help needed with information search
well, I apologize in advance for my questions - I am an older guy and don't have much experience with all that. Basically I have an older PC with a failed HDD and no restore CDs - but the HDD still spins and someone told me I could maybe clone the recovery partition to another drive and then startup the system. Normally I wouldn't bother - but I need an XP computer for an older software we are licensed to and I can't just buy a new PC.
So I bought an SSD boundle with Acronis software and I just need some guidance.
I started up the software to clone a recovery partition from my dual partitioned HDD.
The first problem I encountered was that I couldn't clone the entire 240GB HDD because my SSD was 128 GB. But I don't need to clone the primary bigger drive. I just need to somehow clone the other partition so I can start the recovery to mount a fresh system on the PC.
It would be perfect if I could make a smaller primary partition and copy the recovery partition in full.
Acronis doesn't allow me to do that - it's either all or nothing.
Second problem is that the partitioning process is taking long time - I somehow made a small 9GB partition on my SSD and it took 3+ hours to make.
Now I started the "backup" of the recovery partition and it is not even showing progress - that's how slow it goes. It actually said "Remaining time: 25 days".
I don't know why this is all happening - and I tried contacting the support - but they ask for a software version - so another question - how do I check which version I have?
It's a CD I got with the drive!
This "creating partition image" process seems like taking forever - and I was told it was a fast solution to get an SSD. How in the world this could be taking so much time to copy only 9 GB of data from one drive to another? 25 days? What am I doing wrong?
Technical details:
It is an HP 1250n Athlon with 4Gb RAM and 2 SATA sockets connect the HDD and SSD, and IDE port for a CD drive.
All - in all - please, could someone give me an idea where to start - like a help file, or instructions?
What am I supposed to do with all this? Return it?
UPDATE: Now I am trying to shut down the software, because I don't have patience to wait 25 days for it to complete the 9Gb copy and the software won't shut down. I cancel and it asks me if I am sure - I click yes and .. nothing happens.
thank you Pat for your answer, but I am lost completely.
I am excited to learn there maybe another way - but how to convert my "current machine" if it doesn't work?
I am not exactly sure what's happening here - you mean to get that VMWare program and put it on my old PC and then connect it to a new PC that I buy? oh, my .... I think I understood English, but I can't figure it out.
I am almost about to give up on this. But I got a new 240Gb SSD - I regret it is not a 250Gb, because I wouldn't have a size mismatch, but life is not perfect. [A remark here is necessary - I thought the old drive was 240 so I bought a 240 replacement and when I got it home - I realized it was... a 250 Gb drive] Is there another version of the Acronis I could use to fit my 250Gb drive into a 240Gb drive? Maybe another program?
I want to shrink the source C:/ from ~ 220 Gb to target drive C:/210Gb and D:/ needs to be copied the same size.
How do I do it? I found a manual in pdf on that CD - I mentioned earlier - but they don't say. It looks to me that is not possible.
I would like to get help with this.
How to answer the "software version" question to get through to support?
I have a CD that says Kingston SSDNOW and "Hard drive cloning software"
What version of Acronis is it?
Let me show you the link:
http://www.acronis.com/support/contact-us.html
They say to select an option - but there is no option like mine.
My CD doesn't require login - I put it in the drive and it runs. It is not a freeware version either.
If I select any option it asks me to login - and after that it says i don't have any registered products.
But what do I register? I do not have any keys to register!
I mean I have a legitimate CD with Acronis software that I purchased with an SSD from Kingston and I CAN NOT contact support!
Furious,
I am not familiar with the software from Acronis that is bundled with Kingston SSD. SOmetimes, Acronis bundles a version of their software with restrictions and a version number older than the one currently shipping.
Boot your computer on the Acronis CD. Be aware that the recovery CD will show you drive letters that are different from the ones WIndow show you. Pay extra attention to partition/disk labels, not letters.
From the recovery CD do the disk backup of your current disk as I explain in the link above: http://forum.acronis.com/forum/31073#comment-96363
If you cannot do a disk backup, do a clone.
If you are not sure, feel free to take pictures of the screens you see when you boot your computer on the CD and post them here.
Thanks for help, yes, I am going to do what you say. I am going to document those screens and post them here. It will take me some time. I do not need to make a backup - because I already did it by copying the files using Knoppix. Now I want to be able to preserve my system. I know it sounds lame - but that's not my field. You guys are experts here. I am not.
One more thing - I got myself a device form a company called Apricorn, it is a PCIE card allowing to mount a SATA drive bypassing the SATA MB connectors. The disks mounts as 1st (or ZERO) which is interesting. The card has it's own BIOS and it is not showing the SSD in MB setup. So after initial MB boot - the Apricorn card shows up. That company makes software called EZGIG - that is supposed to boot up from a CD to make a disk clone. Unfortunately it did not boot. So I guess I am back to square one.