", but it's also a very good at hard drive partitioning, it replaced my partition magic 8.0. and has been reliable for me. I use this program to prep my new hard drives, and keep it close at hand after I restore an image in case, the new hard drive won't bootup, it can repair a drive letter change problem in less than 5 minutes.

 

Thanks for commenting, JonyJoe81.

I seem to recall that I gave your VCom app a short spin sometime back. Can't remember the outcome but it's no longer installed so I must have bagged it for some reason or another.

Perhaps I should take another look.

Cheers

BTW: Isn't the VCom app the same as Avanquest? Like, the same prog?

 

I've been thinking about Tabvla's suggestion regarding my proposed cloning operation.

I'm wondering if this alternative method would also work:

1. Clone my existing C drive to the new 160GB with TrueImage or MigrateEasy.
2. Use Acronis Disk Director to create a new partition 'D' on the new drive.
3. Create an image of the old 'D' drive with Acronis True Image, and store it in a temp location.
4. Restore the old 'D' image to the new, empty 'D' partition on the new drive.

Comments would be appreciated

 

Correct. After boot, if required, you could reconnect the duplicate instance and you should not experience any issues.

Partiton Magic is a great utility. For simple disk operations Windows provides an adequate tool in Disk Management. Personally I have not experienced any problems with either Windows Disk Management or Partition Magic v8.

If the task is to create a partition then there is no need to use Disk Director. Windows Disk Management or Partiton Magic (which you already have) are both more than adequate for basic disk tasks.

If you are considering acquiring Disk Director then you may want to download the User Guide from the Acronis site and go through it in detail. There are some important things to consider before you install Disk Director.

T.

 

Hello porty,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please notice that Tabvla is correct. However, it's not obligatory to store the images in different archives or create partitions on the new drive. During the restore or clone procedure Acronis True Image will create necessary partitions on the destination drive, and you will be able to set their size as needed.

You can find the detailed instructions on how to use Acronis True Image in the respective User's Guide.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov