Acronis and Cloning..

[bstanley]

Hi!

I have a Thinkpad T41 model 2378DHU with a 40 GB drive.

I bought an 80 GB drive from Lenovo so that I can clone the
40 GB drive onto the 80 GB drive.

I have downloaded the trial versions of Acronis TrueImage
versions 10 and 11. Also I have the trial version of
Acronis Migrate Easy 7.0.

I plan to clone the new drive in my UltraBay adapter.


I have read several post on this forum about different attempts at
cloning which leaves me with the following questions:

1). Would it be better to use Migrate Easy 7.0 instead of one
of the TrueImage programs? I read the online manual for
TrueImage 10.0 and it does not mention any cloning option
in the program.

2). Do I need to format the drive before cloning?

3). I would like to keep the HPA so should I disable it's protection
entirely before cloning?


Any help would be appreciated,

Bruce.

[Johan]

I am very surprised to hear that you did NOT find the answers to your questions, if you really Searched the archives of this forum ... as cloning HDD's using Acronis True Image have been discussed here many, many, many times.

Maybe the thread How I Cloned My IBM ThinkPad T42 Hard Drive - Step by Step may help you forwards. Otherwise, try search for "T41 Acronis True Image" in the T4x forum (and remember to check the "Search for all terms").

Very briefly answers to your question:

1) I haven't used Acronis Migrate Easy 7.0, but only Acronis True Image (up to ver. 9, which I still use today). I would absolutely recommend using Acronis True Image. And, yes, cloning is indeed described in the manual; if you kindly refer to User’s Guide - Acronis True Image 11.0 Home and there read Chapter 14, that's dealing extensively with cloning (!).

2) It is not necessary to format the HDD before cloning, but you need to "Set Active" the new HDD in Windows (kindly refer to Appendix B in the ATI users manual).

3) No need to do anything with the HPA before cloning (at least not in T42's; I don't know if this is different for T41's, but I doubt it).

Search the forum!

[bstanley]

Hi Johan!

Thanks for your reply. The link you sent was not one of the cloning
post that I read. I read it and saw also that this person did
several things (such as formatting the disc ahead of time) that may
not be required.

This is why I posted my request to get some clarification for what
are only the needed steps to clone the original 40G drive to an
80G drive.

I almost wonder it if might not be better to created a backup image
of the 40G drive on my usb 160GB drive, remove the 40GB drive,
install the new 80GB drive is the main drive, run the IBM supplied
recover CDs (which I have) to re-install XP on the new drive,
re-install Acronis on the new dirve, and run the Acronis restore
with the backup image of the original 40GB drive on my usb
160GB drive ????


Thanks for your input,
Bruce.

[bstanley]

Last night I went ahead and cloned the drive using Acronis
True Image Home ver 10.0.

Everything went welll.

For future reference this is what I did:

1). Installed the Acronis True Image Software on my
system (old 40GB drive).

2). Mounted the new 80GB drive in my Ultrabay adapter.
and installed it into the system.

3). Booted up the system and logged in as Administrator.


4). Went to the Disc management utilily via MyComputer
and noticed that the drive was there but not recognized.

5). Right clicked on the new dirve line and selected
the Initialize option. Drive was then recognized as
an Hitachi drive.

6). Ran the Acronis clone drive option and selected
automatic mode.


7). After about 20 minutes the Acronis was done and
shut the system down. I then removed the new
drive from the Ultrabay and put back in by DVD/CD-RW
drive.

. I followed IBM's instructions on removing the old drive
from the computer (be sure to remove the battery first)
and installed the new one in it's place.



Upon first bootup with the new drive, Acronis came up like
check disc does and told me it was syncing the partitions.

It then booted into XP as normal and all seems to be working
well.



I am going to remove the HPA partition from this new drive and
reclaim it's space. I have a copy of Partition Commander it can
use to reclaim it.

I have already read several post on doing this but I have these
last couple of questions concerning this.

1). If I reclaim the HPA will I still be able to get to the BIOS
via the IBM key on the laptop?

2). Will all of the Diagnostic utilities be gone if I reclaim the
HPA?

[bstanley]

Actually as a last follow up, I should report that during
the cloning process Acronis did not copy the HPA area over
to the new drive.

The security mode on the original drive was set to 'normal'
during the cloning process. According to other post it should
have cloned the HPA but it did not.

For me, that was ok as I would have been looking to retrieve
that space anyway.

So if anyone wants to clone with the HPA intact on the new drive,
I guess you will have to disable the security on the HPA
area of the original drive to allow it to be cloned on the new one.

[Ogg]

With the HPA gone, do you still have access to all the features of the IBM key at bootup?

[bstanley]

No

Only a normal Bios setup menu is now accessable.

All of the IBM diagnostic and other programs are gone.

It seems that IBM put all of those utilities inside the HPA.

I still have my original 40GB drive with all of that intact so

if I need to run any of that stuff I can always swap the original

drive back in.

[non460725]

See my post (May 25, 2007) on cloning with Acronis True Image Home. I detailed how I preserved the HPA. The subject of my post was "New T41 owner - HPA, dual-boot, cloning hard drive." The link is http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... is+clon%2A.

I used the procedures in Instructions on How to Copy the HPA to a New Drive (http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=13814).

I found other posts on this forum told me all I needed to know.

Bookman