Can Acronis True Image selectively clone partitions?

[taob]

My T60 was configured with an 80GB 5400 rpm drive, which I would like to replace with a 100GB 7200 rpm drive. Based on the FAQ entry here, I tried the trial version of Acronis True Image (Home edition, I think it is called?). I ran into two problems that I'm not sure I can solve:

1. Can I re-order the partitions on the destination drive? For some reason, when I installed Vista on the 80GB drive, D: is the first partition and C: is the second partition. I want to switch those around so C: comes first and is at the beginning of the drive.

2. Can I select which partitions to clone? I only need C: and D:, not the R&R pre-desktop area.

If Acronis can't do this, can someone recommend an OS/data migration or cloning tool that can? Thanks!

[techflavor]

a) Not sure if you can rearrange partitions... I will check and let you know.

b) Yes you can select which partitions to image

I also see you said you are going from a 80GB drive to a 100GB drive... you might want to look into their "Universal Restore" add-on http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/produ ... store.html. In order to use the Universal Restore option, you need to have True Image 9.1 Workstation http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATICW/.

To get a more in depth response to your questions, you might want to check our their official forums--http://www.wilderssecurity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=65

[taob]

Thanks! I'm running Acronis True Image Home 10.0... maybe that's the problem? I'll look at the Workstation version to see if it does what I need.

I went ahead with the cloning operation anyway, and I was not able to boot from the new drive. I'd get a boot-time error saying something about the Windows loader missing... I'm guessing that's because the BIOS is trying to boot from the first partition instead of the second. There's probably a way to fiddle with the MBR, but I'd really rather have the OS and paging files along the outer rim of the drive.

[taob]

I read the "backup vs clone" thread on the support forum, and tried doing a backup instead. That does allow me to select only the two partitions I want, but now I need three drives to complete the operation: the source drive, the intermediate backup drive, and the destination drive. All I want to do is clone two out of three partitions from my source drive, swapping their order on the destination drive. I'm not sure if I have a USB drive with enough free space to temporarily hold an image of my source drive (even with compression).

Currently awaiting my registration e-mail from wilderssecurity.com so I can post to the forums there...

[dsigma6]

IDK if this applies or not, but I cloned the HD from a Compaq that had a recovery partition. When in Acronis, it showed the single HD as two seperate drive letters, so I didn't select the recovery partition. Everything cloned nicely.

You should be able to find whatever version of Acronis you need on eBay much cheaper.

[taob]

I now have the partitions migrated over to the new 100GB drive, resized and in the right order. There does not appear to be a way to do everything I needed in one step. I had to backup each partition first, then do a restore to the destination drive.

I posted the details over on the Acronis support forums, including a gotcha with the MBR partition order and Vista's BCD (boot configuration data):

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=170830

[Steerpike]

I just did the image process using Acronis TI Home version 10, trial version. I downloaded the trial, and kicked off the backup from within windows (the option to do the backup from the standalone disk is not available in the trial version). It took about 2 hrs to copy ~55GB to a network share (I don't have a sata media bay drive adapter, so could not do disk-to-disk). I then copied that backup file from the network share to a USB 2 hard drive (I was originally going to do the backup and restore at work, but ran out of time and needed to go home, and wouldn't have fast access to network from home). I backed up only the main, active partition, not the IBM partition.

At home, I booted up the standalone Acronis boot CD, and kicked off the restore from the USB drive, having installed the new HD. I was a little confused by one screen - 'Partition or Disk to Restore' - the two choices were, under 'Disk 1',
'IBM_PRELOAD (C:) Pri, Act
'MBR and Track 0'
Each item had a 'check box', but I could not select both - it was more like a radio button selection. So I selected the first one, 'IBM_PRELOAD (C:)'. To me, I needed to select 'MBR and Track 0' also, but I couldn't select both.

(edit: after reading more over at the Acronis forum, there is some suggestion that I should have also chosen a later option to restore additional stuff, and then restored the MBR and Track 0. But I didn't, and everything worked. In some ways, I'm thinking that I should not restore the MBR since I only restored one partition (and thus, the original MBR would be incorrect in the context of the new drive), but then ... how did the new MBR get set on the new drive?)

The restore took about 2.5 hours. After the restore completed, I simply rebooted. Windows immediately loaded, and detected the new HD, and wanted to reboot. After rebooting, all seemed well.

So now, I'm running with a 100GB 7200 RPM instead of the 60GB 5400 GB that shipped with the system, for about $105.

I think I'll purchase Acronis; it really did the job and doesn't seem to have all the bloat that symantec programs have.

There is some talk over on the Acronis forums that backups and/or restores are very slow if you use the bood CD, due to linux drivers, but my processes were pretty quick. They say the workaround is to use the 'bart pe' disk instead.

I am curious about how it backs up from within windows - with windows running. I presume it keeps track of changed files during the backup and re-copies any files that were modified since the backup started.