New bigger drive; Can't get Acronis 2 Restore to it. Help!

I am what you would call a newbie to imaging software.

Currently, I have Acronis 9.0 True Image installed on my drive--actually both drives, but more about that soon. Some weeks ago I made a full backup image of my computer in case of disaster. But out-of-the-blue I decided to upgrade drive size, nothing major, I am going from a 30GB to an 80GB on a Dell laptop.

Naturally, I would like to place the full backup image I saved on an external drive on to this new drive to save myself a lot of work. However, when I tried to do a restore, it did not work and I freaked out, because I don't know what I did wrong. I find the Help section a bit confusing.

Here's what I did, and I thought this was very thorough, but apparently not. I pulled out the old drive and placed the new drive in the computer. To make it as easy as possible for Acronis to restore, I installed both the Windows operating system and Acronis on the new drive--80GB. Next I connected the external drive--which has nothing else on it but the one backup image--to the computer and activated Acronis and went through the Restore protocol.

I thought it was working because it the screen read Acronis, please wait... After 7 hours I realized that something had gone amuck but I don't know what. Now, I thought I would need to clone the drive to get it to work, but I read someone else's post on a similar topic, and readers suggested loading the image from the external drive? I thought that is exactly what I did.

Any good advice would be greatly appreciated. I would be so indebted to anyone would could get this to work. Also, I am curious how long should I expect it to take to image a 30GB drive?

Pleae HELP.

 

I assume you have build 3677 installed and that you have created a rescue CD. If the answer is no to one or both assumptions download 3677 from the Acronis site having first registered. The next step is to burn a TI recovery CD.

There was no need to install anything on the replacement drive. It can be completely bare straight out of the box. The recovery steps would be to plug in the external drive and boot from the recovery CD. Select full mode and then select your backup .tib file and follow the wizard. It is possible to resize your existing partition/s to utilise all the extra space as part of the restore process (RTM) but don't worry it can be done afterwards if you prefer.

The final step is to paint in large friendly letters on the lid of your laptop DO NOT PANIC TI ON BOARD.

Xpilot

 

Thanks for the reply. I didn't have the rescue CD, which I just made now. So in the next day or two I will back up the system again--new stuff again since last time, install the new drive and use the CD to access and install the image. Hope it works flawlessly. If not I will be back with another round of questions.

 

Hey Comrades,

I still need your sage advice. My saga of transfering an image of my smaller drive to a new larger drive continues unsuccessfully.

As suggested in an earlier post, I created a Rescue CD and then switched out my old drive for the new one. Then I rebooted and the Acronis CD booted too, offering 3 options to choose from. I chose the Full Version option, which is what I had been told to do and then a black screen appeared showing only Acronis and "please wait...".

Here are my concerns:

The Acronis program never asked me where the image of my smaller drive was stored, and it obviously needs to know that. Would it proceed with the "please wait'' sign even it wasn't able to locate the image on the external drive? BTW, the .tib image is the only item on the external drive. Have I done something wrong?

Another issue arose that I had not mentioned in my ealier post, and I know it will affect the imaging process, or at the very least affect the length of time it would take. I have Dell Inspirion 8200 that is 4 years old, so it doesn't have 2.0 USB ports. I insert a PCI card, with accompanying software, to provide me 2.0 capability. This is done once the operating system is installed on the computer. How should I approach this? I think that by using the Rescue CD it would bypass or simply not register the PCI card and thus not provide the 2.0 support, is this a logical conclusion?

For the moment, until I hear back from someone, and since I am using the CD, I decided to run the external directly into the laptop--the 1.0 USB port. This should work if it can find the image, right? Also how long would I expect it to take to create a 20GB image file from the external drive transfering at 1.0 USB speed? I have no idea what to expect time wise, so I don't know when I suspend the procedure prematurely. I don't want to stop it too early if it is actually working. If someone could give me an idea on possible time options it would be much appreciated.

In the next version, I think Acronis should communicate more to user about the imaging process then a simple please wait sign. But that's another post.

Thanks in advance for feedback!

Sky

 

You mean a PCMCIA card and not PCI right? As long as the Acronis boot cd "sees" the external drive, you should be able to perform the Restore. But the CD will not automatically find the image file. After all the automatic startup windows presented by the CD are done, you first have to choose between FULL and SAFE mode. Try Full first. The next window that needs your input will be the one that will show your drives - this is where it should show the external. Click on the name of the external and the "tree" should expand to show you the name of the .tib image file. Click on it and procede with the Restore.
Sometimes the combination of the pcmcia card and the external are not seen by Acronis - something to do with the chipsets.

 

captainsky,

According to the times reported by another user, you may expect about 8 hours of restore time over USB 1.0 (for a 20 GB image). The initial time estimate given by TI may be even larger than that, but it gets progressively reduced with the restore under way.

Even so, I would do it this way for the first time, rather then using the expansion card that may bring in it's own issues.

 

Thanks for the replies guy. Alas, it has been 12+ hours or more since i started this process last night and I am still staring at the "please wait" image on the black screen. As I didn't specifically pick the external drive from any list, than I think that is would be a problem. I just don't know what if there is a problem that program continues to post such a misleading sign as "please wait..."

I am going to try to restart again and began the process again and see what happens. Thanks for the help.

Sky