hard drive cloning

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liberte · #1 Post by **liberte** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 8:19 pm

I saw the threads on 320 gig hard drives. Great info. Time to upgrade!

What do you folks recommend for disk cloning software? Also, I'd like to keep my original disk in an external enclosure and hook up via USB. What external cases are the best? Do most USB external cases have two USB connectors for more power?

Sure appreciate any insight.

#2 Post by **Harryc** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 9:04 pm

Try a forum search for 'acronis'. This gets asked almost every day here

. There is also a FAQ here.

mgo · #3 Post by **mgo** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 10:18 pm

liberte wrote:I saw the threads on 320 gig hard drives. Great info. Time to upgrade!

What do you folks recommend for disk cloning software? Also, I'd like to keep my original disk in an external enclosure and hook up via USB. What external cases are the best? Do most USB external cases have two USB connectors for more power?

Sure appreciate any insight.

I like to use the Ultra Bay adapter for a second hard drive. (but USB external set ups are good, too)

The adapters are relatively inexpensive and work great. They just slide in the slot in place of the CD drive.

Ultrabay drives are a good place to backup your entire machine using that Acronis program mentioned here. Some drives come with a free acronis program included for easy cloning.

Partitioning a big hard drive works well for me. That way I can separate the operating system and my document files for easy backup and disaster recovery.

I have a 320 gig drive running now(don't remember the brand and it's kinda busy now) and I really like having that room for docs and media files.

hellosailor · #4 Post by **hellosailor** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 7:38 pm

Harry, I have to say Acronis scares me. Not good YnGlitch Speak!

I used the Seagate OEM version of Acronis, and called Seagate's support because the prompts seemed to indicate that if I chose to "clone" the internal drive to the new external one (intending later to have two drives, each of which would be useable as a bootable internal drive) that the OS would be TRANSFERRED to the new drive--not just cloned.

Seagate man told me no, no way, that's not what clone means, and here's the other help screens that confirm it.

Well, a funny thing happened this week. iIwent to put the old internal drive back in for the first time, so I could restore some old files to it without wiping my current set. And you know what? The Thinkpad software couldn't find anything to boot from. The old drive was MADE UNBOOTABLE BY THE ACRONIS CLONING SOFTWARE, which was only suppose to CLONE the old drive, not CHANGE it.

I've been meaning to look into this...to see if I just need to set the active partition flag, or do a boot repair (Vista), or WTF I need to do. Any thoughts in that direction would be appreciated. Otherwise...I'll have to wipe it, rebrick it, and THEN copy the files I wanted to "just" restore to it. A bit more work than I had intended--thanks to Acronis. And Seagate.

This kind of thing was old 20 years ago, it's plain inexcusable now.

Temetka · #5 Post by **Temetka** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 3:50 am

No HD cloning software I have used in the past has rendered the source volume un-bootable.

Do you have anymore information on this 'Seagate' version of Acronis as I'd be curious to read more about it and why or how it would render the source partition un-bootable.

#6 Post by **Harryc** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 5:15 am

I agree. I do not understand how cloning software would/could render the source drive unbootable. After all, during the clone process you are copying from the source drive, not writing to it. I'd suspect hardware over software first. Have diagnostics been run on the hard drive? Which diags?

... the OS would be TRANSFERRED to the new drive--not just cloned.

I don't understand what you are trying to accomplish. It might be a pre-coffee moment on this end though.

propellen · #7 Post by **propellen** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 8:07 am

hellosailor wrote: Well, a funny thing happened this week. iIwent to put the old internal drive back in for the first time, so I could restore some old files to it without wiping my current set. And you know what? The Thinkpad software couldn't find anything to boot from. The old drive was MADE UNBOOTABLE BY THE ACRONIS CLONING SOFTWARE, which was only suppose to CLONE the old drive, not CHANGE it.

You get a question during the Acronis clone setup, where they ask you to specify post-clone actions applied to the source disk:
- Keep data (checked by default)
- Wipe data

The last option will make your disk unable to boot for sure.

hellosailor · #8 Post by **hellosailor** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 11:19 am

This wasn't a question of keeping or wiping data. There's still plenty of data on the old drive, it was just the "boot flags" that were removed, so the drive cannot be BOOTED.

Stick it in a USB slot and everything else is still there--but that's not the point. A drive that has been cloned should still be intact, unchanged, so that it can be replaced and used as it was last used.

Andy · #9 Post by **Andy** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 3:44 pm

hellosailor wrote:This wasn't a question of keeping or wiping data. There's still plenty of data on the old drive, it was just the "boot flags" that were removed, so the drive cannot be BOOTED.

Stick it in a USB slot and everything else is still there--but that's not the point. A drive that has been cloned should still be intact, unchanged, so that it can be replaced and used as it was last used.

I used Seagate's version of the Acronis product a few months ago to upgrade from a 100 GB to a 200 GB drive. At the end of the process, both the old and the new drives were bootable.

pae77 · #10 Post by **pae77** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:27 pm

I've been using acronis true image to "clone" my hard drive to an identical drive in the Ultra Bay using ultrabay second hard drive adapters for many years without a single problem. Highly recommended. Btw, Acronis True image 2009 has recently been released. Cloning is the way to go!

Any problems that may be encountered are most likely to be caused by "user error."

DenTP4rm · #11 Post by **DenTP4rm** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 8:36 pm

pae77 wrote:I've been using acronis true image to "clone" my hard drive to an identical drive in the Ultra Bay

Pae77,
I'm assuming you use the Windows version of Acronis then? I have always used a boot disk which means I couldn't have a drive in the UltraBay. I prefer the boot disk as I just like Acronis working from a "cleaner" environment. I tried putting it on a USB drive but couldn't get it to work. If anybody knows of a workaround I'd appreciate knowing about it. Acronis has worked fine for me for years. I do follow follow Paul Pavlik's advice, see Cloning T60 With Apricorn (Update), about reversing the "clone from" and "clone to" drives.
thanks,
DenTP4rm

pae77 · #12 Post by **pae77** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:15 pm

Yes, use windows version with zero issues. My clones have never failed to boot properly when installed in the primary drive slot. Never tried to make it work with a USB hard drive so can't help you there.

peralex1 · #13 Post by **peralex1** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 7:55 pm

I used acronis to clone with ultrabay adapter and it worked fine but USB enclosure never worked right - usually the cloned drive would not be bootable. Check if there is a difference using USB enclosure and hard drive bay (or UltraBay adapter).

propellen · #14 Post by **propellen** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 2:03 pm

peralex1 wrote:I used acronis to clone with ultrabay adapter and it worked fine but USB enclosure never worked right - usually the cloned drive would not be bootable. Check if there is a difference using USB enclosure and hard drive bay (or UltraBay adapter).

Using an external USB casing you need to place the destination disk in the laptop and the source disk in the USB casing. Then bootup the cloning software from an optical media and clone.

Doing the inverse will result in a corrupt MBR.

peralex1 · #15 Post by **peralex1** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 2:40 pm

I would agree with that. It just I never was desperate enough.

agarza · #16 Post by **agarza** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 10:03 am

propellen wrote:
peralex1 wrote:I used acronis to clone with ultrabay adapter and it worked fine but USB enclosure never worked right - usually the cloned drive would not be bootable. Check if there is a difference using USB enclosure and hard drive bay (or UltraBay adapter).
Using an external USB casing you need to place the destination disk in the laptop and the source disk in the USB casing. Then bootup the cloning software from an optical media and clone.

Doing the inverse will result in a corrupt MBR.

How can you do that if the destination drive is empty, does Acronis have a cloning bootable CD to make the clone or what?

peralex1 · #17 Post by **peralex1** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 10:09 am

Acronis CD is bootable. So you boot it with both source and destination drives plugged in and recognised by Bios. Press F12 when starting to boot from CD (if not configured in boot list priorities in Bios) and run Acronis. I have version 9 so I can not do Vista, but for XP Acronis works great. I use external CD-drive and Ultrabay harddrive adapter to clone.

SatDoug · #18 Post by **SatDoug** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 9:46 am

Hi All:
After reading this thread, I have a question as to why there is a need to clone with Acronis (which I have on my desktop & love) on a ThinkPad with Rescue & Recovery. When it comes time for me to replace my drive, I was planning to just replace the internal drive, boot up to R&R environment, and restore my last image that I have saved on an external USB drive to the new hard drive. Am I missing something? Would that not work? Would there be a problem(s) if it wasn't the exact same drive, and what problems? What about the ThinkPad hidden partition for R&R..I would think that would be re-created. What about Acronis? Will that clone the hidden R&R partition as well? Thanks so much!

DenTP4rm · #19 Post by **DenTP4rm** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 8:26 pm

Hi SatDoug,
I can't say why others don't use R&R for cloning, I'm sure there are some who do. I just use Acronis because it's always worked for me from pre-Thinkpad days. In all the clones I've done so far it makes a complete clone of everything, including hidden partition.

Just be careful, as some have mentioned here, that if you use an external USB or eSATA drive you put your old drive in the external enclosure and the new (or clone TO) drive in the main drive bay. Has something to do with the MBR getting corrupted. That setup has worked for me for some time now. Acronis allows you to make a boot CD which is the way I do it. I'll probably get around to trying the ultrabay route soon.
Good luck,
DenTP4rm

safelder · #20 Post by **safelder** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 9:19 pm

For what it's worth, I cloned a 200GB HDD (old main hard drive) to a 320GB HDD (in the Ultrabay adapter) using Acronis True Image 2009. After I swapped the drives, I used Acronis Disk Director Suite to blow away the hidden partition on the new HDD and created an image of the 320GB on the 200GB drive as a replacement for R&R.

Everything so far is working like a charm.

CatKing · #21 Post by **CatKing** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 6:45 am

Hi,
I cloned a 320GB (old main hard drive) to a new 80GB (in the ultrabay adapter) using Acronis True Image 2009, my window refused to boot up and remained blank/black screen after the program asked to to reboot (seemed the data had not been transferred yet) during the procedure.

Please give your expert advice. Thanks

SatDoug · #22 Post by **SatDoug** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 8:42 am

Thanks for the info...I like that the hidden partition will be cloned with no problem. DenTP4rm, as you have past experience: I would plan to use Acronis to image as I do my desktop: full image to an external USB drive. Remove original drive from ThinkPad & replace with new internal drive. Boot to Acronis with boot CD. Restore image from externally USB connected drive to new internal drive. Will I be OK in this instance? Is this how you do it? I know it's an extra step back and forth, but my original drive will never have anything touched on it and I can always just pop it back in if I run into a problem.

safelder · #23 Post by **safelder** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:18 pm

CatKing wrote:Hi,
I cloned a 320GB (old main hard drive) to a new 80GB (in the ultrabay adapter) using Acronis True Image 2009, my window refused to boot up and remained blank/black screen after the program asked to to reboot (seemed the data had not been transferred yet) during the procedure.

I don't think the data transfers until after the reboot. When I ran it, I provided all the cloning instructions, then it asked for a reboot. When I rebooted, it rebooted to a blue screen with white ASCII text that showed me the progress of the cloning of the two partitions (R&R and main). When that finished, it booted back to Windows, and both drives showed up. I shut down, put the 320GB in as the main drive; when I rebooted, it went back to the blue screen with white ASCII text, presumably to make the cloned drive bootable. When it booted back into Windows, it did the "found new hardware" thing, required one more reboot, and all was well.

The only thing I can think of in your situation is that the default setting for Acronis is to scale the partitions. It is possible that, in scaling down from a 320GB to an 80GB drive, one of your partitions (probably the R&R partition) is shrinking below what it needs, and that is hanging things up.

Does your original drive still work?

runbuh · #24 Post by **runbuh** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 6:02 pm

Sounds like we ought to clarify our wording about how we clone the drive.

When I clone with Acronis, I boot to a CD and then clone the drive (Windows is not running). Although I own the True Image 11 product, I think this "feature" of booting off a CD is the "Migrate Easy" software.

I have not experienced cloning problems going this route, except one time when I went from 100GB 7200rpm Hitachi to 320GB 7200rpm Hitachi (new drive was connected via a USB adapter). After cloning, the 320GB would not boot when connected internally, but all the data was there when I plugged the 320GB drive in via the USB adapter. FIXMBR/FIXBOOT XP recovery tools did not help. I ended up re-cloning the 100GB partition without resizing, and then used a Knoppix CD to re-size the partition with great success. The old drive remained bootable. The OS was XP SP3 on a TP61p, and a single NTFS partition (no other partitions are present).

CatKing · #25 Post by **CatKing** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 6:44 pm

Hi Safelder,

Thanks for your reply.
Yes, the original drive still work and running into window without problem after turn off and turn on again the computer, it goes to safe mode and I choose the go back to last setting. Another interesting thing is the new drive goes back to it's own shape without any change.

Rockie-1 · #26 Post by **Rockie-1** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 6:40 pm

Ultra-bay hard drive and Acronis True Image..

Works great, I clone at least once a week and most weeks twice a week.

jketzetera · #27 Post by **jketzetera** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 9:07 pm

propellen wrote:
peralex1 wrote:I used acronis to clone with ultrabay adapter and it worked fine but USB enclosure never worked right - usually the cloned drive would not be bootable. Check if there is a difference using USB enclosure and hard drive bay (or UltraBay adapter).
Using an external USB casing you need to place the destination disk in the laptop and the source disk in the USB casing. Then bootup the cloning software from an optical media and clone.

Doing the inverse will result in a corrupt MBR.

Using Acronis True Image Home v11, I have never encountered the corruption issue, when cloning from laptop to destination disk in USB-enclosure.

However, when running Acronis utilities (Disk Director and True Image) from within Windows, you may encounter problems that affect the system drive MBR!

I learned this the hard way, when I was running Truecrypt whole disk encryption. If the Acronis utility needed to re-boot to complete the imagining / partitioning operations, it would sometimes kill the Truecrypt pre-boot-authentication (on the system drive) which would render the system un-bootable.

Without the Truecrypt rescue disk, the system would be toast.

CatKing · #28 Post by **CatKing** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 4:44 am

Thanks

Jketzetera, then what do you do?

Nolonemo · #29 Post by **Nolonemo** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:41 pm

I think the best cloning solution is to boot from a thumb drive with the cloning software on it. I know you can do this with the Acronis software, Acronis makes the files to put it on a BartPE boot drive.

I personally also turn off hard drive security in the BIOS - don't know if it's needed, but one less thing that can introduce problems.

jketzetera · #30 Post by **jketzetera** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 3:54 pm

CatKing wrote:Thanks

Jketzetera, then what do you do?

I had to use the rescue option from the Truecrypt Rescue Disk to rebuild the MBR and restore the encryption key to the hard drive.

After that I switched to using the Boot CD for my partitioning / imaging operations as it does not mess with the MBR or the first sector on the system disk.

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