Disk Cloning Problems - Acronis True Image 9.0 Home

Using Acronis True Image 9.0 Home software, I tried to clone my C: drive to my external WD My Book 500 gig firewire drive. I also tried to clone to an internal 400 gig drive, neither of which worked. I used the Automatic Clone selection for both attempts.

The process proceeds until I get a drop-down button selection to Restart the computer, then all of a sudden an error message pops up which says, "Operation Has Been Cancelled" and then the system automatically reboots. Upon system restart nothing has been cloned to the backup drive.

When I say "backup" the C: drive on my computer I don't mean to create some archive type files or zip files. I want to see in the backup with exactly the same directory structure I see when I look at my C: drive.

Also, one other question: Why does the software have to completely delete everything that is already on the backup drive. Why can't it just put the backup data into a sub-directory or create another partition in which to put the backup data?

I hope I don't have to first take a course in Rocket Science 101 at Yale. That would interfere with attending my AA meetings and hanging out in bars drinking good booz.

Any help would be appreciated. I can be contacted directly at Raper@Raper.com

Thanks to anyone who can help.

 

the clone feature should only be used to move a OS to another HD as it makes the drive bootable, are you wanting to boot from an external HD ?

 

In the old days the hard drive manufacturers use to provide software that would clone everything from an old disk to a new one. After cloning, when you looked at the new disk, you would see the exact same thing as you saw on the old disk. That is what I want.

Now days it seems that everything backs up to archive files or .zip or simar files. When you look at these files you don't have a clue as to what you are looking at. That is not what I want.

What I want is very simple to explain. I want a copy of everything on my old drive to my new drive. Please note that I said "everything" -- operating system, hidden files, program files, data files (EVERYTHING)

When I talked to the company salesman for the Acronis True Image 9.0 Home I was assured their product could do what I want. And, I was very specific and repetitive in my discussion with him to make sure he understood what I was talking about.

Anyone can contact me directly at Raper@Raper.com

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

 

ok then goto program files>administrative tools>computer management>disk managment and locate your new external HD at the lower right screen, right click and select delete partition, then use the bootable CD and clone your sys drive.

 

The best way of securing your hard drive using True Image is to create images to suitable media and then, when needed, restore to either the original or a replacement drive. If you need to explore or copy data from an image there is a simple process to mount the image so that it becomes a virtual drive.
True image can create an clone of a hard drive but this is normally used to upgrade or replace a hard drive and it is not the backup method of choice.
ASFAIK hard drive manufacturers still provide software that will clone an old drive to a new one. If you do not want to take advantage of all the facilities that TI can offer that may be your best choice.

 

hlr

Cloning should only be performed from the standalone bootable CD. If your not doing this, you will experience problems. I clone my system once per month. I boot from the SA CD perform the cloning (Don't forget to delete the target drive partitions). At completion, I shut down my system, remove the drive that was the target of the clone, and then boot from my normal systems disk. Never boot your system with the target cloned drive attached and powered up.

A side piece of info, if the target drive is of a different geometry of the source, you may experience WIN/XP problems with Microsofts anti-pirating software. If you want to have a good backup/Clone that can be used in a emergency, use a target clone drive of the same geometry as the source.

Hope this helps - Storage_man

 

Boy am I confused. I though I bought a software product that was capable of copying from one disk to another. This is not a new development in software. The techniques have been around since Peter Norton was the disk drive guru way back in the previous century.

Where is Peter Norton when you need him?

 

there is a diff, cloning needs to be done to a unformated/unpartitioned HD, your drive is formated.

all you need to do is create a image and place it on your ext drive, it works

 

Thanks, but how do I create a "disk image?" Do you have any suggestions?

I want to thank all those who have offered suggestions. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

H. Leon Raper
Raper@Raper.com

 

Start TI and select the Backup option and follow the prompts to create a "disk image". You may want to read the users guide at http://download.acronis.com/pdf/TrueImage9.0_ug.en.pdf. or read this review at
http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/company/inpress/2006/06-15-1ati.html.

 

Check this link. This setting gets everything on the selected disk.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=182030

 

This is not true, though a lot of people seem to believe it. I clone all the time using the rescue CD between my C drive and an external HD (and back when needed). One of the clone options is to repartition the target drive, and you must always select that. Reformat isn't needed. I end up with 2 identical HD's after about 13 minutes of cloning. If one crashes, the other can step right in as a replacement.

 

Hello hlr,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

To expand the above posted replies a little, I'd also like to mention that generally there are two approaches available:

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

Backup - creates a special archive file having '.tib' extension 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 details.

As Mac25 has already mentioned above, the Clone Disk approach is usually used to upgrade the hard drive (e.g. install a larger disk), while the Backup approach is meant for the complete data backup and disaster recovery purposes.

As you are interested in backing up your hard drive for the disaster recovery purposes, we recommend that you follow the Backup approach.

There are several advantages of creating a disk\partition image over the disk cloning procedure such as that you can create an image without rebooting your computer, image creation can be scheduled for the particular point in time, Acronis True Image allows you to create incremental and differential images, image archive contains only the actual data and so it has a smaller size, images are ordinary files and can be stored on any type of the supported media (e.g. any internal, external or networked drives, CD, DVD, ZIP, etc.), etc. However, the final choice is always up to your needs.

Please also note that, as Xpilot said, disk\partition images can be mounted as virtual drives so that you can see backed up partition structure exactly as it was at the moment when you created this particular image archive. Moreover, you can mount disk\partition images in both "Read-only" or "Read\write" mode.

You can find the detailed instructions on how to use Acronis True Image 9.0 Home in the respective User's Guide.

You may also find Acronis True Image 9.0 Home FAQ page helpful.

It is also recommended that you take a look at this article providing the illustrated instructions on Acronis True Image 9.0 Home installation and usage.

Please also take a look at Acronis Public Knowledge Base.

As for the problem you experience, first of all, please make sure that you use the latest build (3677) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home which is available for downloading in the Product Updates section of your account at Acronis web site.

You can find the full version name and build number by going to Help -> About... menu in the main program window.

To get access to updates you should create an account then log in and use your serial number to register the software.

Please uninstall any previously installed build by following Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs -> Acronis True Image, prior to installing build 3677.

Note that you should create new Bootable Rescue CD after installing the update.

If the problem still persists with the latest build (3677) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home then please check each partition of both source and destination hard drives by Windows utility: use Windows menu Start\Run, then enter the command "chkdsk c: /r" "chkdsk d: /r" for every partition of your hard drive. Note that you will need to reboot your computer in order to scan the system partition.

Please also download the latest version of Acronis drivers, install it with disabled logging and then try to clone the hard drive once more.

If the problem still persists after checking the hard drives and updating the drivers then please try to perform the disk cloning when your computer is booted from Bootable Rescue CD created using the latest build (3677) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home. In such a way you can exclude a possibility of some other software not allowing Acronis True Image to do the disk cloning as no operating system or any other applications are running when computer is booted from Acronis True Image Bootable Rescue CD.

If that does not help either then please submit a request for technical support containing the following information along with the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

- Create Acronis Report and Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post;

- Enable logging by running the Acronis drivers installation package (see above) once again, reproduce the problem (initialize the disk cloning from within Windows) and collect the c:\snapapi.log file.

- Provide the exact text of the error message that appears upon the attempt to perform the disk cloning.

Please also make a screen shot of the Device Tree application:

- Download and unpack the Device Tree application;

- Run the application;

- Completely unfold the \Driver\Disk and \Driver\FtDisk branches;

- Move the margin to the left in order to see all the items;

- Make a screen shot.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov