Succesful Clone HD in Win7 64 bit
For what it's worth, here is the only way I can clone my desktop boot HD to a backup HD located in a USB dock. I have a 300 gig main drive (the Source disk) cloned to a 1 tb HD (the Destination HD) in the USB dock. All this using Win7 64 bit OS.
1. You will need to a USB keyboard (a wireless keyboard won't boot).
2. You will need a USB mouse (again, a wireless mouse won't boot).
3. Make a Rescue CD with the Acronis software.
Procedure:
1. Use Windows Disk Management to delete ALL partitions on the Destination HD. Then format the resulting unformatted partition as a Simple Disk.
2. Insert the Rescue Disk and reboot.
3. When Acronis opens, use the Up arrow key to select the Acronis True Image item and press enter to start main program.
4. In the main program, select Tools/Clone/Auto
5. Follow the prompts to select the Source HD and the Destination HD (be careful about which is which!).
6. Start the clone process.
Before starting the clone procedure, if there any partitions on the destination HD other than the simple disk, the clone will fail.
Hope this helps!
Booting wireless keyboards and mice depends on the brand and chipset - for example mine is an old Logitec DiNovo keyboard and mouse and they work, some newer Microsoft and others don't, probably due to the lack of drivers in the Linux Kernel.
There may be ways around this, by using the Linux command line which is accessed by pressing F8 during the Acronis Loading....... cycle.
It is often better to use the recovery CD to perform a clone as this way Windows itself cannot influence the reboot into Linux that the Windows based option uses.
Whether the target disk has partitions or not should make no difference, the first thing that TIH does is to delete the partition information on the destination drive. It is possible though that as some Dell and Lenovo/IBM machines (mainly laptops) have a specialised disk geometry, a clone or an image restore won't boot without fiddling with BIOS entries as Acronis will lay down a default standard MBR if it becomes confused.
At what point does the wireless mouse stop working, at the main menu or after the Acronis Loader starts?
A reverse clone might solve your problems, put the source drive in the caddy and the destination in the PC, clone via the CD.
As you would need to use the recovery CD to restore an image if the drive had died, it is a good idea to name your partitions, as in Linux the partition letters will often appear in a different order to they do under Windows. So rather than just having a partition state C:\ , give your partitions labels (in Windows speak) as those won't alter when using different OS's.
