New user -- Directions for cloning very confusing

Hi all, I recently bought True Image 9.0 with the intention of creating an image of my C: drive on my external hard drive (E so that I can safely download Windows XP SP2, etc. According to my understanding of the directions, I need to use Clone Disk. All well and good.

I use the Wizard (using "Automatic"), and it clearly says that the destination drive is the E: drive, but when I get to the window that says "Hard Drive Structure" the only drive that is listed is the C: drive (Before cloning:74.53 GB; After cloning: 149GB). Does this mean that Acronis is going to be duplicating the C: drive on the C: drive?

In another scenario (using "Manual"), I get to the "Old Hard Disk Usage" window. I selet "Keep Data" because I want to be able to continue using my C: drive. But in the "description" I read "Select the if you plan to remove your old hard drive...as a backup after your data is transferred..." Huh?

So I click "Next" to see what will happen: again, it appears that the C: drive is cloned on the C: drive (even though I selected E: drive).

How do I make an image on the E: drive without sacrificing the C: drive?

I'm sure that my question must seem unbelievably dense to many of you, but I asked my partner (who is very experienced going back to the early Kaypro days), and she scratched her head and advised me to contact a forum before I did anything. The instructions and help files were completely opaque to her as well.

Any help greatly appreciated!

All the best,

Ken Kronenberg

 

If you're not replacing the C: drive, I wouldn't bother cloning.
Just create an image of C: on E:, verify it and then add SP2 or whatever.

 

Cloning is normally done when you intend to make a bootable backup of your present C drive. In your case, an IMAGE is what you want.

But that aside, since your situation is that you want to install SP2, and if it does not work, you want a way back to pre SP2, there is a feature during the installation of SP2 that will do just that. SP2 saves your previous configuration to let you go back.

And if it is any consolation I haven't heard of anyone who had to go back after installing SP2. And SP2 is needed now if you want to get Windows updates.

 

Ohhhh, if that were only the case. Actually SP2 really pooched one of my systems and many others were complaining of the same thing. There was a lot of activity in the newsgroups on this very problem, but the good news is the ability to go back to pre-SP2 worked very well. Once the problem was identified and solved, going on to SP2 was no problem. I think there was someone (a magazine somewhere, I don't remember) who estimated about 10% of the upgrades caused problems, so it was not perfect, but definitely a minority had issues.

Terry

 

Ah yes, now that you mention it ... I think those who jumped in as soon as SP2 came out had the most problems. I waited at least 6 months before I converted my systems.

 

Hello Kenneth,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept my apologies for the delay with the response.

Please note that as TheWeaz and Chutsman have already mentioned above there are two approaches available:

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

Backup - creates a special archive file 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 detail.

Actually, Clone Disk approach is usually used to upgrade the hard drive (e.g. install a larger disk), while Backup approach is basically dedicated for the complete data backup and disaster recovery purposes. Since you are interested in backing up your hard drive for the disaster recovery purposes, I would recommend you to follow Backup approach.

Moreover, there are several advantages of creating an image over the disk cloning procedure such as: you can create an image without rebooting your PC, 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 so they can be stored on any type of the supported media, etc. However, the final choice is always up to your needs.

You can find more information on how to use Acronis True Image 9.0 in the respective User's Guide.

Please be aware that this is a normal situation (see respective screen shot in section 7.3.10 of Acronis True Image 9.0 User's Guide). The point is that this screen of the Disk Clone Wizard shows both source and destination hard drives structure as it will be after the completion of the disk cloning operation. The drives will be absolutely identical including the drive letters (C: in your case). By the way, this is the reason why we recommend you to unplug one of the hard drives right after the disk cloning process has been finished, since keeping both original and cloned hard drives connected might cause different boot or drive letter assignment problems.

You can find the detailed instructions on how to perform the disk cloning operation in chapter 7 of the above mentioned User's Guide.

If you have any further questions please feel free to ask.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov