Help on CLONING please

I could perhaps restate my question to be:

"What exactly is the procedure once all the cloning has finished? In the case of the TH 11, it stops and says to shut down and change jumpers etc. But on SATA, there are no jumpers. So what else should be done? Should the old drive be removed and the new drive reconnected at master 3? But I've tried that and get 'error loading os'. Should I reboot with the 2 drives connected as before? If I do that, acronis home does something during boot and says 'Done'. and continues boot. But it's booting from the old drive. If I then power down, remove the old and move the new to master 3, I again get 'error loading os'.

Any help?

TIA

This could be a starting point.

1. Install the target disk inside the computer using same MB connector as original disk.
2. Install the original disk to an alternate location--such as an external enclosure.
3. Boot from the TI Rescue CD.
a. if target disk not blank, then use the Add new Disk option and delete the old partitions from the target disk. Be extremely careful to select correct disk to be cleared.
b. Perform the clone procedure and shutdown.

4. Reboot with only the new cloned disk attached. (Windows must not see two identical disks.)
5. After success boots, the old disk can be attached as a data drive; or stored as a safety replacement.

Many prefer to use the safer method of doing a backup and restoring the backup onto a new disk. The end results is the same and there is less risk to the source from a user error or program/hdwe malfunction.

Grover;

Thanks much for your help. However, ... no luck. Here's what I did after receiving your email:
Made the cloned drive new again by creating a partition.
Put the cloned drive on the mother board connector that the C: boot drive WAS on. (IDE Master 3)
Connected the Old (C:) drive to where the cloned drive had been (IDE Slave 3)
Booted from the TI 11 Bootable disk (same as Rescue CD, eh?)
Loaded Safe Mode TI from bootable CD. (Full version from there bombs with some linux kernel message ????)
'Added' the new disk.
Cloned from the old drive to the new drive - auto mode - etc. Cloning completed. Got the message about cangeing jumpers etc. X'd out of safe mode and it reloaded acronis. Selected Shut Down.
REMOVED the old drive completely.
LOeft the new (cloned drive at IDE Master 3.
Powered on , made sure bios saw the disk and it set it to boot from the disk.
And - Same old "Error Loading OS" message.????!!!!

Any other ideas??

Thanks

George

My next suggestion would be to
1. Redo the "Add new disk" except I am asking that you delete the partitions on the target disk--not create another partition. See attachment. The objective is to have the target disk as unallocated.

2. Redo the clone except choose the manual mode and within the manual mode, chose the move method "AS is". If this works, we can always adjust partition size later.

Note: you do not have to physically remove the a disk--just pull the connector from the disk or from the mb.
During first boot after clone, Is there any other disks installed into the computer other than the target? The goal is to have the newly cloned disk to be installed on the same mb connector as the original disk.

Thanks for more ideas. Based on those, here is what I will do next:

1) Load acronis and delete the partitions on the 'new' disk as suggested above. The disk will be on IDE Master 4 MB connector.
2) Redo the clone operation. The 'old' (system boot C:) disk to be cloned will be on the IDE Master 3 MB connector. I will clone using the as is option.
3) Shut down the computer.
4) 'Remove' the old disk (by which I mean simply disconnect from MB and Power.
5)Move the MB SATA connector to the 'new' cloned disk, thus making it IDE Master 3.
6Power on, get into bios and make the new disk the boot disk. (There have been no other disks in the system, unless u count 2 CD drives).
7) Boot into windows (I HOPE...)

I will say that the only thing really new here is the 'as-is' option., I have not tried that yet.

The thing I really wonder about is - what is acronis doing on the 'first boot after cloning'? Something is done as windows is booting, but this ONLY happens afterI would get the OS error on the cloned drive, and then go ahead and shut down and move cable to old drive and boot anew. so whatever acronis is doing cannot be done to the new cloned disk. Hope u understood that.

OK, here goes...

Just removing the data connector is sufficient. Removing power connect is not needed--your choice.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding but the target disk should be connected to its boot position when the "add new disk" option is executed to get the unallocated status and then the clone from the same position. A reboot should not be necessary after the "add new disk" option.

Question: As you recall when in the bios and selecting boot disk, except for the different disk name, doesn't everything (connector and number, etc) look the same during boot as when the original disk was installed?

My last post for tonight.

Grover;

Yes, yes. And it does appear that hte KEY was to do the As-is clone.

I am now talking to you from the newly cloned disk.

Now I have to increase the partition size. I m at this time unaware of how to do this without destroying what';s in a partition?

So have a good rest of evening and tomorrow AM, can you elaborate on how we can "adjust the partition size later'?

If I figure out how to do it, I will post here with another thank you to you.

G

Download Partition Wizard from this link. Burn it to the CD as an image and it will become a bootable Partition Utility. Or, do y ou have another partition utility installed? I prefer to use a CD based utility.

http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-wizard-bootable-cd.html

Post a screen capture picture attachment of your Windows Disk Management Graphical view so that we can see how the disk is structured.

What size do you want the partitions?

I will respond sometime later this evening.

Grover; Many thanks. Last night I downloaded a partition mgr called 'easeus' and I was able to use it to move partitions around. As u can see, Now I've got a 7GB 'EISA Configurator' partition ( I am not sure of the need for this, but am reluctant to delete it.) Then I have the system partition at about 140 GB with 50% free and then a 320GB data and scratch partition. I'm happy with this setup for now.

I'm going to keep my old (120GB) disk unplugged and put my old B/U 160GB drive in the system tonite.

I really appreciate you helping me get on with things and I'm going to do 'As-is' cloning from here on and worry about partitions later.

George

Hi George,
If you are happy with your new setup, then no need to post the attachment but there is a couple things I would recommend that you do.

1. Go ahead and do a screen capture of your setup and print it out and put it in a place convenient to find. You never know when you need to know which is active and the partition sequence, etc.

2. I believe it wise to keep your existing oem partition because its removal if often a real hassle and can end up- not as easy as a simple deletion of the unwanted partition and the disk can become unbootable--depending.

3. Use the TI CD and do a backup of your new system and be sure the backup includes all partitions. When using the CD, if you check mark the disk as to what is to be backed up, all the partitions will become autochecked and included within the backup. Had you had this type backup of the 120, restoring the backup could have been one more option open to you. A replacement disk created by Cloning is no different than one created via restoring a proper backup If you have no place to store the backup, considering adding an additional storage drive or if there is no other place, then store it on the 120--if there is room. Backup file size will be about 75-70% of used space.

4. When I need to create a new disk, I much prefer using the backup and restore method. While the clone is slightly faster, the clone has a much greater risk of a data disaster. In real life, the cloning process is often marred by a mistake by the user such as -- Cloning the blank overtop the good disk; or deleting partitions from the wrong disk; or the computer freezes and needs a forced reboot and neither disk usable or a utility power problem. The forum has seen its share of these type problems and too often the user has no backups as a safety valve. If you have the proper type backup and choose the clone, at least there is a safety value but my preference is to simply not use the clone procedure for the reasons stated.

The automatic clone also has the disadvantage of offering no controls over the sizes of the partition. If you choose to clone, it is better to use the manual method and the manual move method so the user has complete control over the partition sizes. Using the "AS IS" move method is usually a good method if both disks the same but is usually a last resort method as it requires additional later resizing but the "as is" offers a good chance of success. I would have been very surprised had it not worked.

5. If your computer is a desktop and has two usable 5.25" drive bays (as I have in mine), I have two Antec quick swap SATA drive bays (Staples-$28 each). I have several hard drives which I switch in and out so I always have both the current bootable drive and a recent bootable spare plus always current backups which could be used to create another bootable drive should I have issues with any of the current or storage drive. My data is just my own personal computer but I do want avoid ever being forced to do a new install as it would be too much of a pain attempting (probably impossible) to gather up installation data for all I have installed.

6. Anytime I need a partitioning utility, I make sure it is done when can be booted a CD or thumbdrive. Attempting to use one from within Windows often times presents Windows interference and booting from the CD removes Windows from the equation.

Good luck and glad I was able to help.
Grover

ps: It would probably be prudent to defrag both C & D and do a chkdsk on both or especially C if you have not done a chkdsk any time in recent past.