Instructions for C Drive Replacment Please

Hello,

I'm a newbe, but I have some knowledge. I have to replace my C drive with a larger one. I am no having any problems with the drive, just need a larger one. I have replaced drives before and am comfortabe with the physical task. I have never replaced my C drive though. I have a curent image/clone. I am running XP SP2. Please let me know if there is more to it than pulling my old C drive, dropping in a brand new one, and running acronis restore. It would seem that there has to be more to it.

Thanks in advance.

Nick

 

That is the basic procedure. You might take a look at Grover's guide and post back if you have any other questions.

 

From my expierence, sometimes it is that easy. But only if you follow all the directions perfectly. Some of the rules with windows xp.

1. Don't let the source windows xp ever see the drive it will be restored on. (if windows xp has that drives ID in it's registry it will cause problems)
2. Never boot up the "restored drive" and the "source drive" on the same computer at the same time. (it will cause problems).
3.)Always upsize your partitions during restoration. In other words don't restore a 30gb partition into a 20gb partition (even though it's allowable) it will cause problems.
4.) Don't be lock into one method of restoring. If you can't restore through a usb external, stick the hard drive inside the computer and try the restore that way. If you can't run the restore from inside windows use the boot cd instead. If that doesn't work run the restore from another computer. Hardware problems are the easiest to fix, because there are other options/workarounds.
5.) If your restored drive doesn't boot up, check your "partition ID system drive letter" first, that's what causes many bootup problems. Remember there are 2 system drive letters "partition ID" and "mounted devices" both must match.

The worst(only) problems I've encountered in all the restores I have done is "drive letter changes", but for me it's a quick 5 minute fix. Other people here in the forums encounter the same problem but misdiagnose them as something else. If you can fix drive letters you will have a 100 percent success rate in restoring your hard drive.

 

Is there a thread about this someplace? I have had problems which I intuit to be caused by "drive letter problems" but have a hard time even describing the problem. Essentially though IIRC TI errors-out trying to restore a tib to a drive that somehow wants to share a drive letter with a drive already in the PC. And this EVEN when booting from CD i.e. it's not a Windows problem necessarily.

 

Thanks Mudcrab, Grover's Guide looks like exactly what I needed. Going on vacation and won't get to it for a couple of weeks. I'll let u know how it turns out.

Nick

 

Hello njulga and laserfan,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for delayed response.

njulga, please also notice that you can find detailed instructions on how to use Acronis True Image 11 Home in the respective User's Guide.

laserfan, could you please describe the choices you make in the Recovery wizard step by step? When does the error appear? What is the exact text of the error?

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

Preformed the restore and for the most part everything worked well. Got the computer restarted. Just one problem. When True Image restored the image onto the new 750GB drive it created 2 partitions. 1 aprox 238BG (just large enough for the old cdrive image), and another aprox 440GB (which is unalocated). I do not want the drive partitioned. The only thing I can think of is I should have formated the new drive before restoring the image to it. Can anyone confirm this or offer any other advice?

Thanks, Nick

 

It's a common problem ... use the Secure Zone trick as outlined below:
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If you have already cloned/restored your drive and just want to regain the missing (unallocated) space proceed as follows:
1. Make the bootable True Image Rescue cd, if you have not already done so.
2. Boot with it and from its main menu choose Manage Acronis Secure Zone.
3. Create an SZ of any size less than the missing unallocated space. Do not accept the default to activate the Startup Recovery Manager.
4. OK back to the main menu.
5. Go right back into the Manage ASZ.
6. Choose to Delete the SZ.
7. When asked what to do with the space, accept the default to append it to the existing partition.
8. Back out to the Main Menu, Exit the process, quickly remove the CD and reboot the system (if it doesn't self reboot).
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