Moving Crashed Drive Image to New Disk

Okay, I'm backed up now. My 17 gigs reside safely on 18 CD-Rs that have been verified. If XP Home goes crazy, I couldn't care less because my data is safe. But what if hard drive catches fire, or melts or sneaks out of the box and run off with the toaster. Am I going to have any problems loading my stuff on a new drive.

I know this is pretty basic, but I haven't been able to find anything in the FAQs to make me feel that all bases have been covered. If it's there, I must have missed it. But what's the answer?

 

Hello Foolproof,

Thank you for using Acronis True Image (http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/).

There will be no problem in running Windows from the restored drive (the new one you restore your image to) if it is the same or at least has the same interface and geometry.

Thank you.

 

There will be no problem in running Windows from the restored drive (the new one you restore your image to) if it is the same or at least has the same interface and geometry.

Andrew - could you please tell me what you mean by interface and geometry? For instance, could I replace an IDE drive with a SATA drive and restore to that with no problems. Assuming the new/replacement drive has enough capacity, what specifications would NOT allow a successful restore of a TI image?
Thank you
John

 

Hello John,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis products (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/).

The same interface. There are three the most common interfaces on the market now: ATA, SATA and SCSI interfaces. If you are going to migrate your system to the hard disk drive with the interface different from the interface of the source hard disk drive then you should use the Sysprep tool from Microsoft (also you should use this too if you are going to migrate your system to any other hardware that differs from the hardware on your previous system).

The same geometry. I mean the same low level formatting, i.e. the amount of cilinders, sectors and heads. There won't be a problem with restoring but Windows system may become unbootable. In this situation we do recommend to use Sysprep tool from Microsoft.

Thank you.

 

You're starting to scare me now. I haven't the slightest idea of what you just said. Let's take it a step at a time.

1. My drive dies. (It happens to be an 80 gig)

2. I gather together my Acronis bootable rescue media (the CD made during installation, in case Windows became unbootable) and my 18 CD-Rs with the image of my now moribund 80 gig drive.

3. I approach the new 160 gig drive (I'm probably not going to want to shop around to buy the same make and size drive as the one that just died, assuming I could find one) that I've just bought with my above mentioned collection of CDs

Am I going to be able to boot from the rescue media and get a functioning system running from the old disk image on my 18 CD-Rs?

 

Dear foolproof,

Most likely there won't be any problem.

Please read this information: http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/faq.html#17.

We do recommend you to use the Sysprep tool from Microsoft when you are going to migrate your system to any other hardware. However, usually there is no problem concerned with different hard disk drive.

Thank you.

 

Hello foolproof

Have you used the Check Image feature of TI? Hopefully none of those 18 CDs are duff otherwise you would be stuffed!!

Regards

 

This sysprep thing is scaring me also. Surely, TrueImage should carry out all of this preparation for the user or create a situation where the image can be restored without resorting to some other software?

If I have a hardrive fail and want to restore an image, I should be able to call on the image and it flawlessly restores to the new drive. That is "Computing with confidence".
John

 

Most folk will use TrueImage to restore to a new hardrive after one has failed. So, if you cannot boot into Windows you have to download Sysprep NOW to allow for a future HD failure. But it is .cab file and uncompressed is 2.5MB in size so you have to burn it to a CD to use it.

Questions. 1. If you cannot boot into Windows what is the point of using SysPrep?
2. Will SysPrep run from the XP Recovery Console?
If not what do you do please?
Thanks
John

 

Hello John,

You shouldn't need to Sysprep your system prior to creating an image if all you want to do is restore after a software mishap or system disk failure (assume you would be replacing a SATA or PATA with another SATA or PATA).

If you want to insure against the likelyhood of your computer going up in smoke and having to replace it, then carry out a Sysprep and archive an image to DVD for safe keeping.

If you intend to migrate your o/s and applications to another system then, again, carry out a Sysprep and create an image to DVD or external HD.

Naturally, in all three scenarios, you would need to boot from your Rescue CD in order to restore the relevant image.

Regards

 

Thank you once again for an informed reply. Sometime I am going to do a dummy run and see if I can restore my image, created from an IDE drive to a SATA drive.

All the same. I feel that all of these functions should be taken care of by TrueImage. If my hardrive packs up, as 2 have in the past, I want to be able to restore the image knowing that the darned thing is going to get me running again in a few minutes. All this talk of SysPrep and will this drive work etc. etc. is unnerving to say the least.
Thanks
John

 

Hello all,

I have contacted our Testing Team and they have confirmed that there shouldn't be a problem if you change only your hard disk drive (i.e. there is no need to use Sysprep before creating an image or cloning). The only thing you should note that the old and the new hard disk drives should have the same interface.

Thank you.

 

Thank you Andrew for that reassurance. All the same. You mean that I should not replace an IDE drive with a SATA? Is that correct?
Thank you again
John

 

Hello John,

Yes, I do mean that you shouldn't change IDE to SATA.

Thank you.