Does a cloned backup HD have to be an identical make/model?

[eecon]

My goal is to have a spare WinXP HD clone during certain on-the-road missions where, during emergency HD failure, I could quickly swap HDs and return to the task within a matter of minutes. I can only have one HD at a time in the WinXP T61, because I also need the optical drive as part of the operation. And all this while on battery power in a confined space with lots of commotion and distractions all around me ..... a similar type of chaos like when trying to get small screaming children clothed, fed and off to school in the mornings ...... except that a mistake or delay here could be hazardous to my health, to say the least.

I've studied postings and the FAQs in this Forum and visited the Acronis Forum. I am using Acronis True Image 11 Home, Build 8053. I have already purchased an external USB 2.5" SATA HD enclosure and a hard padded carrying pouch with belt clip.

Before I place an order for the new spare HD, I'd like to know just how "identical" it must be in terms of size and brand to minimize the potential for a swap failure when an emergency arises.

My current original Lenovo Branded HD is a 100GB 7200 RPM HD and my system info shows the FRU replacement part to be 39T2799. WinXP hardware info shows that current HD to be a ST91002AS Seagate Momentus 7200.1 SATA which is no longer being produced by Segate. The Lenovo website currently offers a Part #41N3013 for the 100GB 7200 RPM SATA replacement/upgrade option on the T61 and I understand that they now may be using a Hitachi HD in place of my Seagate.

My concern about ordering the Lenovo Part # 41N3013 is that they do not specify whether I'd receive a Hitachi or a Seagate. And since the Seagate Momentus 7200.1 is no longer currently manufactured (replaced now with the 7200.2), I'll bet they might send me a Hitachi. I called Lenovo sales and they did not have a clue.

So ...... would a non-Lenovo branded Segate ST91002AS Seagate Momentus 7200.1 SATA 100GB HD be acceptable (OEM or retail boxed) since I can still find them new elsewhere (at least for now)?

Or, must it be a Lenovo Branded HD in Seagate flavor for my T61 to better ensure no emergency swap failures?

This is my planned cloning procedure and hopefully I've got it right (all comments are welcome):

I undersand that with Acronis 11 and WinXP (not Vista), I would simply leave the original HD in the Laptop and verifiy within WinXP's Disk Manager that the new target HD in the USB enclosure shows up properly as an empty unformated HD in WinXP.

Then I'd clone to target by rebooting from my Acronis recuse disk (and not from within WinXP). However, I'm not sure if there are any special options I should chose for this type of "Clone" operation? Then I must remember to shutdown after the target is cloned and swap it into the Laptop and reboot with only the newly cloned HD connected. Then swap HDs back and forth a few times to test compatibility.

If I do all that properly, would there be any further fixes needed (like to my MBR, etc) before I'm ready to roll?

Again, any thoughts or help would be appreciated. Thank you

[slagmi]

Not at all identical, matching the specs as closely as reasonable is sufficient. I've used Seagate models similar to the one you mentioned in various TP's successfully.

You may wish to read up on how to make sure the recovery partition will still be functional on your 'clone' (or you may not be concerned about that at all, and may instead wish to reclaim the space). I'm sure someone here has the relevant threads bookmarked, hopefully they will comment.

[thormdac]

check my post (second-last) on recovery from hidden partition only.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=

basically works as long as chipset is more or less equal ( no definite answer on when it doesnt, as systemupdate can fix a lot!-- as long as you dont get a bluescreen on boot-up, it should work!!!!!)

if chipset is totally different, like t30 on t61, acronis has asolution called---- give me a minute, cant remember

ah, here we go: TrueImage Enterprise Server.9.1.3854 +Universal Restore

now this is not quite your question on hdd choice!

no, size can be altered during RECOVERY, not during cloning, as its 1on 1. do all cloning under dos from acronis recovery cd, as its never failed me.
Better, buy identical size hdd if you want on- the- fly- cloning.

recovering partitions seperately though, you can do as you like!

my advice to you, as you want it failsafe: Set up both hdds identically from scratch, work with two partitions, one for xp, other for data. and just synchronise/recover as needed.

(have had a number of clones that should have worked, but hey didnt, not very nice! )

[mpcook]

I popped an X30 drive into a T23 and booted directly. Everything worked well except I had to download the wireless card driver, and I had limited video options until I downloaded the driver. I know these are not T6* series, but it's worth a try.

Mike

[mgo]

My goal is to have a spare WinXP HD clone during certain on-the-road missions where, during emergency HD failure, I could quickly swap HDs and return to the task within a matter of minutes. I can only have one HD at a time in the WinXP T61, because I also need the optical drive as part of the operation. :

Perhaps I missed some points here, but as a long time Acronis user (and it's a great program!) I'm wondering if you're doing more work and worry than is necessary.

Acronis does not "clone" as such, which implies an exact uncompressed sector by sectoy copy of a drive & operating system. Acronis does create a "image" which is a compressed single large file that is bootable when put back down on a drive should recovery be necessary. The result is the same, it's just Acronis scheme is proprietory.
(the file it creates has the .tib extension) You cannot just swap the drive and boot over the .tib file. It must be restored using the Acronis software (special boot CD or Windows installed Acronis program) to restore the drive.

1: Any other drive would be suitable as your spare replacement. As long as it is a SATA type drive and has the same or larger capacity as your original drive.
2: you would want to purchase a drive caddy (the metal thingy that holds your drive in the ThinkPad) and rubber bumpers for the new drive, or have a screw driver handy to swap the caddy should you switch the drives into the machine.
The caddy & bumbers are cheap and likely can be bought from one of the Thinkpad dot com sponsors you see at the top of the forum page.

3: you would want to create the .tib image onto a CD, or yet another USB drive to temporarily hold that recovery file.

4: Put the new spare drive into your ThinkPad, and then recover the image to the spare drive. Boot over that newly imaged drive and you can then use it as your normal drive, if you like.

5: keep the spare drive in a anti-static sleeve and then into the padded carrier.

6: should your main drive fail (rather unlikely, by the way) you merely use your screw driver to swap out the drives, using care not to force the drive into the chassis. Physically swapping the drives would only take a couple of minutes.

Now the big question is...what about your data? Your spare drive will not contain your most recent files. Those must be saved somewhere else and restored after you replace the drive. A separate thumb drive or similar media would work for that, but it means carrying -two- separate media for your anticipated emergency.

My final thoughts are:
- hard drives in ThinkPads are fairly robust. They are physically isolated by the rubber bumpers and strong case. There is a sensor in the machine that will park the drive should it fall or be jolted. (it's very fast, too and will even sense the fall and park the heads in mid air!)
- if your machine is put into sleep (by closing the lid or Fn+F4, or hibernate using Fn+F12, it is very unlikely you would ever need to replace the drive in the field due to physical shock.

[rkawakami]

It sounds like eecon is road-rallying with a Thinkpad and only needs to have a spare hard drive (or two) on hand in case of damage to the main drive during "excursions" (?). I use Ghost 2003 (DOS) for my clone operations and I believe the original questions can be answered thusly:

- the clone drive can be any size which has a partition of equal size or larger than the source drive
- different drive manufacturers should not pose any problem
- Windows will probably recognize the clone drive as being different than the original by popping up a "new hardware found" message box and advise that you simply need to re-boot

This is my experience using Ghost on the systems you see in my .sig. I would expect that Acronis could do the same with your T61. As you suggest, be sure to install the cloned drive by itself, boot it and verify that it's operating correctly.

[eecon]

It sounds like eecon is road-rallying with a Thinkpad and only needs to have a spare hard drive (or two) on hand in case of damage to the main drive during "excursions" (?). I use Ghost 2003 (DOS) for my clone operations and I believe the original questions can be answered thusly:

- the clone drive can be any size which has a partition of equal size or larger than the source drive
- different drive manufacturers should not pose any problem
- Windows will probably recognize the clone drive as being different than the original by popping up a "new hardware found" message box and advise that you simply need to re-boot

This is my experience using Ghost on the systems you see in my .sig. I would expect that Acronis could do the same with your T61. As you suggest, be sure to install the cloned drive by itself, boot it and verify that it's operating correctly.

Moderator rkawakami and Member slagmi .....Yes, exactly. You understood my questions correctly and provided the needed answers. Thanks!

As to the post by mgo, I beg to differ about Acronis True Image 11 home, Build 8053. It does indeed offer a Cloning option right on the main menu under Disk Utilities.

Maybe someone else here can further confirm if Acronis 11 uses an "uncompressed sector by sector" process like other cloning programs?

[mgo]

[As to the post by mgo, I beg to differ about Acronis True Image 11 home, Build 8053. It does indeed offer a Cloning option right on the main menu under Disk Utilities. Maybe someone else here can further confirm if it uses an "uncompressed sector by sector" process like other cloning programs?

Ok, I am going to go back to my Acronis 11 program and re-read the help files. I am often "instructionally challenged" so maybe I need to take another look. Thanks!

[eecon]

[As to the post by mgo, I beg to differ about Acronis True Image 11 home, Build 8053. It does indeed offer a Cloning option right on the main menu under Disk Utilities. Maybe someone else here can further confirm if it uses an "uncompressed sector by sector" process like other cloning programs?

Ok, I am going to go back to my Acronis 11 program and re-read the help files. I am often "instructionally challenged" so maybe I need to take another look. Thanks!

BTW, thanks for the suggestion about premounting the spare HD into an extra caddie and rubber bumpers ..... that will certainly help speed up any swap

[pae77]

As I've mentioned in other threads, I use Acronis TIH (latest build) and the ultrabay Slim Sata Hard Drive Adapter to do true "cloning" (i.e., not create .tib files) all the time. I've gone from larger hard drives to smaller which will work with Acronis "cloning" as long as the data on the larger drive will fit uncompressed on the smaller target hard drive. One can also go from smaller to larger too. In both cases, where the source and target drives are different sizes, Acronis' manual mode must be used to avoid Acronis automatically proportionally resizing the partitions on the target drive.

So, if you want to be able to use Acronis on a regular basis for fast easy failsafe cloning, it is advisable to have both source and target drives be the same size. (They can be different brands though.) That way you can use the Acronis "automatic" cloning procedure without worrying about the partitions getting resized which makes the clone procedure much faster and easier to set up and thus complete.

I have swapped my thusly cloned hard drives several times and have not had one fail to boot up nicely yet. There is no need clone a working system from any recovery area with Acronis.

Finally, I'm sure this is obvious to most, but just to be clear, with the ultrabay slim hard drive adapter, you don't lose the ability to use your optical drive, except obviously while the adapter is actually in the ultrabay. You just pop it in when you need to make a clone and then remove it and put the optical drive back in. No big deal.

Moderator note: Split out earlier (unfinished) duplicate post.

OP edit: Thanks for taking care of that and sorry about the duplicate post.

[eecon]

So, if you want to be able to use Acronis on a regular basis for fast easy failsafe cloning, it is advisable to have both source and target drives be the same size. (They can be different brands though.) That way you can use the Acronis "automatic" cloning procedure without worrying about the partitions getting resized which makes the clone procedure much faster and easier to set up and thus complete.

Thanks the info .... I presume the main reason to use Acronis manual mode is to always set the Lenovo hidden service partition to the exact same size as originally delivered on my original 100GB HD (whenever the HDs themselves are not the same size). As for my only other partition on my WinXP system (the C: drive), it does not matter regarding sizing as long as the data fits ..... is that about right?

[mgo]

As I've mentioned in other threads, I use Acronis TIH (latest build) and the ultrabay Slim Sata Hard Drive Adapter to do true "cloning" (i.e., not create .tib files) all the time.
I have swapped my thusly cloned hard drives several times and have not had one fail to boot up nicely yet. There is no need clone a working system from any recovery area with Acronis.

Golly gee whiz....I guess I just have completely missed the boat on getting the most out of Acronis! I did not realize one could do an actual -clone- using Acronis, and simply swap the drive into the main slot and you're good to go.

To do that, I assume I want a drive in ultra bay with nothing on it, and then when running Acronis select "All Files" rather than "Backup Archive .TIB". Is that correct? If so, I've really learned something today, and I intend to try it out on a spare drive I just happen to have for my T60 machine.

Could you please confirm that I've repeated the correct procedure? In reading the Acronis instructions, somehow I completely missed the point on how to do that.

Thanks for the help!

[eecon]

Golly gee whiz....I guess I just have completely missed the boat on getting the most out of Acronis! I did not realize one could do an actual -clone- using Acronis, and simply swap the drive into the main slot and you're good to go.

To do that, I assume I want a drive in ultra bay with nothing on it, and then when running Acronis select "All Files" rather than "Backup Archive .TIB". Is that correct? If so, I've really learned something today, and I intend to try it out on a spare drive I just happen to have for my T60 machine.

Could you please confirm that I've repeated the correct procedure? In reading the Acronis instructions, somehow I completely missed the point on how to do that.

Thanks for the help!

Your method should work but I think it's generally preferred to put the target drive in the adapter and leave the original in the laptop. Then boot from the Acronis recovery disk using an external USB optical drive to do the cloning outside of Windows (regardless of the cloning software used, in spite of various software companies claims of the ability to "hot clone" from within Windows). Just be sure to shutdown after the cloning is complete to move the newly cloned HD into the main HD bay and restart without the old HD.

[pae77]

Thanks the info .... I presume the main reason to use Acronis manual mode is to always set the Lenovo hidden service partition to the exact same size as originally delivered on my original 100GB HD (whenever the HDs themselves are not the same size). Right, except it is sometimes hard to get the service partition exactly the same size but within a few dozen or so MB is good enough.

As for my only other partition on my WinXP system (the C: drive), it does not matter regarding sizing as long as the data fits ..... is that about right?

You will have to resize that one as well to make sure all unallocated free space (there probably will be some) is used up by that partition if using manual mode. But Acronis makes doing all that pretty obvious and easy. Just go slow until you get familiar with the procedure.

[eecon]

Thanks the info .... I presume the main reason to use Acronis manual mode is to always set the Lenovo hidden service partition to the exact same size as originally delivered on my original 100GB HD (whenever the HDs themselves are not the same size). Right, except it is sometimes hard to get the service partition exactly the same size but within a few dozen or so MB is good enough.

As for my only other partition on my WinXP system (the C: drive), it does not matter regarding sizing as long as the data fits ..... is that about right?

You will have to resize that one as well to make sure all unallocated free space (there probably will be some) is used up by that partition if using manual mode. But Acronis makes doing all that pretty obvious and easy. Just go slow until you get familiar with the procedure.

Many thanks .... now I'm tempted to get a larger 7200 RPM HD (like 200GB) to use as my main HD on my T61 with WinXP ..... plus the 2:1 size factor should make it easier for me to adjust things while in Acronis manual cloning mode (although I doubt I'll ever use more than 75% of the original 100GB drive .... only using 25% of it now).

[pae77]

Golly gee whiz....I guess I just have completely missed the boat on getting the most out of Acronis! I did not realize one could do an actual -clone- using Acronis, and simply swap the drive into the main slot and you're good to go.

To do that, I assume I want a drive in ultra bay with nothing on it, and then when running Acronis select "All Files" rather than "Backup Archive .TIB". Is that correct? If so, I've really learned something today, and I intend to try it out on a spare drive I just happen to have for my T60 machine.

Could you please confirm that I've repeated the correct procedure? In reading the Acronis instructions, somehow I completely missed the point on how to do that.

Thanks for the help!

Not exactly. The cloning section in Acronis is under "Disk Utilities." There is no option or need to select files. You can select partitions.

Second, it doesn't matter what is on the target drive. Acronis will destructively overwrite anything on it as part of the cloning process.

Third, again, IME, perfectly fine to initiate the process from within Windows. As part of its cloning process, Acronis will reboot the machine into it's recovery area automatically to perform the actual clone and, IIRC, will instruct you to shut down when it's finished.

So the process can be initiated from within windows on a healthy system, but as mentioned by eccon, make sure after the cloning procedure is finished that for the FIRST boot only after finishing the cloning, don't boot with both drives connected to the system!

So after the cloning procedure is finished, you either swap the cloned drive into the primary drive bay and reboot with only that drive connected, or, before you reboot with your old drive still in the primary slot, you simply remove the new clone from the system and put it away for that emergency when it may be needed.

[pae77]

Many thanks .... now I'm tempted to get a larger 7200 RPM HD (like 200GB) to use as my main HD on my T61 with WinXP ..... plus the 2:1 size factor should make it easier for me to adjust things while in Acronis manual cloning mode (although I doubt I'll ever use more than 75% of the original 100GB drive .... only using 25% of it now).

No prob. That's exactly what I did (went from 100GB to 200GB). But now I have a ton of stuff loaded on my 200GB drive with music, photos, games, too many apps, etc. (like to have all that stuff with me in one place when I travel). I was originally going to use the 100 GB drive for backing up but I am rapidly making use of a lot of that extra storage on the new drive and very soon the 100 GB drive will no longer be sufficient for me to clone to.

I also want to have the convenience and simplicity being able to make backup clones to a second 200 GB drive in auto mode without having to mess with partition sizes, even though it isn't that big a deal. So one of these days soon, I probably will end up trying to sell my nice, new, hardly used, Lenovo warrantied, 100GB 7k200 drive in the appropriate thread.

[eecon]

So one of these days soon, I probably will end up trying to sell my nice, new, hardly used, Lenovo warrantied, 100GB 7k200 drive in the appropriate thread.

Just as I thought, Lenovo is now shipping Hitachi 100GB 7200 RPM drives rather than Seagates. Just curious, what was your shipping date? I got my T61 with the Seagate 100GB 7200 RPM drive in Sept '07.

[pae77]

Mine shipped on or about 11/17. These latest generation 7k200's are really nice. I had the earlier generation 7k100 in my T42p and to me there seems to be a noticeable improvement in speed and quietness, although undoubtedly, some of the speed is due to other factors.

[mgo]

Many thanks for the helpful explanation. I'm going to give this new information a try and see how it works out.

[pae77]

You're welcome. Good luck with it.

[eecon]

Mine shipped on or about 11/17. These latest generation 7k200's are really nice. I had the earlier generation 7k100 in my T42p and to me there seems to be a noticeable improvement in speed and quietness, although undoubtedly, some of the speed is due to other factors.

How is the heat generation and noise of the Hitachi 7k200 compared to your Hitachi 7k100? ..... Some reviews mentioned that the older 7k100s generated more noise and heat when compared to the older Seagate 7200.1 units.

[gator]

How is the heat generation and noise of the Hitachi 7k200 compared to your Hitachi 7k100?

Noise level is a bit lesser, and lesser heat as well.

[pae77]

Concur with that.

[mgo]

[So after the cloning procedure is finished, you either swap the cloned drive into the primary drive bay and reboot with only that drive connected, or, before you reboot with your old drive still in the primary slot, you simply remove the new clone from the system and put it away for that emergency when it may be needed.

Well, that was easy. I've successfully cloned a drive and it worked nicely. Acronis even politely asked for a powerdown so I could pull one of the drives like you said to do.

I notice that the Clone procedure will clone -all- partitions on the source drive, and that was good, because My Documents lives on the 2nd partition.

Now, just one final question:
Should I decide to Re-Clone the spare drive, do I just put it into the untra bay and then do a cold start. (I always do a cold shutdown and start when I switch things in untra bay because it seems to work better for me)

With everybody's caution about having two bootable drives in the machine will this confuse my pool little R50? Or has everything been happily re-set after that first boot?

Thanks for the time with this!

[slagmi]

I'd steer away from starting Windows with 2 bootable drives in the machine.

Just plug your USB enclosure or insert your Ultrabay post-boot if you need to work with the other drive.

I've gotten away with it, sure. More than once. But I've also seen some fairly weird things happen such as the inability to start Windows again unless both drives are present. Fixable, yea, but who wants to spend the time sorting that out!!

[eecon]

I'd steer away from starting Windows with 2 bootable drives in the machine.

Just plug your USB enclosure or insert your Ultrabay post-boot if you need to work with the other drive.

I've gotten away with it, sure. More than once. But I've also seen some fairly weird things happen such as the inability to start Windows again unless both drives are present. Fixable, yea, but who wants to spend the time sorting that out!!

I agree

[mgo]

I'd steer away from starting Windows with 2 bootable drives in the machine.

Just plug your USB enclosure or insert your Ultrabay post-boot if you need to work with the other drive.

I've gotten away with it, sure. More than once. But I've also seen some fairly weird things happen such as the inability to start Windows again unless both drives are present. Fixable, yea, but who wants to spend the time sorting that out!!

I agree

Ok, thanks! Both of you have broadened my computer horizons today, and I'm pleased to have learned some new things.

[pae77]

Well, after that first reboot with just the primary drive in the system, I have then rebooted from the primary drive along with a never used or booted from prior cloned drive in the ultrabay and nothing bad happened and both drives were usable. The reason I had to do this was I always have had a hard drive password set on the cloned drive and as far as I know, the only way to get the system to see it is to boot from the primary drive with the ultrabay clone in the ultrabay so the bios will ask for and accept the hard drive passwords for both drives. I haven't had any problems doing this so far.

I think that after cloning, once the source or primary drive has been re-booted from that one time with it being the only drive in the system to make sure it is still designated as the primary boot drive and not putting the paging file anyplace it shouldn't be, it is then cool to boot from that same primary drive with the up till now never booted from Acronis clone in the ultrabay.

Actually, I think that at this point in time the clone may not technically even be in a bootable state. This is because after being cloned and pulled from the system, there is still one more thing Acronis does when you try to boot from that drive to make it the primary boot drive. What happens is a little routine Acronis installs on that clone during the cloning process runs at boot when one tries to boot from that clone specifically and this routine does whatever it needs to do to set the clone as the primary boot drive. But I don't think this routine runs unless and until the clone is actually being booted from (as opposed to being merely present in the ultrabay at boot time when booting from the already re-established primary drive). At least this has been what I think I have observed and deduced.

I don't like leaving a clone of my system lying around without it being password protected so this has been my standard practice and I haven't had a problem with it yet. Someone else who has two extra clones to play with in case one gets messed up should probably try to verify this, especially since it's late and I don't know if I'm making sense right now.

[mgo]

Well, after that first reboot with just the primary drive in the system, I have then rebooted from the primary drive along with a never used or booted from prior cloned drive in the ultrabay and nothing bad happened and both drives were usable. The reason I had to do this was I always have had a hard drive password set on the cloned drive and as far as I know, the only way to get the system to see it is to boot from the primary drive with the ultrabay clone in the ultrabay so the bios will ask for and accept the hard drive passwords for both drives. I haven't had any problems doing this so far.

I think that after cloning, once the source or primary drive has been re-booted from that one time with it being the only drive in the system to make sure it is still designated as the primary boot drive and not putting the paging file anyplace it shouldn't be, it is then cool to boot from that same primary drive with the up till now never booted from Acronis clone in the ultrabay.

Actually, I think that at this point in time the clone may not technically even be in a bootable state. This is because after being cloned and pulled from the system, there is still one more thing Acronis does when you try to boot from that drive to make it the primary boot drive. What happens is a little routine Acronis installs on that clone during the cloning process runs at boot when one tries to boot from that clone specifically and this routine does whatever it needs to do to set the clone as the primary boot drive. But I don't think this routine runs unless and until the clone is actually being booted from (as opposed to being merely present in the ultrabay at boot time when booting from the already re-established primary drive). At least this has been what I think I have observed and deduced.

I don't like leaving a clone of my system lying around without it being password protected so this has been my standard practice and I haven't had a problem with it yet. Someone else who has two extra clones to play with in case one gets messed up should probably try to verify this, especially since it's late and I don't know if I'm making sense right now.

I believe I follow along with what you are saying about the cloning process. It seems I noticed the same final act Acronis carried out when I experimented with cloning last night.

While this cloning procedure (as opposed to creating a .tib archive) has been interesting to do, it really does not suit my needs, as well as it might other users. But I learned some things, anyway.

On the hard drive password thoughts, all my drives have passwords. It's my understanding that those passwords which are created within the bios are right on the drive's firmware, and not on the mobo security chip. So, the password will be carried with the drive whether in the ultra bay or the main slot.

I don't care for the Client Security thingy, so using the power on password and hard drive password gives me the security I need for my financial things and other data.