Laptop reverse clone failed and source drive erased
I attempted a disk clone using ATIH 2010 here are the details:
HP Laptop with original 80 gig Seagate HD cloned to WD Scorpio 250 gig...
per instructions here on this forum i performed a "reverse" clone by installing the new WD 250 into the laptop.
I connected the Seagate 80 to an Ultra USB to IDE/SATA connector via USB on the HP Laptop.
I booted the HP from a recently created rescue disk and chose ATIH full.
I used the manual method and asked Acronis to put the original 80 gig partition (source) into a 100 gig partition on the (destination) WD 250.
The program indicated that there would be unallocated space on the new drive of about 132 gig. I assumed I could then partition and format this space after completing the clone.
I did not check the "shut down computer after clone finished" box.
I evaluated the clone setup and proceeded. I left the machine unattended for a period as I guessed it would take an hour or so.
Upon returning I was extremely disappointed to see a "Clone Failed" message.
I am not certain if the computer rebooted after the attempted clone. Would this normally happen?
Upon executing Acronis disk director suite to see the status of either disk, I was horrified to see that the clone procedure has seemingly erased the source disk.
I was not promted with anything like "keep data on original/source drive" and if this is a possible option I would have to believe that it would default to keeping and not erasing the original data.
I have moved the original source drive and it's USB cable to another machine and it, in fact, appears to be empty. How could this possibly happen?
I do have a fairly recent full backup image so this is not catastrophic just inconvenient.
In reading a number of posts here on this forum I can see why many prefer to use the backup/restore image method instead as the source drive would not necessarily be connected during the process.
Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Robert,
Hi again. Could you put the 80 GB HD back in your laptop. Boot from the Disk Director CD and run the Recover Partition Wizard. I haven't tried it in your situation so best of luck. If the partition was simply deleted by removing its entry from the partition table you should be OK. If the boot sector was deleted you are in trouble.
Robert,
I just saw your post. Good news.
Thanks Brian. Apparently only the partition was deleted and DD recovered it just fine.
The only odd thing that happened is after recovery and upon first boot of the 80 GB Windows "found new hardware"
I let it find and got the message "your hardware is installed and ready to use" alhthough there was no indication just which hardware it found.
Since recovery I have freshened an incremental backup and created two full safety backups on different external drives.
All turned out well but I will be reluctant to trust the clone function in the future.
Still not sure why the original clone attempt failed.
upon first boot of the 80 GB Windows "found new hardware"
I let it find and got the message "your hardware is installed and ready to use"
Robert,
That is a standard message indicating that Windows has discovered a new partition on the HD. The C: drive in your case.
Acronis TI 11 has a "Destroy data" option for the source HD when doing a manual clone. I can't find that choice in the TI 2010 userguide but your data on the source HD was "destroyed".
Like others, I prefer the image/restore method although I haven't experienced a clone issue with TI.
Robert,
Just to let you know, I've had Acornis 2009 corrupt source drives twice in the last year. I'm a Windows tech and nearly always clone a drive before doing heavy duty malware removal, or correcting low level issues. So I'm cloning several times a week, and I do know what I'm doing.
I have bought a write blocker, and that gives me great piece of mind.
Acronis should always make the source "read-only", but it doesn't. There is no excuse not too.
This is mainly to lend you support and to let you know that you did nothing wrong - .........Acronis did.
Packrat1947
Thanks for the responses guys.
Bob
Hello all,
Robert, we're really sorry for the difficulties you've experienced with Acronis software.
Right now it's really hard to say what exactly caused the issue: it may be some hard drive corruptions, drivers compatibility issue, etc. I may suggest you to back up your old hard drive and then restore the created archive to a new one.
It'll take more time, but it is a more reliable method of data transferring.
Brian, than you for the suggestion about "Destroy data" feature, I'll forward your request to the appropriate department and probably it will be included in the next versions of Acronis True Image.
Please reply to this thread if you have any questions.
Thank you.