Next steps after clone

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by rchand, Jan 6, 2006.

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  1. rchand

    rchand Registered Member

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    Hello - My desk top hard drive has been giving me a bootup warning for about a week that my hard drive is operating outside parameters. Pressing F-1, it works fine, but I bought Acronis True Image 9 and an external (USB) hard drive to create a clone to transfer to a new hard drive ASAP. I used the automatic version of clone and it said it worked. But I couldn't figure out how to be sure I have a good copy before having a new hard drive installed (no paperwork with the software) so I went on line. There I learned that I should have upgraded the Acronis version I just received from Tiger Direct - which I then did. I executed the upgrade, which seemed to work fine, only to read later that I should first have uninstalled the original.

    Oh well - all seems to be well, but now I see that I should have created boot cd's to proceed. Well, I don't have a CD burner in this computer - only a floppy drive. Apaprently I can't check or start the clone I saved without this - that explains why there are no instructions for going from the clone to the new hard drive - which of course will have no operating system on it until I clone it back from the removable HD!

    So I feel that I am going nowhere, except having spent money to reach a dead end.

    To sumarize, here is what I have:

    I have a cloned hard drive (I think) on my removable HD that was made with an apparently older version of True Image 9.

    I have then supposedly upgraded the Acronis software on the failing hard drive to the newest version, but this isn't what was used to create the clone on the removable.

    I have no clue how to create the "boot CD's" without a burner - saw mention of using floppies, but no instructions.

    If/when I have a checkable and good clone on the removable, what then happens to get that onto the new internal?

    I've spent several hours on this this morning doing the advertised minutes-to-done clone and install of new HD, and haven't made any headway - nor can I see any basic info on the process in the "online manual".

    Thanks for any help you can offer!
     
  2. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello rchand,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    First of all, please install Acronis True Image 9.0 on the "healthy" computer in order to create Acronis True Image bootable rescue media. You should have five formatted diskettes to create it. After Acronis True Image 9.0 installation, please run Acronis Bootable Rescue Media Builder and follow the instructions in order to create the bootable rescue media on floppies.

    Pease connect an external USB hard drive to the computer with the new one and boot the PC from the bootable rescue media. After that please choose Clone Disk option in Acronis True Image 9.0 and clone the external hard drive to the new hard disk.

    Please note that 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.

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

    Thank you.
    --
    Tatyana Tsyngaeva
     
  3. allinfo2

    allinfo2 Guest

    Well I have spent five hours now trying to do what was said to take minutes. I cloned my drive to new larger drive. Acronis says the clone is good. But it will not get past the Welcome to windows screen on the new cloned drive.

    Such crap. I am buying a Mac next computer.
     
  4. Chutsman

    Chutsman Registered Member

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    allinfo2 ... did you remove the original drive?

    rchand ... since you already have a Clone in the usb enclosure, can you not transfer it from the enclosure to your desktop and boot with it? That is usually THE main reason for doing a Clone as opposed to doing an Image. If you intend to keep the drive in the enclosure then you should be creating Image backups on it.

    Personally, I have found that it is more reliable to have Image backups than Clones. I ran into more problems when I tested booting a Cloned drive than booting a Restored Image drive.
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2006
  5. rchand

    rchand Registered Member

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    Chutsman - I am not quite sure what you mean, but I have now created a set of 8 floppies of the "bootable rescue media" from the desktop that has the failing hard drive.

    I also have the "clone" I made a few days back onto an external hard drive of the whole failing desktop hard drive (using an older version of Acronis 9). I hope these are compatible, as I made the boot disks after I updated Acronis 9. If I have to, I suppose I can make another ypdated clone? Thank goodness I can still boot the failing hard drive after hitting F-1!

    Now, I would like to remove my failing hard drive from the desktop, replace it with a new one, and then reload the clone of my old one. I am a novice when it comes to booting from disks and/or a DOS environment, which is what I assume I will get when I first start the desktop with the new hard drive that has no OS or Acronis on it.

    What will I see, and what should I do in what sequence? Seems like Acronis should have a simple tutorial on this, as I am probably a typical buyer of the product to be used primarily to replace a drive - but I find nothing on the website to walk one through with some screen shotes etc.

    Thanks - Rick
     
  6. profitxchange

    profitxchange Registered Member

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    Hi I note you are quite a long way down the line and a bit "upset" but Have a think on the way I got round the same problem of an iffy hdd. Leave the old drive in the computer as the primary drive. Install your new drive as the slave. leave to box open!

    Clone the iffy drive to the new one using TI9 whatever.

    shut down the computer.

    reboot and hit F11 or whatever key you are told to during the boot sequence to select the slave drive to boot up on. let the boot sequence run and see if you get the slave drive booting up the same as the original primary drive. this should prove that the clone worked and all you progs and data came across.

    If all is well shut down and change the ribbon cable to make the new drive the primary. take out the iffy drive or as I did cleaned up the old drive and cloned back from the new drive to give me a bootable back up.

    Despite what Acronis say about not running two bootable drives - I do and so far (several months) I have no problems. I have used jumpers to ensure the primary and slave relationship is hard wired.

    I now keep the iffy drive for experimenting or iffy web work so if it goes awol I just clone across another copy and we are away again.

    Hope this helps.

    PS I am waiting for a little bit of software that will always set up the drives with the correct letters on booting up from either drive by reading the serial numbers.
     
  7. Chutsman

    Chutsman Registered Member

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    rchand ... I meant that if the drive in the enclosure is a clone, you should test it by taking it out of the enclosure and put it into the desktop after removing the original drive.

    When you do a Clone you make a bootable hard drive just like the original.

    When you do an Image you make a compressed backup of the original. Before the Image can be made bootable you have to Restore it. It is an extra step compared with cloning, but works better for me.
     
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