Cloning - is this correct? (edited 12/9/11) SUCCESS!

[tenpointnine]

With thanks to EOMtp and Jonas for advice recently given in another thread, I believe I am now ready to clone my granddaughter's T60 hard drive.

Is this the correct procedure?

Put new drive into ultrabay caddy and format
Remove caddy, remove new hdd
Remove Multi drive and place into Advanced dock ultrabay
Power down t60. Remove battery.
Remove old HDD
Place in ultrabay caddy and insert into ultrabay
Place new drive into main HDD bay
Replace battery
Place T60 into Advanced dock
Place Acronis True Image disc into Multi drive in Dock ultrabay
Power up T60, pressing F12 at boot up
Clone old drive to new drive
Power down
Remove from Dock
Remove caddy
Remove old drive from caddy
Remove Acronis CD from Multidrive
Remove empty Multidrive and replace into T60
Boot up from new drive
Finished!

If the above is correct, I will do it today (I have delayed long enough!)

Walter

[RealBlackStuff]

Instead of buying a dock and an Ultrabay HD adapter, you could just get an external USB enclosure for 2.5" SATA HD.
Much cheaper.

Put new HD into enclosure, connect to T60 and initialize/format
Power down T60
Remove old HD
Remove caddy/rails from old HD and attach to new HD
Place new HD into main HD bay (upside down) and attach HD cover
Place old HD into enclosure and attach to USB port
Place Acronis True Image disc into Multi drive in T60
Power up T60, pressing F12 at boot up
Boot from Acronis CD
Clone old drive to new drive (enclosure --> bay)
Power down
Remove Acronis CD from Multidrive
Remove enclosure cable from T60
Boot up from new drive
If OK, Finished!

If you don't need data on the old HD, reattach and format old HD
Use for external storage

[cadillacmike68]

Both methods will work.

If you already have the dock with the ultrabay and the HDD tray, you don't need the USB enclosure. If you already have the USB, you don't need the bock w/ ultrabay or the HDD tray.

I prefer booting the Acronis CD in the dock's ultrabay and leaving the original HDD in the ThinkPad's main bay, with the new drive in the thikpad's ultrabay in the tray. Then after it finishes i remove the new drive, test the original to ensure it still works fine, then i swap the new drive into the thinkpad's main bay. I've done this enough times to become an expert at it.

[tenpointnine]

RBS and cadillacmike68, many thanks to both of you for your replies.

I do already have the Advanced dock and the ultrabay caddy, but as for where to put the new HDD when cloning, I think I will have to toss a coin.

I keep reading that it is best to put it in the main bay first.

I just got a Scorpio Black 320Gb for my T60 today, so maybe I will clone my granddaughter's with one method and mine with another?

Decisons, decisions!

Walter

[tenpointnine]

Decided to clone the 2 drives using 1 method for my t60 HDD and the other method for my granddaughter's.

Did everything as per the list in post 1, only to find that the drive bay in the Advanced dock wasn't working! That's ebay for you.

Tried 2 different multidrives, but to no avail.

Back to the drawing board!

Walter

[cadillacmike68]

I found that the clone program works better once the computer has been set to recognize the dock and the CD / DVD drive in it. Try this.

Machine powered off
DVD/CDRW in the bay in the dock. main hdd in the T60 main bay.
T60 internal ultrabay either open of with a blank HDD in it
Attach T60 to the dock
Boot windows normally
When it finishes check your "my computer" for the HDDs and DVD/CDRW

If you don't see it, remove it and re-insert it to see if it get "picked up" by the OS. If not then the dock or DVD drive is bad. Or the connector on the bottom of the T60, but then you would have other issues.

Once you can see a CD in the dock's ultrabay, put in the acronis boot CD, shut off the T60, put the target HDD in the ultrabay and turn it back on. REMEMBER TO SET IT TO BOOT FROM THE CD!!!

Note: this is why i like to keep the original HDD in the primary bay. When (not if) there are problems i can just re-boot to the original HDD without changing anything around!

Note you can use a USB enclosure. The original HSS would go in the enclosure, the target HDD in the primary bay and the boot CD in the internal ultrabay. But in this method, you muse be ABSOLUTLY certain that the CD will boot up because you do not want windows XP to see that original drive as a "second" or "removable " drive. That's why i won't go that route. I use this setup one time. with my slow USB1.1 it took 15 hours to clone the 320GB drive, but it did work correctly. I'm using the Dock with Ultrabay setup from now on, or the two HDDs only and no CD boot (run from within windows).

You can also run acronis from inside windows. it reboots once or twice depending on wether or not there is data on the target HDD.

[tenpointnine]

Using a usb external drive for the Acronis disc, the I.T. guy from the company who does our IT service, cloned my HDD is about 5 minutes. How easy is that?
There I was previously thinking "Oh, I had better be careful, I will probably ruin something", when it is so simple! I do appreciate that you must make sure which drive you are cloning from and not mix them up.

I paid close attention to how he did it, as I need to clone my own disc to a newly acquired Scorpio Black 320Gb, but I need to back it up first.

Incidentally, I put the new drive in the HDD bay and the old one in the ultrabay caddy, as I have seen so many recommendations of this being the preferred method. In any event, it worked.

Roll on Christmas, when my granddaughter unwraps her 'new' T60 with 3Gb RAM and 250Gb hard drive. A far cry from when I was 11 and you were lucky to get an apple and an orange!

Thanks to all for the advice and also the patience in dealing with my questions.

Walter