Imaging a disk from a True Image file

I have tried imaging a drive (single NTFS C: partition) using TI version 7 and selecting the option to image the complete drive with these results -

HDD to HDD works.
HDD to file to HDD does not work. (cannot log on to windows)

I can't see why the source of the image (HDD or File) will make a difference since both will deliver a bit stream that will overwrite everything on the target drive.

If I buy the latest version of TI will I be able to save an image to a file and then transfer that image to a drive?
The target drive could be freshly formatted, existing FAT 32, or even "anything".

Thanks for any help you can give me.

 

Not quite sure what you mean.
Hdd to Hdd - do you mean Cloning the drive?
HDD to file to HDD - do you mean making a Backup Image then Recovering (or Restoring) that image to another drive?
Version 7 is quite old. You might need to get a later version.
If you make an Image first, you could transfer it to any type of media you want to as long as the media is large enough to fit it. In fact in the process of making the Image, you can specify a split size, save them to a hard drive first and then burn those splits to dvd media.
The latest ver. 10 has the feature to write directly to dvd media, but that is extremely slow, and most give up after trying it.

 

Thanks for your reply Ralphie,

With both HDD1 and HDD2 in the PC the image of HDD1 is copied onto HDD2 by TI7. HDD2 will run as an exact image of HDD1.

An image of HDD1 is saved to a file by TI7, and then that file is used by TI7 to write the image of HDD1 onto HDD2. In this case HDD2 will not run correctly, HDD2 is not an exact image of HDD1.

You would expect that both methods will work the same even when imaging a NTFS drive onto an existing FAT32 drive because all sectors from HDD1 overwrite all sectors of HDD2.

But it seems that something is lost or corrupted in the intermediate file because that method (repeatedly!) will not produce an image of HDD1 onto HDD2.

What I want to know is has this problem been fixed in the latest version.
I don't want to buy something that is no better than the very old version.

 

Did you use the Clone option to make HDD2 identical to HDD1?
(It makes is easier to understand if you use the process names as shown in the TrueImage program.)

How did you make HDD2 the boot drive? Did you change the cable, change the drive jumpers or change the first boot drive in BIOS?

When you made the image, did you select the entire drive or just the C partition? To guarantee a bootable drive, you need to choose the entire drive.

Where did you store the image of HDD1 before restoring it to HDD2?

Did you check the image of HDD1 with TrueImage to be sure it was good?

 

BillOld,

In addition to John's questions, what actually happens when you try to boot HD2 after restoring the image? It sounds like you get as far as the logon screen. Where does the boot process stall? Do you have HD1 removed from the computer?

 

The disk to disk image was done by connecting the second drive as a slave.
After imaging, it was connected as the only master and worked.
(Drive links changed, etc)
I have done that many times and it always works. (TI calls it "Clone")


For saving the image as a file I used 3 drives.
Original = HDD1. (NTFS, One partition, WinXP)

HDD3 connected as slave.
In TI7 HDD1 was selected as "image the whole drive" and the image file was saved to HDD3.
The file is therefore a Disk image, not just a partition image.

HDD3 connected as master, HDD2 connected as slave.
TI7 was then run on HDD3 and HDD2 was imaged from the file.

HDD2 (an image of HDD1) was then connected as master.
WinXP asked for logon details, details were given but instead of starting it did a "logging off, saving settings, etc" and it eventually came back to the logon point. It never got out of this loop.


That process was a practice for saving a laptop drive to a file and then restoring it because if it didn't work the laptop would not be put at risk.

Last night I tried saving the laptop drive to a file and discovered another problem -

The TI help said that there were 2 versions of the bootable CD, a simple one and a larger one that provided USB support. I created the larger one.

The laptop was booted from the TI bootable CD and TI started ok.
The problem was that a USB hard drive was not available in the list of drives so there was nowhere to save the image file.
I tried several times, USB drive connected before starting, drive connected sfter TI started, but it was never found.

So I now have another question, If I buy the latest version will it genuinely provide USB support.


I guess the bottom line is that it will, and that I am doing something wrong because zillions of people will have been using TI7 to image laptop drives via a USB hard drive.
I just can't find the problems, and the frustrating thing is that the TI GUI is very easy to use and asks very clear questions like "the whole drive or only a partition",
"select the drive to save the file to", etc, It seeems virtually impossible to get it wrong.

 

Instead of the above try this:
Leave HDD3 as slave and connect HDD2 as master. Boot with the Rescue CD and Recover the image from HDD3 to HDD2. After it is done, remove the cd and restart.

 

Great idea Raphie!

I think you figured out that the problem is that when HDD3 is used in Windows to restore the image to HDD2, Windows doesn't like seeing a second boot drive and gives it a new drive letter instead of C. Then HDD2 won't boot. It's about the same problem as cloning and starting Windows while both drives are still attached.

By using the Recovery CD, the HDD2 will not be "molested" by Windows and should be the identical copy expected.

 

This is the problem. The boot partition must always be restored in Linux and not in Windows. See Ralphie's directions. It will work when you do it as he suggests.

It sounds like the USB chipset in the laptop is not recognized by the drivers on the TI Recovery CD. That's not surprising since TI 7 is old.

If you had an Adaptec PC card USB adapter, that would probably be recognized even by TI 7 since all the Adaptec cards I've used have the standard NEC chipset. TI 9 and TI 10 recognize a far greater range of USB chipsets.

 

Hello BillOld,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for the delayed response.

Please notice that, as Ralphie and jmk94903 explained, it is always best to restore a bootable partition/drive using Acronis Bootable Rescue Media; and remove all exept one of bootable drives before actually booting into Windows after restoring/cloning.

As for the USB drive not beeing seen, please try booting with "acpi=off noapic" parameter as it is described in Acronis Help Post.
Note that as you use Acronis True Image 7.0 you should press F11 button when the "Starting Acronis Loader..." message appears and not when the selection screen appears.

We recommend you to download and install the free trial version of Acronis True Image 10.0 Home to see how the software works on your computer. With the trial version of the product, you will be able to fully use the product for a period of 15 days. The only limitation of the trial version is that only restore function of the bootable media is available.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov