[IMPORTANT] CLONING - How NOT to do this

Steve, that is an excellent post!

For benefit of users reading this, I'll add:

Do not clone! No one should clone, it's too risky. Do a full disk backup and restore to the new drive.

I agree that it is an excellent post. 

Ian

Nice work Steve!  I see a Sticky here, might wane to add it to the Google Drive as well!

Yes sir - I agree.  

This is the kind of stuff new users need. Fortunately, I read enough in the forums before I made a backup, to allow me to make my first one fairly easy. And successful! Excellent post!!!

I concur with making this a sticky.

Thanks for the support for this to be a sticky, I did PM Ekaterina but not had any reply.

FWIW, I sent her a PM about the other sticky. I did not receive a reply, but she did make it a sticky. :)

Thanks Ed, suspect the Acronis folks have been occupied with announcing the new ATIH 2017 New Generation announcement at present.

This has made me nervous. I am having some components replaced in my computer in a few days and I wanted to replace the hard drive that is a clone of the one I have. I think I am okay but I do not understand how to make a clone using the rescue disc - which I made. I made a clone of the drive a few months ago plus I do full backups with incremental back ups. I thought I was fine with the clone but now I do not know. I planned to make a new fresh clone before shutting down and having the components replaced. Can someone point me to instructions for replacing my harddrive with a clone?

Karin,

The MVP's are not recommending you clone (starting from Windows) because there are additional risks that may leave your system in an unbootable state - depending on things like availability of hardware drivers in the Acronis recovery environment, how the bios is configured (if secureboot is enabled chances are it will fail to load Acronis, but if Acronis was allowed to modify the disk before restarting, and can't set it back because it failed to load - that can be a problem).

The process is exactly the same, but you start with your recovery media to be on the safe side.  

I think most of us will also recommend that you have a good  backup (as a precaution) prior to any clone - just in case.  Even Acronis recommends this in the documentation.  It's not a requirement, but it is your safety net, should something go wrong, for whatever reason.

For more information about the process, pelase read this forum:  https://forum.acronis.com/forum/125166#comment-387534

Here is an Acronis tutorial on cloning with rescue media (from 2016, but it's the same process):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlXkYKzY6vs  It's 3 minutes and the first 1 1/2 minutes explains the process a little bit and the rest goes through the process. 

Karin, the point of this point was to try to persuade users to be extra careful when looking at cloning their disk drives - this because of the number of forum topics that we see where users have blindly gone ahead and ended up with a broken system for various of the reasons this topic mentions.

As you have your full backups (plus incrementals) you have a means of recovery which is very important.

Next, as you have previously successfully made a clone on this same computer, then making a new clone using the same procedure that you used on that previous occasion should continue to work for you.

The important point about creating the Acronis bootable Rescue Media, is that this will always be needed should you suffer a total disk failure and have to start again with a new / replacement blank disk drive unless you are going to do a clean install of Windows then reinstall ATIH in order to restore your backup from within Windows.

Staying on the subject of the Acronis bootable Rescue Media, this is of no actual value unless you test that your computer can boot from it - until you try to do this you will not know if it will work for you or not, and if it does not work, then you would need to create the alternative WindowsPE version of the Rescue Media instead (and test this will work).

Thanks. I wish I knew that it could have caused problems. If I remember I did get an error somewhere along the line so maybe I do not have a cloned disc afterall.

 If I boot with the rescue media that means I go into the BIOS and change it to boot to the CD drive? 

Then, if the rescue media boots okay, on the day of operating on the computer I make a full back-up to my external drive like I have been doing.

Reboot the computer with the rescue media and then make a clone of the drive to the drive I want to use.

Shut down unless the computer shuts down automatically, replace the old drive with the cloned drive.

Or, can I just make a full backup to the new drive and replace the old drive with it. Is one way better than the other?

Karin Christensen wrote:

Thanks. I wish I knew that it could have caused problems. If I remember I did get an error somewhere along the line so maybe I do not have a cloned disc afterall.

If I boot with the rescue media that means I go into the BIOS and change it to boot to the CD drive? 

That's one way to do it.  If you change the boot order in the bios to the CD first - it should typcially try to boot that before the hard drive.  You may also have a one time boot menu on your computer (F12, Del, Esc or F1 are common keys that can bring up a one time boot menu so you can manually pick the boot device.  It really varies from system to system though). 

Then, if the rescue media boots okay, on the day of operating on the computer I make a full back-up to my external drive like I have been doing.

A full, offline backup is a great option - this is a backup in proprietary Acronis True Image Backup (TIB) format.  Backups can be used at any point in time if you need to roll back to the backup or grab files/folders from it down the road.  

Reboot the computer with the rescue media and then make a clone of the drive to the drive I want to use.

Once booted into the rescue media, and hopefully after you've created a backup for posterity, yes, you can then clone the original disk to another disk using this method.

Shut down unless the computer shuts down automatically, replace the old drive with the cloned drive.

Yes, you want to shutdown the Acronis rescue media before your boot.  You typically don't want the original and a clone to be attached at the same time, espeically if they're both internal disks.  Shuttding down, then removing the clone or removing the original and replacing it with the clone and then booting is a good idea.  

Or, can I just make a full backup to the new drive and replace the old drive with it. Is one way better than the other?

No, the backup is a proprietary backup format that should be saved somewhere else (a third drive, a network share, something like that).  This can be used at any time to be restored with your recovery media.  Backup and restore is ultimately the same results as a clone, but offers the advantage of being able to use that backp anytime you want.  A clone is "on the fly" and offers no safety net on it's own.  

 

 

 

 

So, Steve,

Here I am at 4am. It's been a long night and I am part way through a disk clone using TI 2015.

This is my first time here and so I have not read this post before now!

On my Windows PC, my internal Toshiba 1TB HDD 7200rpm (only about 40% full) reported imminent failure, so I purchased a WD 1TB equivalent. In the week that it took to get it, the computer has got slower and slower and occasionally freezes. It still boots but everything takes longer. It is Sooooo Slowwww.

There is no second slot in the computer so I installed the new WD HDD in a USB Speed Master carrier and started a Disk Clone from within Windows 10 creator. No probs, it prepared and asked the right questions and it is now cloning.

I am at 6 of 9 cloning partition. My green progress bar is at about 75% of the way across and hasn't moved forward for a while now.and the HDD light on the computer seems to be permanently on and the blue light on the Speed Master is rarely flickering.

During the night the 'time left' has varied from 2 days to 2 hours. It would seem that the failing drive is getting worse and may just stop. TI 2015 seems to be carrying on regardless.

My questions are.

1. If I leave it long enough and assuming the HDD doesn't actually fail, will it eventually finish?

2. If I select cancel, in what state will it leave my new drive? Will it ask a few questions and tidy things up and allow it to boot with what it has?

I did run a 'copy' to an old 500gb WD drive in the USB Speed Master before ordering the new HDD.

I don't really want to install the OS and all the programs and start all over - THAT'S WHY I PURCHASED ACRONIS TI !

This is the first time I have needed its abilities.

Hope you can help with some advice.

Cheers

Michael

Michael, welcome to these user forums.

If your source Toshiba 1TB HDD is already failing / at risk of imminent failure, then it is very difficult to answer your questions without having to say 'it depends...'

In an ideal world, I would have recommended that you had used your ATIH 2015 to make full disk & partitions backup images to an external backup drive long before you got to the status you see today.  Do you have any such backups available to use to recover your computer to the new WD 1TB HDD if the current clone operation fails?

As per the subject of this topic, cloning is a one time chance of saving your data, whereas backup offers more options for doing the same.

If you leave the clone operation running then there are several possible outcomes:  it could complete and all could be OK; or it could fail and leave both drives unbootable (i.e. the source drive failed completely but before the clone was able to make the target drive bootable / viable to load Windows); or it could complete with errors and result in the target drive also reflecting errors which have been cloned / copied across to it from the source drive.

If you cancel the clone operation, then you risk that both drives will be potentially unusable.  The clone to the target will be incomplete and it is impossible to advise what vital data may be missing from it.

Any other advice at this point would probably come across as being 'hindsight' and may not be helpful to you.

Given the reported problems with the old HDD Acronis is probably doing a sector-by-sector clone. This can take a long time when the source disk has problems. 

With a fialing disk drive it is difficult to know how best to solve the problem. I would be inclinded to run the drive manufacturer's disk utility to see if it can (temporarily) fix the problem; once I have done that I would create a backup (rather than a clone) so that I have something to fall back on if the clone goes badly wrong.

Given where you are at, Steve is correct, leave the process to run. It could take many hours before the task completes. 

Ian

Well, I ended up having to cancel the Acronis cloning.  A bad sector read error came up. The drive would not boot at all after that.

I have now installed the new empty 1TB hard drive, attached the USB Speed Master with the 500GB hard drive which has 3 complete Acronis backups on it and booted from the USB Acronis recovery stick I created earlier.

It opened the USB HDD as C: drive. I have found and tried opening all three of the backups. The first two were reported as corrupt and the third tells me that "It is not the last volume of the backup archive.

I am in despair and it looks as though I will have to start from scratch. With all the hassle and time and effort that requires it was probably faster and cheaper to buy another economy desktop.

At least I have a backup of all the folders and files from the 'user' downwards from a week ago.

I hate technology. The more you rely on it, the more unreliable it becomes.

Thanks for all your helpful comments

Michaelfromoz

Michael, sorry to hear that the original drive failed completely.

It is normal that you would see the USB drive as C: when your new 1TB drive is 'empty', the correct drive letter would be shown / allocated when the OS is present and booted.

For the 3 backups on the 500GB drive - were these created on that drive or were they copied from the failing drive to it?  If the latter then it is possible that they were taken from an area of the failed drive with bad sectors?

You could try doing a validation of the backup files being reported as corrupt and see if that also says the same?

Steve,

The backups were created on that 500GB USB Speed Master drive when the C:drive was reporting an imminent failure. Acronis completed them without problems or reporting any issues. Like all backup systems, you never know if they have worked until you need to use them (and so should test them!)...

..... but all this action was compressed into such a small period of time (compared to the last 3 years of PC use without backing up - of course!) that there has been no time to check. I'm downloading original Dell image (with Windows 8.1 now to create USB recovery on to new 1TB HDD, then I have to see how I go about doing the upgrade to Windows 10, as that was initiated by Microsoft without original discs etc, then installing my 'User' backup folders and files and then installing the extra programs etc..... After all that, when I am back up and running to almost where I was before, I'll create some Acronis backups and test them..... All this closing the stable door once the horse has bolted of course. Oh well....onwards and upwards.

How do you validate backup files? Is that an Acronis thing? I didn't see it anywhere in the USB recovery menus.

Michael

Michael, you shouldn't need to have to install Windows 8.1 in order to get back to Windows 10 - you can reinstall Windows 10 and this should activate fine given you have previously had it installed on this computer.

You can use the Microsoft Windows and Office ISO Download Tool to download the Windows 10 installation media as an .ISO file to burn to either DVD or a USB stick.  You can also download Windows 10 direct from the Microsoft website. and use the Media Creation Tool to create this on DVD or USB stick.

For Validation, you need to right-click on the Acronis backup .TIB file to see the option for this, see screenshots below:

Yes, you can definitely go directly to Win10 creator. There may be a Dell specific Win 10 recovery USB installation for your Dell PC on the Dell www site ... I have not checked. 

Ian and Steve,

I have finished.

I didn't want the chance of hassle from MS admin stopping me installing a Windows 10 from scratch and so took the long way and installed the Dell Windows 8.1 image specifically licensed for this machine, downloaded Windows 10 directly without problems, copied across all my wife's user folders and files and installed the few programs that she uses. Started at 4am and finished at 1:30pm. Now find that I missed Skype and Lifecam but they won't take long.

At least she's running again now and much faster than before and she has a smile, which is the main thing.

I tried the old drive in my USB Speed Booster on my laptop and it hums to the point of vibration and doesn't do anything except for flashing the access light, so it will get the drill through it and on to the waste tip.

I see that it is a Toshiba and not built quite as robustly as the WD so the drill won't have a problem!

Now, on to a backup strategy using Acronis, seeing as I have paid for it........

Thanks both, once again for your input.

Michael

Michael, glad to hear that all is up and working again for your wife (and you!).  Definitely a good idea to have regular backups of your Windows OS and data, plus to check that these are good by opening the backup files and copying a random selection of files / folders to any temporary location, plus also ensure that you have a good working Acronis Rescue Media available.

Glad that things are now in working order. Looks like the old HDD was well and truely on its way out.

After several unexpected hard disk crashes I now use Hard Disk Sentinal to monitor them on my important systems.

Ian

HI guys,

I wonder if you can assist with an associated issue.

When starting my PC now it comes up with blue screen that advises that the PC needs repair.

There are some Function key options which either don't do anything or take me to the boot setup , which is correctly set at Windows boot.

There is also an option F9 alternative operating system.

When selecting this I get another blue screen which allows me to chose between Windows 10 and Windows 10 (Volume 5). It is the second option that then gets me with the correct login.

What have I done wrong?

Any clues?

Cheers

Michael

Michael, I would request that you raise this associated issue in a new forum Topic rather than adding it to this particular one which is warning users about the dangers of cloning.

Screen shots / digital camera shots would be helpful to know what you are seeing for this new issue.

Reading thru all these problems, both actual, as well as potential, it is looking like a TV health supplement commercial - and those make the cure look worse than the disease. IF the Acronis cloning program has so many potential problems, WHY would I want to use it - and MORE to the point, why does Acronis even provide it? YES, I am seeing my own issues with the Acronis 2017 software and an apparent incompatibility with the most recent update of Windows 10. It has caused my ASUS laptop to fail on initial self-test, before BIOS has even completed, and thus, NO boot drives will function, and the laptop sits in permanent lock up. The fix for me, has been removing my 2 SSD's, then boot up, which takes me directly to the BIOS setup screens. THEN, switch the PC off, reinstall the drives - and the system then boots up normally - but will lock up again on next startup, UNLESS I delete Acronis 2017 from the PC. All this recently started when not running Acronis in any form, but apparently some of the Acronis "tracks" in the system are activated at each boot-up, and cause the PC to lock up early on during the self test. Totally removing the Acronis software has been the only "cure" - and makes me wonder why I bought the software to begin with - either Microsoft, or Acronis, have introduced a self destruct incompatibility issue, at least in my case. BUT returning to the Cloning feature, WHY use it, or even provide it, if it has so many potential risks?

Gary, cloning can be done safely if certain precautions are taken, i.e. having a good backup and doing the cloning outside of Windows.

Cloning is also useful when wanting to replace a current drive with either a new/larger one or changing from a HDD to a SSD etc, but again, after taking precautions and understanding the rules involved.

I have used cloning myself, will do so again when appropriate, but will always try to have a good backup in place first.

For your ASUS issue with fail on start unless you remove ATIH 2017, then please open a new topic for this, plus I would strongly recommend opening a Support Case direct with Acronis to investigate why this is happening?

Wow. So, here's a couple of thoughts

1. Cloning is not bad. In fact, it gives you an immediately bootable backup that you don't have to restore.  I routinely clone because when disaster strikes, you're not doing tech work of reinitiating a computer with a rescue disc and then having to restore.  Cloning must be checked: after you clone, immediately shut down the computer, disengage the source disc, leave in the cloned disc, and check that it boots.  This is most readily done in a machine with hot swap bays, of course.

2. I can see why Acronis forums would dis cloning...it's not something Acronis products do well.  Encrypted PGP and bitlocker discs are in fact clonable, as per Casper Secure Disc 4.2.  

Soooo, it seems that this forum should be read with a grain of salt.  Understand the source, after all.

Oddly, have had no problem cloning in windows using either Casper 8 or Samsung Migration, at least for cloning my Samsung SSDs.  Also using AOEMI Backupper works well.

Where they fall short is in the inability to clone Bitlocker or PCP encrypted discs, since they only will create a bootable NONencrypted disc.  Enter Casper Secure Disc 4.2, which can do that.  Weird, but no one else seems to have software that claims to be able to do a clone of an encrypted disc except Casper's Secure Disc.

Have had problems with Acronis in the past.  Have you trialed Casper or AOEMI Backupper?  They've cloned for me well, just make sure you disable the "USB Bootable" option in them before cloning.

Dear Steve,

As always you&other MVPs are THE source!  My question refers not only to CLONING but the alternate method of Backuo/Restore as a full disk image (in relation to installing a Bare Metal SSD in place of an existing HDD.  I refer also to the excellent work of Mustang&Bobbo (especially Mustangs Guide in the ATI2016 forum(Guide to restoring a UEFI/GPT Win System to a new disk with TI2016.

I actually always to my daily Complete Disk Backups using the WinPE Media (its most stable IMHO) & of course use the same for disk restores (all BUs are 'FULL' mode) and I usually either WIPE the destination HDD *or are using a fresh bare metal drive). Of course, I select the PE boot Rescue media to match the system (MBR (legacy) vs GPT-UEFI) accordingly.  Until this point, zero issues!

To my point in writing, I have a new DELL LAPTOP win10x64 uefi mode factory equipped w/ 1TB HDD. So, my goal is to transition the entire drive (os, sw etc) to a new Samsung SATA SSD of 500 GB...i;m only using 10 of the 1 TB HDD now!

Yes, the single C:] on the 1tb HDD will need to be shrunk, my biggest concern is that TI2017PE is able to:

1. Place ALL current Dell W10 partitions (hidden or otherwise), in the correct order on the bare metal 500GB SSD. My preference would be yje IMAGE BU/Restore vs. the CLONE function?  Comment please?

2. Can TI2017 resize my existing 800TB C:\ during this process...still keeping all other partitions?

3. Alternately, what about (before creating the WINPE Rescue Drive Image)... using a utility to first SHRINK the existing C:\ Primary partition...then reboot, then Image B/U then swap in the Bare SSD and use WinPE to RSTORE ALL.

Hope this makes sense

Thx

BOB

Bob, thanks for your kind words but could I ask you to create a New Topic for your questions please rather than add this on to the end of this topic dealing mainly with trying to warn inexperienced users about the possible dangers of using cloning without adequate precautions.

I am happy to answer your questions as best as I can in that new topic.

Thx Steve,

Posted to Newly Created Topic just now !

I thought that you had to create a clone to save the OS and all the files.

Can the "full disk backup" feature also save the OS?

I am looking to create a backup of my laptop in case I ever need to do a full restore.

Kevin

Kevin, welcome to these User Forums.

Please see KB 1540: Difference between Backup and Disk Clone which explains the key differences in these two methods.

To answer your question, absolutely YES - a full disk backup will contain everything that is present on the disk chosen, so the Windows OS, all install programs, user data etc.

Wish I had read this thread before setting Acronis to clone to an identical empty NTFS . The CPU and RAM in Task Manager indicate Acronis is working, probably 4 lines of activity.  "However" there is no Acronis window indicating that it is making progress or actually working.  Since Acronis also has CPU and RAM activity all the time, I don't know if the darn thing is actually cloning the OpSys drive.

If it does not do something soon I'll simply shut down the computer.  I've used (another clone) before and it had a progress meter, worked reasonably fast, and the cloned disk opened just like it should.

I agree with the post:  Do not clone; you won't know if it works or not.  Use the backup and restore.

If Acronis cannot clone a boot drive of Windows while it is running, how can Acronis be used to back up the same drive while Windows is running? Isn't partition backups effectively the first step of a drive clone?

Sorry for posting this on an older thread but seems problematic for drive backup software to not be able to backup its primary disk while Windows is running.

Cameron, welcome to these User Forums.

This particular topic was written originally for ATI 2017 and older products where any attempt to clone from within a running Windows OS required a reboot to be performed.

With the advent of ATI 2018, Acronis now does allow for cloning from within Windows using the same Microsoft VSS snapshot method that is used when creating backups of the OS.  This is new in the 2018 version and wasn't available when this topic was written.

The key message(s) of this topic still remain valid, in particular, have a good backup of the Source drive before attempting this type of operation.  Users are only human and therefore are also capable of making mistakes - doing this when cloning can be disastrous if the wrong drive is cloned!

Well, this is fascinating.  I attempted disk cloning twice, and destroyed my C drive each time.  I chalked the first failure up to me, but the second, Acronis.  I cannot help but wonder why such a horrifically poor utility would be allowed to remain available.  I do not employ encryption or any of the other 'gotchas' that would cause cloning failure.  This second pass I built Windows 10 carefully, rebooted it twice, used auto cloning WITHIN WINDOWS (if you're not supposed to clone w/in Windows someone should have coded a banner to remind you to do this through the CD and NOT the utility in Windows), no errors displayed at all, and the boot drive is ruined again.  Not the target, which is also unbootable, the original boot drive I created fresh and tested. 

I read this thread in detail, and note the litany of caveats.  One I find particularly telling is duplication of drive signature.  I have a laptop and desktop in my office apart from the one that failed disk clone, and they both have two concurrently connected volumes, each bootable, that gives me a safety net should I need it, and I have.  One would think Acronis could overcome this as have other vendors.

I must say, the disk clone feature takes the cake for the most rotten easter egg I've ever encountered in a software product.  .

Scott, welcome to these User Forums.

Active cloning in the latest ATI 2018 has proven to be a much better method where the process uses the same Microsoft VSS snapshot method when doing the cloning of the installed/active Windows OS.  This feature was not available when this topic was originally written.

There are clear warnings in the ATI user guides across most recent versions of the product telling users to make a full backup before using cloning - that still applies to the 2018 version.

Personally, I have never had any issues when using cloning but I have dealt with many users who have come to these forums after getting it wrong (for a wide variety of reasons), many of whom have bought a new HDD or SSD which came with an OEM copy of ATI where the simple guide just suggested jumping in at the deep end!

Please see webpage: What Is a Disk Signature? which has a good explanation of what this is and how collisions can happen with cloned drives.

Like Steve I have never had problems with cloning, however, if things go wrong they can go very wrong.

Steve is correct to warn about problems with duplicate disk signatures. I have not had that problem with cloning but have when breaking up raid 1 configuration - both disks same signature.

Ian

Posting here although this comment is ATI 2018 Update 3 specific.

With ATI 2018 you can do a live clone without the PC rebooting into the Linux recover environment. However, if the source disk has OS on it a boot is required. However, I just did this with Update 3 and the system did not reboot. I got a message about there being OS on the disk and did I want to overwrite and the cloning worked without issue.

Ian

Ian, thanks for sharing that change - I haven't tried doing a live clone recently since installing the 2018 Update 3 build, but good to know how things are being handled.

Well I came across this forum too late...I am in the middle of cloning my C drive as I write this. I read that it is better to let the cloning op to continue rather then cancel it. What I did wrong was when I had a failed to read from a sector I clicked ignore all and the cloning process continues. I know now I should have run chkdsk before cloning but now I need to know if I run chkdsk on the the cloned drive will these bad sectors be fixed ....sort of after the fact I guess. 

DeWayne, welcome to these User Forums.

As you are in the middle of cloning, then you need to wait for that to finish before doing anything else.  If your target drive is a new disk then there should be no need to run CHKDSK against it as any bad sectors will not have been copied, so the real issue is 'what was in the bad sectors, and is/was it important?'

Once the clone is finished, then disconnect the new drive and set it aside, then do the following:

Make a full disk & partitions backup of your source drive (with the bad sectors) as a safety net to allow you to recover as much data as possible.  Hopefully if your Windows OS is still booting OK the bad sectors are not in any vital/critical areas of the drive.

Run CHKDSK /R against the source drive to check for and try to reallocate any bad sectors.

Hi Steve thanks for the quick responce. I do have a full disk and partitions backup done plus have a recent Acronis cloud backup. The old C drive has been booting and working ok but when I ran a Crystal app the other day it came up with a caution warning and also said it had 60800 hours on it! So that's when I decided to get a new WD 2TB hard drive and clone my C drive before it quit. I home built this rig a number of years ago so it is old like me! One thing that I noticed is the time remaining in the clone process went from 2 hours to 8 hours and seems stuck there. Is this normal? I have never cloned a drive before so all this new to me.......

UPDATE....The cloning process finished and I took the old drive out and booted with new cloned drive every thing worked great. The PC is much more responsive and all files are intact.

Glad to hear the clone was successful, thanks for the feedback.

Unfortunately I didn't read this post until after I cloned my Crucial 525GB M.2 drive from the USB drive instead of installing in laptop drive bay and moving the old M.2 drive to the USB drive. Is there any way to get the drive to be recognized and used again? I hate to have to discard $130.