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Some questions about ATI WD Edition

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I am going to install a replacement HD in an older Dell computer.
I was advised that I could use ATI WD Edition to clone the old Seagate drive, if the new HD is a Western Digital drive, which it is. I am very excited about installing this new HD and using ATI WD Edition, and I have downloaded the program (but not yet installed it), plus I have downloaded the WD Edition 100 page User Guide. However, I have not found the answer to this one question...

I already have an older version of ATI (version 9.0 from 2006) installed on the old Seagate drive that I will be cloning to the target WD drive. Will I encounter problems when I go to install ATI WD Edition on that old Seagate, because ATI 9.0 is already on there? Will ATI WD Edition overwrite 9.0? Or will the two ATI products exist side-by-side, in different folders?

One other question...

Since my exisiting retail version 9.0 of ATI has a Clone Disk task, do I even need to use the WD Edition? (I sort of have 2 issues here with this last question: the age of my ATI program (2006) and whether or not the WD Edition does anything special, or different, with the new Western Digital HD that my current 9.0 wouldn't do).

My gut feeling is to try ATI 9.0 that is already onboard and has been serving me well in my backup routine. But I have never used it to clone one HD to another, and I am skeptical that 4 year old technology will perform flawlessly. I am sure that the first thing any Acronis tech support folks would tell me is to upgrade to ATI 2011.

As you can see, I need some input and advice! Thank you!

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I assume you have current backups of the old drive so you have nothing to lose by trying TI 9 first. It's generally recommended to boot to the TI CD to do the cloning instead of doing it in Windows.

You can't have both TI 9 and TI WD Edition installed at the same time. You would need to uninstall TI 9 first.

The newer version supports newer hardware, but since you're working on an old computer, TI 9 may be just fine (it may even work better).

Thanks for the reply, MudCrab.
Yes, I have current backups.
I may push my luck and try the cloning from within Windows.
If it screws up, I'll be sure to say MudCrab told me so!
And btw, I like your thought process, that TI9.0 might even work better on this older system.
I'll report back when I get into it next week. :)

Save yourself some grief. Do the cloning when booted from the Rescue CD. It is easier and it more troublefree.

After the cloning, shutdown and disconnect the old drive so only the new drive is connected on first bootup.

You may have an interest in the guides listed under item 3 inside my signature index below.

Hello GroverH
I think you and MudCrab give good advice regarding cloning after booting from the rescue cd.
I'm convinced.
Could you point me to the guides you are referring to in your sig?
I do want to review on your recommendation, but there are alot of things in your sig.
Thanks for the reply!

Click on "Grovers Index" (in yellow) inside my signatur below and locate item #3 inside the listing.

Or look along the left margin of this webpage and click on Grovers Guides

@ MudCrab & GroverH...

You guys sure give sage advice! :) I ran the cloning op tonight from the TI9.0 rescue disk (using the auto transfer mode) and everything went about as smoothly as one could ever hope for!

Before starting, I wanted to validate my image backup of the drive in case anything went wrong, and in doing so I tested the TI rescue boot disks... and found them to be unable to recognize the networked drive where I store the back ups! One disk wouldn't even boot the computer. I contacted Acronis support and a very helpful tech support guy emailed me a couple of links to burn an ISO file rescue boot disk for 9.0. It worked like a charm.

I then followed all of the instructions I'd gathered from you guys and from the Dell Community forum. Cloning a 17GB Seagate to a new WD took all of 15 minutes max (which surprised the heck out of me, given that creating full image back ups usually take more than an hour), and only required a 2nd reboot after the initial boot up for hardware to be recognized. I must admit I was borderline ecstatic to see everything transfer over so cleanly!

Grover and MudCrab, thank you for the diligent work that you do here. I appreciate the kind assistance.