Disk Cloning / Want To Clone My System Disk

[Naam]

I've used Acronis to make an image of my old drive in a Thinkpad laptop and then restore the image to a new, larger, hard drive. But if you're moving to a larger new drive, there are a few hints and kinks to know about:

1. Be careful about disk numbers if you want to boot from the new disk. Set Acronis to copy the MBR (Master Boot Record), but NOT to copy the "disk signature".

2. There's a small box at the bottom left of one of the screens when you're setting up the backup. If you check it, Acronis will copy and restore the old disk number. If that happens, then your new drive will only run if another hard drive on your computer has that same disk number. The one from your old HD. So don't copy it.

3. Stop virtual memory, Norton Go Back if you still have it, and your anti virus software.

4. When the backup is complete, let Acronis verify the integrity of the backup image.

5. To restore, use the Acronis Boot Disk for recover. You made one, right?

6. To get your computer to boot from the CD, you might need to press F12 or some other combination of keys to get the computer to look at the CD drive if there's no boot information on the hard drive.

7. You might also need to be sure you can set your BIOS and/or that your machine will boot from an external USB CD drive (Acronis Recovery Disk) and "see" the USB hard drive where you have the image from your old hard drive.

8. When upgrading to a larger disk, use a partition manager to set one partition to the same size as your old hard drive. That will be Drive C. Then the rest of your new hard drive will be Drive D. If you don't do this, the I think the extra space on the new drive will be wasted. I think the new partition from the restore is the same size as the old hard drive. And the rest of the space on the new HD is wasted. I'm not sure about this, but I split my new drive into two partitions as described above -- and then restored my old disk image to the C partition.

9. You might also have to mess around a bit with your Master Boot Record if it has become damaged or causes problems. There are some files from Win98 you can use to fix errors in your MBR and/or edit it as needed, but I'll leave that for another post if you have MBR problems.

Good luck --

excellent advice! why use a boring cloning program that clones a drive with four simple mouse clicks when one can do it with interesting 9 steps, a recovery disk and a fistful of dos and donts.

[Gary A]

I've used Acronis to make an image of my old drive in a Thinkpad laptop and then restore the image to a new, larger, hard drive. But if you're moving to a larger new drive, there are a few hints and kinks to know about:

1. Be careful about disk numbers if you want to boot from the new disk. Set Acronis to copy the MBR (Master Boot Record), but NOT to copy the "disk signature".

2. There's a small box at the bottom left of one of the screens when you're setting up the backup. If you check it, Acronis will copy and restore the old disk number. If that happens, then your new drive will only run if another hard drive on your computer has that same disk number. The one from your old HD. So don't copy it.

3. Stop virtual memory, Norton Go Back if you still have it, and your anti virus software.

4. When the backup is complete, let Acronis verify the integrity of the backup image.

5. To restore, use the Acronis Boot Disk for recover. You made one, right?

6. To get your computer to boot from the CD, you might need to press F12 or some other combination of keys to get the computer to look at the CD drive if there's no boot information on the hard drive.

7. You might also need to be sure you can set your BIOS and/or that your machine will boot from an external USB CD drive (Acronis Recovery Disk) and "see" the USB hard drive where you have the image from your old hard drive.

8. When upgrading to a larger disk, use a partition manager to set one partition to the same size as your old hard drive. That will be Drive C. Then the rest of your new hard drive will be Drive D. If you don't do this, the I think the extra space on the new drive will be wasted. I think the new partition from the restore is the same size as the old hard drive. And the rest of the space on the new HD is wasted. I'm not sure about this, but I split my new drive into two partitions as described above -- and then restored my old disk image to the C partition.

9. You might also have to mess around a bit with your Master Boot Record if it has become damaged or causes problems. There are some files from Win98 you can use to fix errors in your MBR and/or edit it as needed, but I'll leave that for another post if you have MBR problems.

Good luck --

excellent advice! why use a boring cloning program that clones a drive with four simple mouse clicks when one can do it with interesting 9 steps, a recovery disk and a fistful of dos and donts.

I think that was my problem. I did the don'ts and didn't do the do's. I probably missed a step or two also.

[JSixpack]

I've used Acronis to make an image of my old drive in a Thinkpad laptop and then restore the image to a new, larger, hard drive. But if you're moving to a larger new drive, there are a few hints and kinks to know about:

1. Be careful about disk numbers if you want to boot from the new disk. Set Acronis to copy the MBR (Master Boot Record), but NOT to copy the "disk signature".

2. There's a small box at the bottom left of one of the screens when you're setting up the backup. If you check it, Acronis will copy and restore the old disk number. If that happens, then your new drive will only run if another hard drive on your computer has that same disk number. The one from your old HD. So don't copy it.

3. Stop virtual memory, Norton Go Back if you still have it, and your anti virus software.

4. When the backup is complete, let Acronis verify the integrity of the backup image.

5. To restore, use the Acronis Boot Disk for recover. You made one, right?

6. To get your computer to boot from the CD, you might need to press F12 or some other combination of keys to get the computer to look at the CD drive if there's no boot information on the hard drive.

7. You might also need to be sure you can set your BIOS and/or that your machine will boot from an external USB CD drive (Acronis Recovery Disk) and "see" the USB hard drive where you have the image from your old hard drive.

8. When upgrading to a larger disk, use a partition manager to set one partition to the same size as your old hard drive. That will be Drive C. Then the rest of your new hard drive will be Drive D. If you don't do this, the I think the extra space on the new drive will be wasted. I think the new partition from the restore is the same size as the old hard drive. And the rest of the space on the new HD is wasted. I'm not sure about this, but I split my new drive into two partitions as described above -- and then restored my old disk image to the C partition.

9. You might also have to mess around a bit with your Master Boot Record if it has become damaged or causes problems. There are some files from Win98 you can use to fix errors in your MBR and/or edit it as needed, but I'll leave that for another post if you have MBR problems.

Good luck --

excellent advice! why use a boring cloning program that clones a drive with four simple mouse clicks when one can do it with interesting 9 steps, a recovery disk and a fistful of dos and donts.

If you just want to clone a disk, Acronis can do that in a few clicks as well.

You've missed all the implications in "restore." This is the procedure that primarily separates the men from the boys in the disk management area. Secondarily you have the matters of incremental and differential backups and filtering.

Edited October 23, 2012 by JSixpack

[2008bangkok]

windows backup/restore does not clone!

Contol Panel>Windows Backup/Restore>Create system image , will create a full disk image

[ericjt]

windows backup/restore does not clone!

Contol Panel>Windows Backup/Restore>Create system image , will create a full disk image

What version of Windows, 2008bangkok? I'm using WinXP SP3 and can't find it. Thanks....

[JSixpack]

windows backup/restore does not clone!

Contol Panel>Windows Backup/Restore>Create system image , will create a full disk image

What version of Windows, 2008bangkok? I'm using WinXP SP3 and can't find it. Thanks....

Not available in WinXP.

[Naam]

windows backup/restore does not clone!

Contol Panel>Windows Backup/Restore>Create system image , will create a full disk image

an image is not a clone. period!

[2008bangkok]

windows backup/restore does not clone!

Contol Panel>Windows Backup/Restore>Create system image , will create a full disk image

an image is not a clone. period!

What is it then if an image isn't a clone,an image enables you to have an exact copy of your current machine either reinstalled or on a new disk system.

I would say that is the same as a clone, infancy Even on Norton Ghost they call it a Ghost Image.

Stop nitpicking

[Naam]

windows backup/restore does not clone!

Contol Panel>Windows Backup/Restore>Create system image , will create a full disk image

an image is not a clone. period!

What is it then if an image isn't a clone,an image enables you to have an exact copy of your current machine either reinstalled or on a new disk system.

I would say that is the same as a clone, infancy Even on Norton Ghost they call it a Ghost Image.

Stop nitpicking

a clone can boot, an image cannot!

next intelligent nitpicking remark please.

[Tywais]

windows backup/restore does not clone!

Contol Panel>Windows Backup/Restore>Create system image , will create a full disk image

an image is not a clone. period!

What is it then if an image isn't a clone,an image enables you to have an exact copy of your current machine either reinstalled or on a new disk system.

I would say that is the same as a clone, infancy Even on Norton Ghost they call it a Ghost Image.

Stop nitpicking

Yes, nitpicking perhaps but he is correct. Cloning is the process of making an exact copy of one hard drive to another hard drive directly. Something popular in Thailand, they take one drive with everything already installed and stick in one or more other drives and transfer to them. Imaging is creating an exact copy of a disk but to a file.

[Naam]

Imaging is creating an exact copy of a disk but to a file.

for a PC owner a second (or multiple) drive(s) installed is ideal if a system failure occurs and regular cloning is done. system up and working in less than a minute by changing boot drive in BIOS.

more difficult for Laptop owners with systems that have no USB boot option.

[Gary A]

I did make a CD/DVD boot disk. If the computer still boots up on the hard drive, the backup on the USB drive has a start file and the main drive will restore from there. If the computer won't boot, you have to start it from the CD/DVD disk. It will open the USB drive and you can use the backup from there. I NEED simple things.

[zzdocxx]

Namm, when you say change the boot drive, you mean booting up from a cd or USB or other drive which have "everything" on it? Ie. the OS, the installed programs, settings, etc. etc.

For example, I want to be able to put itunes with all my playlists back on the computer without hassling with it. Likewise for my other programs, without having to install each one from scratch.

A young guy from work has been helping me with my computer, and he brought Acronis to back me up on an external USB hard drive. But then my SSD crashed, and when booting from the Acronis disk we had made, the external HD was not able to be seen, making it impossible to restore from the external HD.

The workaround he is proposing is to install OS from original stock recovery disk, then go over to external HD and get the various programs etc and restore them to my new SSD.

I don't totally understand it -- I do hope it works.

Apparently something wasn't quite right on the original set up. I've read on the net that one should set up the backup/image using the Acronis disc you have made, in order to be sure that it will work. He seems to have skipped that step.

A bit frustrating but I'm trying to remain calm.

[JSixpack]

Namm, when you say change the boot drive, you mean booting up from a cd or USB or other drive which have "everything" on it? Ie. the OS, the installed programs, settings, etc. etc.

I suspect he means having a 2nd internal hard drive for the purpose, but a USB cloned drive would boot up a modern computer, yes. However, you wouldn't want to run from an external USB drive for long. CD or DVD, no, too little capacity and SO slow for everything. A small Linux system w/ little data would run from a CD, but the data and settings can't be persistent. Naam, you see, has a vast amount of highly critical data affecting the global gold and currency markets etc.

Likewise for my other programs, without having to install each one from scratch.

Very different problem from backing up music files. Now you've gotten into the world of cloning and imaging. Images have the advantage of being compressed, and you can make fast and compressed incremental image backups. And with some programs you can do a "bare metal" restore to very different hardware, e. g., different mainboard, reliably.

A young guy from work has been helping me with my computer, and he brought Acronis to back me up on an external USB hard drive. But then my SSD crashed, and when booting from the Acronis disk we had made, the external HD was not able to be seen, making it impossible to restore from the external HD.

Should have checked about that immediately after making the backup. Try other USB ports, fool around w/ USB settings in the BIOS, access the drive over a network, put the new SSD in another computer for the clone, be sure the external box still really works, etc.

The workaround he is proposing is to install OS from original stock recovery disk, then go over to external HD and get the various programs etc and restore them to my new SSD.

That ain't gonna work except for the data (docs, music, etc) and portable programs you had, if any. Don't give up yet on that image. If that boot disk wasn't made from the latest version of Acronis, might want to get a later one. It'll be backwards compatible w/ the image file.

[zzdocxx]

Thanks, I suspect he got in a bit over his head. One of the remarks I saw on googling said something about creating the image using the boot CD that you have created, to make sure it will all work. Which he didn't do.

Luckily, I had all my data including music, docs, etc., on a regular HD and was only running my OS and programs from the SSD. I've reinstalled the OS but would just like to get all my programs back without going back and doing each individually.

I'm going to look through those suggestions again and see if I can figure something out. We got into the bios etc. to try to make the external USB hard drive visible, but could only see it after reinstalling the OS from the factory disc.

[Naam]

I suspect he means having a 2nd internal hard drive for the purpose, but a USB cloned drive would boot up a modern computer, yes. However, you wouldn't want to run from an external USB drive for long. CD or DVD, no, too little capacity and SO slow for everything. A small Linux system w/ little data would run from a CD, but the data and settings can't be persistent. Naam, you see, has a vast amount of highly critical data affecting the global gold and currency markets etc.

second internal drive is correct. cloning because of highly critical data is an incorrect assumption. that data is backed up not less than 50, quite often up to 100 times a day and not stored on any internal drive.

[Naam]

Thanks, I suspect he got in a bit over his head. One of the remarks I saw on googling said something about creating the image using the boot CD that you have created, to make sure it will all work. Which he didn't do.

Luckily, I had all my data including music, docs, etc., on a regular HD and was only running my OS and programs from the SSD. I've reinstalled the OS but would just like to get all my programs back without going back and doing each individually.

I'm going to look through those suggestions again and see if I can figure something out. We got into the bios etc. to try to make the external USB hard drive visible, but could only see it after reinstalling the OS from the factory disc.

not every BIOS or OS let's you boot from an external drive even if you are able to "see" it.

[Naam]

Namm, when you say change the boot drive, you mean booting up from a cd or USB or other drive which have "everything" on it? Ie. the OS, the installed programs, settings, etc. etc.

i meant indeed "everything on it" but that works without problems only with one additional internal drive in a PC. you have not mentioned whether your problem is with a laptop or a PC.

[zzdocxx]

Yeah sorry I forgot to mention working on my desktop PC,

[Naam]

Luckily, I had all my data including music, docs, etc., on a regular HD and was only running my OS and programs from the SSD. I've reinstalled the OS but would just like to get all my programs back without going back and doing each individually.

then cloning will not solve your problem. your reinstalled OS (XP?) on an SSD won't know which programs to find where on your regular drive.

[zzdocxx]

Yes exactly. That is why my intention was for him to back up those files but in addition to have the Acronis make an image of my SSD.

Because my data files are on a regular internal HD that is separate from the SSD, we didn't need so much to clone those, but did anyway just for backup purposes.

So we've got a glitch with putting the image onto the new SSD, since when booting gfrom the Acronis boot disc, the external HD (usb 3) with the image is not seen.

Gotta love computers!

[Gary A]

Maybe the most important thing is for users to backup their libraries. As long as all your personal files are backed up, you can always reinstall programs and the operating system. Years ago I relied on a system backup that failed and I lost a lot of photos that could not be replaced. I'll never make that mistake again.

[JSixpack]

Maybe the most important thing is for users to backup their libraries. As long as all your personal files are backed up, you can always reinstall programs and the operating system. Years ago I relied on a system backup that failed and I lost a lot of photos that could not be replaced. I'll never make that mistake again.

True. I'll put in a good word for cloud storage here as well. That's been a welcome new development.

In fact, you can back up your portable programs to the cloud as well. A case can be made for preferring them whenever possible--no reinstallation.

You can encrypt the files before storing in the could with such programs as Cloudfogger, reviewed here: http://www.ghacks.net/2012/03/12/cloudfogger-secure-file-storage-in-the-cloud/

[Naam]

Maybe the most important thing is for users to backup their libraries. As long as all your personal files are backed up, you can always reinstall programs and the operating system. Years ago I relied on a system backup that failed and I lost a lot of photos that could not be replaced. I'll never make that mistake again.

external drives have become so cheap nowadays that there is no excuse not to have libraries of photos, films or music even in duplicate. the Mrs has spent uncountable hours scanning old photos and might have years to go till most of them are scanned. imagine what [wo]man hours would be lost if a drive breaks down and its content cannot be recovered.

[JSixpack]

A slight risk with the cloning-as-backup method is that during the cloning the primary disk might fail, leaving you with an incomplete clone--i.e., nothing. If you're imaging and using increments, you'd at least have the previous image, which you can restore. I know of people who do both. It's a bit better to use different brands of drives for this kind of thing to minimize the risk--again slight--of both failing at about the same time.

[Naam]

A slight risk with the cloning-as-backup method is that during the cloning the primary disk might fail, leaving you with an incomplete clone--i.e., nothing. If you're imaging and using increments, you'd at least have the previous image, which you can restore. I know of people who do both. It's a bit better to use different brands of drives for this kind of thing to minimize the risk--again slight--of both failing at about the same time.

that's why my PC has 4 internal drives. as already mentioned i don't keep important data on internal drives and the same goes for various libraries. i actually i am cloning more or less only system and installed programs as well as some insignificant data which, if lost, represent a loss maximum the last 24 hours of accumulated data.

it also goes without saying that i start the PC the next day after cloning with the cloned drive to make sure cloning was successful.

[balo]

Use Norton Ghost , it is perfect for the job.

An if you buy Samsung SSDs it comes with it free.

[robblok]

In the end clonezilla did the job, burned an cd image booted the computer. Made an image of the 500gb harddisk on a 1t one. The 1t harddisk is much faster.

Clonezilla just made a 500gb partition and the other partition i could edit in windows with the standard tools.

So now the computer of the gf is a bit faster.