clone is not created
My operating system is XP on a Dell XPS400 computer
I regularly use Acronis True Image 11 to create a full operating system disk (C:) clone (backup) in order to shortstop disasters and this has saved me from severe problems a couple of times.
Acronis has worked flawlessly, creating bootable clones right up until April 30, 2012. Following that date, although Acronis accepts the cloning configuration and appears to go through the cloning steps upon rebooting, in fact a clone is not created. Instead, the copying process, which usually takes a couple of hours or so, appears to complete instantly. Acronis says that the clone has been created; however when the system boots up, the C: drive has not been cloned.
I have tried the following steps:
1. erased the target operating system (backup) drive completely and tried to clone to it. Result: it remains empty
2. Ran a variety of disk check utilities including bootITNG & the PowerQuest partition table viewing tool on both drives. Everything seems OK
2. Next actions involved several steps - see below
A. updated Acronis True Image 11 to the latest version recommended by Acronis (Build #8101, English, 138.9 MB) dated 2008-07-03.
B. Ran Chkdsk /r on source and target disks - queued up to run on reboot
C. Checked that SnapAPI.dll date is appropriate (4/9/2008 - seems good)
D. Set Swapfile to "System Managed Size"
D. Rebooted to finish update install and run full chkdsk /r
E. Retried cloning with same result as 1. above.
3. Ran Acronis Report Utility - see attached.
It would be most helpful if someone could take a quick look at this file and see if anything jumps out as a problem - any help would really be appreciated, as otherwise, i will be forced to revert to an operating system and program file configuration that is more than a year old next time something goes wrong with my computer.
Many Thanks for your help!
Robert Abbe
Hi GroverH,
I did not understand about the backup file method before.
Following your advice, I made an Acronis backup file from the entire C: drive including all hidden partitions etc., then restored it to the drive I customarily use as an operating system/program backup disk. This booted up fine and worked perfectly.
It is an additional step, but in the future, I will use this method, it seems much safer and more reliable (as you point out).
Many thanks for your help!
Thank you for the update. Many users only know about cloning but the backup/restore method produces the same results but safer. To me, the safety factor of no risk to the source is worth the extra time. All too often on the forum, clone fails due to the user choosing the wrong disk and the source is wiped away by mistake.
My best advice: Do not Clone! Instead, do one extra step and create a full disk Backup to an external drive. If ever you need to return to that image state, you would do a full disk Restore/Recovery.
There is rarely a need to Clone. Really, Backup is safer and more flexible. Many users encounter problems Cloning which they would not have if they had instead used Backup.
1. Don't use Clone. Do a full disk Backup, selecting the entire disk, and a Restore. The end result will be the same as Clone, but with many advantages.
2. Check out the many user guides and tutorials in the left margin of this forum, particularly Getting Started and Grover's True Image Guides which are illustrated with step-by-step screenshots.
A full disk backup, selecting the disk checkbox rather than individual partitions, includes everything. It includes everything that a clone would include.
The difference is that while a clone immediately writes that information a single time to another drive, a backup is saved as a compressed .tib archive. As such, multiple .tib archives may be saved to a single backup drive, allowing for greater redundancy, security and flexibility.
Once a full disk image .tib archive is restored to a drive, the result is the same as if that drive had been the target of a clone done on the date and time that the backup archive was created.
Clone is riskier because we've seen situations where users mistakenly choose the wrong drive to clone from and to, thus wiping out their system drive.
I have encountered the same problem that Robert has. Using ATIH2011, initiating the disk clone operation in WindowsXP: the clone operation setup steps appear to work. When the system reboots, the ATIH "single-user mode" script starts. Checking the disk-to-be-cloned (the source disk) runs. But immediately after the disk check completes, the clone task proceeds directly to the "Clone successful" message. No data is copied;the target disk is untouched.
This cloning procedure used to work without any problem.
I understand the suggestions to use the "backup then restore" procedure, the risks of the "direct" disk cloning, the availability of the alternate approaches e.g. booting from a rescue CD/DVD to do the cloning. etc.
But all of those suggestions involve extra steps, and/or the availability of additional accessible storage to hold the backup so that it can be restored.
Can we go back to the fundamental, original question: why did the "direct" cloning operation stop working - appearing to start correctly, then saying that it had completed successfully - without doing any data transfer and without any error message?
why did the "direct" cloning operation stop working - appearing to start correctly, then saying that it had completed successfully - without doing any data transfer and without any error message?
Hard to say, as you provided absolutely no information about your system, your hardware, how each disk is connected, etc.
We provide our recommendations of the best and safest way to perform operations, as you noted. It might be most expedient to follow such advice rather than troubleshooting a non-recommended process that fails.
why did the "direct" cloning operation stop working - appearing to start correctly, then saying that it had completed successfully - without doing any data transfer and without any error message?Hard to say, as you provided absolutely no information about your system, your hardware, how each disk is connected, etc.
We provide our recommendations of the best and safest way to perform operations, as you noted. It might be most expedient to follow such advice rather than troubleshooting a non-recommended process that fails.
why did the "direct" cloning operation stop working - appearing to start correctly, then saying that it had completed successfully - without doing any data transfer and without any error message?Hard to say, as you provided absolutely no information about your system, your hardware, how each disk is connected, etc.
This particular system: WinXP, one 250GB ESATA internal drive, one primary partition, one small 10GB overflow partition. Target of cloning operation is an external 300GB ESATA drive.
Robert's configuration was different but the problem he described sounds identical.
We provide our recommendations of the best and safest way to perform operations, as you noted. It might be most expedient to follow such advice rather than troubleshooting a non-recommended process that fails.
When I purchased my first version of ATI (2006), "direct" cloning was a recommended procedure - by Acronis. In fact, ATI was recommended (and in some cases, supplied by disk vendors e.g. WDC) expressly for the purpose of direct disk cloning as a way to upgrade to a larger-capacity disk drive.
Cloning was, and still is even in current ATI, presented in the top level of the user interface options.
More to the point, it worked fine for several years on this particular system. Until it stopped working.
Because there is not even a hint of a warning or error message, and drive cloning is not something one does very often, it's difficult for a user to guess at potential causes.
I understand the suggestions to use the "backup then restore" procedure, the risks of the "direct" disk cloning, the availability of the alternate approaches e.g. booting from a rescue CD/DVD to do the cloning. etc.
MVP Tuttle was offering the safety procedure and usually the most effective procedure.
If you have not checked your disk for disk errors within the past few months, before cloning (or backup) nowwould be a good time to do the check.
One thing that has changed is that almost all disks are the new Advanced Format (AF) drives (disk also labelled as such).
User errors or selecting wrong disk is one of the major reasons cloning is a high risk venture. Power spikes and program malfunctions also adds to the risk.
If I were to clone (I prefer backup and restore) , I would delay any cloning until after I performed a disk option backup to include all partitions and data on the disk. For me, I would take the extra time so I had an avenue of recovery if the clone fails for any reason or the source disk becomes useless.
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Acronis also recommend that the cloning a system disk that the clone be done from the TI Recovery CD.
If using a laptop, here is the KB article Acronis procedure for cloning.
http://kb.acronis.com/content/2931
After booting into the CD, the first step would be to clear any botched data from the target Disk.
Boot the Cd and use the Add disk option and delete any existing data on the target disk and initialize as MBR. The target disk is preferred to be unallocated space. Pre-format not necessary in most cases but can be done if preferred.
then continue the clone when booted from the CD.
After completion of clone shut down and disconnet any other disks.
First boot should be only with the newly cloned target attached.
If your XP operating system contains only the one partition (no hiidden or recovery partitions), the automatic setting may work.
For whatever reason if you need to redo the clone again. the repeat the add disk option and
the next clone use the Manual method using the "as is" move option. The "as is" option will produce a new disk the same size as old. You could then use any free partitioning utility to expand the partition size to its max size.