T41 HD cloning w/Acronis: no luck, PITA

[Tim M]

^^ Thanks.

I've tried redoing the clone with the Pre-Desktop Area and Security Chip disabled in the BIOS with a reformatted 100 GB drive, but no dice. In fact, Acronis gives me an error on reboot regarding changed partitions.

Right now I'm going to try to reformat the new drive again (all with it in the external case) including elimination of the recovery partition on it. Unfortunately, I have the trial version of Acronis and so cannot do the clone outside of Windows; thus I am required to keep the "new" 100 GB drive in the external USB case.

I will attempt the fdisk/ mbr trick if I get the blinking cursor again as that seems to be the problem I'm having.

EDIT: It seems from reading further (this information is spread out all over the place, which is a bit annoying) that I must have the target drive installed in my machine for the clone to work correctly--something to do with "unique" consideration of drive geometry by IBM. I'll have to find some way to boot off a CD with the target drive in the machine so that I may clone from my source drive in the enclosure. This is very frustrating.

Success...finally. I had to install the 100 GB HDD in the machine and use a boot CD (and cloning software that would allow me to clone when booted from the CD) to clone from the original 60 GB HDD in an external case to the fresh internal drive.

Upon rebooting and running diagnostics, I found that I would receive a RUNDLL error when trying to "Safely Remove Hardware," which is apparently related to Acronis as discussed here.

I uninstalled the Acronis trial version and updated the Generic Volume drivers as discussed and everything is working now. Frankly, Acronis 11 seems to be more trouble than it's worth.

[rbena]

Frankly, Acronis 11 seems to be more trouble than it's worth.

That's the consensus of a lot of Acronis users, who have been waiting quite a number of months for an update to version 11.

I use version 9 for Windows 2000, and version 10 for Windows XP. Both work very well, and hopefully an update will bring version 11 up to the same standard.

[sojourner]

I use version 9 for Windows 2000, and version 10 for Windows XP.

rbena, what is it about using v10 you like for XP? I have v9 because it can also be used with Win98, have not tried it with XP or W2K. Don't own v10. Would appreciate your findings!

BTW, I use Ghost 2001 for cloning with GREAT results, albeit one must remember to click a certain switch so the WHOLE mbr is cloned, otherwise blinking curser at boot!

[rbena]

what is it about using v10 you like for XP? I have v9 because it can also be used with Win98, have not tried it with XP or W2K. Don't own v10. Would appreciate your findings!

BTW, I use Ghost 2001 for cloning with GREAT results.

It seems the best rule to follow with Acronis is to use whichever version works best for your computer. However, a lot of users seem to have experienced the best builds are Acronis 9-2337 Home and Acronis 10-4942 Home. Version 10 has a slightly newer interface and has the most comments available for XP.

Version 9 may actually work just as well as version 10 for XP on my T42. Note I remove the hidden recovery partition to save space. I then create custom Hdd images which save time reloading - versus the standard factory Product Recovery install.

For -cloning- I find Acronis with its additional settings works best compared with Ghost.

But I prefer using Ghost vs Acronis for -imaging partitions-. Presently use Ghost 2001 to image the C-partition for Win2000, and Ghost 2003 for XP installs. Again, I do not have the hidden recovery partition as I find it unnecessary when custom imaging, and simply keep a copy on CD.

I find having a number of imaging programs that perform well is useful, especially if a particular Hdd setup requires a more sophisticated program to produce a successful image or clone. This has been the approach that has worked well for me over the past 10 years.

Others will have imaging programs and versions they prefer for their particular systems. I would suggest you first try your existing version on the particular setup you have. You may find that Acronis 9 produces successful XP images for your computer, and thus have no need for version 10. It is certainly reassuring that these two versions work well for many users.

[Tim M]

Another Acronis headache for me, regarding BSODs whenever Volume Shadow Copy is used: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=64498.

The issue stems from Acronis corrupting the MBR; this issue can be fixed several ways, as discussed here: http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic94820.html. I applied the "preferred" fix and everything is working as it should now.

At least in my experience, Acronis is quickly becoming software to avoid.

[Johan]

Tim:

What is/was the specific version (and build) of ATI causing you all this trouble?

Johan

[Tim M]

Cripes...I got rid of it, so can't check. However, based on my post at the top of the page, I was using ATI 11 (Trial).