Need to replace C Drive
I have Acronis TIH 2011 and am trying to understand how to use it to more easily replace the C drive in my PC. The C drive is a 250GB drive and contains the OS (Windows 7 Pro 64-bit), applications, and some misc backed up data. I've recently been having some "odd" problems with the drive - it seems to need CHKDSK often - and think I'd better replace it before it crashes.
I've read the HELP files, Grover's Guides, some posts here and think I now understand just enough about this to be dangerous! My original thought was that I should clone C and restore that to a new bare drive in order to avoid having to reinstall Windows and my apps. Apparently, that is not the best way to go.
So far, I've created a bootable CD from TIH2011. I am now doing a backup of the C drive to an external drive in a USB enclosure just to see how that goes. This is not the drive I intend to install into the PC; it's just a backup to have during this process.
But, what exactly are the steps I should take? I'm not sure how to use the bootable CD that I made.
The bays in the case are full; I have 2 add'l hard drives -- the D drive for data and the E drive as a backup of the D drive.
After this test backup finishes, do I then make a backup of my existing C drive to the new bare drive (which happens to be 320GB - the best deal at my local store this morning)? I can probably find a case to put it in. Is there a special way to create this backup; i.e., can I just run a simple backup of C to X (the new bare drive) from TIH2011 or are there specific criteria to check off? Do I boot from the CD and then make the backup?
After I get C backed up to X, then what do I do and how do I run the restore to get the new hard drive to be the C drive. Do I just open the case, replace the old C drive with the X-new drive, close it up and boot from the CD to start a restore? And, what would I be restoring since the new hard drive would already have the contents from C on it?
I'm sure these are really elementary questions, but I've read as much as I can find and am still confused by the terminology (clone, image, backup) and not sure how some of the instructions apply to my situation where I am just swapping out the C drive.
Any clarifications or assistance (or links to posts which already have answered this) would be greatly appreciated.
Dianne,
As Pat has indicated, when restoring, restore the partition in the same order as currently on the disk. Unfortunately, TrueImage does not always show the partitions in the same order. To be doubly sure, open windows Disk Management and it will show you a picture of how the partitions are sequenced on your current disk and this is the proper restore order. Also note which partition is marked as Active as you will need to know that when restoring.
Thank you, Pat, for this very straightforward explanation. It worked!!
The only thing I was a little unsure about before starting the restore was that I had only one partition on the C drive that I was replacing. That is to say, I had not partitioned it into a C drive and a D drive. I only had a C drive with the OS and applications on it. So, I wasn't sure about your description of the system reserved partition, the system partition, a recovery partition, and the MBR, Track 0 and the disk signature.
But, I used the recovery CD to do a full backup of the C drive (a 250GB HD).
I shut down the system, pulled the C drive, put in a new bare drive (320GB), rebooted with the Acronis CD and chose to recover all (don't remember just exactly how it is phrased).
When I saw the message "Recovery Succeeded", I rebooted the computer and it works. The Acronis CD has been removed and I've rebooted a couple of times just to make sure I'm not missing anything here. It seems too easy. :-)
Ran disk management to see if the C drive looks OK there; was thinking maybe there would be an unallocated partition cause by the difference between the old 250GB drive and the new 320GB drive. It appears to have put all available space into the main partition.
I'm sure there are more complicated scenarios than this, but your explanation was much simpler for me to follow. THANKS.
Grover, As I said above, I'm still a little confused about what I could/should have done differently in the restore. It worked, but I'd feel better knowing why. THX
From your description, it appears that when you looked in the disk management application that it showed you having only the one partition (c:) and you did not have any of the others which we describe as system reserved, etc. There really is no "standard" as to how many partitions a Win7-64 should have. So if the others did not exist, this made your restore very straight forward. That is is the "why" you were asking about. The attachment below is an example of how some Win7-32 or 64 disk managements do appear and your description does not fit any of them. A single partition system like you have is most often seen when it is upgraded from a prior Windows system such as XP.
I'm glad it worked for you and I hope my guides gave you a little background so the transfer was less scary.
I see from the attachment that there are many "flavors" of partitioning. And, as a matter of fact, I did upgrade my system from Windows XP Pro to Win 7 Pro about 6 months ago. I hesitate to use the word "upgrade" because it isn't particularly straight forward, but.............
And, yes, the guides were very useful for getting some of the background knowledge -- particularly useful to see both in the guides and in several posts that the backup-restore path is the safest. I had thought that cloning was the only way to preserve the settings to avoid reinstallation hassles. Nice to know there is another way.
THX
Dianne,
As you can surmise, it is almost impossible to have a guide apply to apply to all situations.
As suggested Pat and the user guide by Acronis, it is recommended that the "disk signature" be restored when a restore to a new drive is performed. This option is in the lower left corner of the same screen where you choose the target disk (next to last screen). If you did not choose this option, it is not too late and you can again boot from the Rescue CD and choose the Restore option.
Do NOT check the "C" partition.
Check the MBR/0 option and click next
Check the target disk plus check the "Recovery Disk signature" option.
Click the proceed button and the restore will take only a few seconds.
The purpose of restoring the "Disk Signature" is that some software installations (such as Acronis and Adobe, etc) use the disk information as part of the install information.
If you recover the entire disk, the Recover disk signature check box appears. Disk signature is a part of a hard disk MBR. It is used for uniquely identifying the disk media. We recommend that you select the Recover disk signature check box due to the following reasons:Acronis True Image Home 2011 creates scheduled backups using the signature of the source hard disk. If you recover the same disk signature, you don't need to re-create or edit the backups created previously.
We recommend that you clear the Recover disk signature check box when:
You use an image backup not for disaster recovery but for cloning your Windows hard drive to another one.
In this case, Acronis True Image Home 2011 generates a new disk signature for the recovered hard drive, even if you recover to the same drive.
Note:
When you reach the target selection screen, if the "Recover disk signature" is NOT listed as an option in the lower left corner, then CANCEL the procedure and a second restore of the MBR is not needed.
Post back whatever you do or find.
This looks like the place to make sure I have all my ducks in a row. I am replacing my C: drive on an XP system on which I do a full image backup with ATI Home 2009 consisting of NTFS, 16bit, 32bit to an added internal D: drive every evening. The C: drive is failing with frequent sector errors so the drive will be replaced with the same brand drive with double the capacity. I have Acronis Startup Recovery Manager activated.
I believe the Dell desktop PC will recognize the new drive when I turn on the power and automatically format it. I am not sure at what point I hit F11. Then I guess I just choose restore and the new drive will simply replace the old one and all should be just as before.
I do have an Acronis Bootable Rescue Media CD I created in 2009 if I need it but I believe the Recovery Manager will do all the work for me.
How am I doing?
You should remove the failing drive and put the new drive at the same spot. Then boot on the recovery CD to restore. Restore each partition separately, in the same order they were on the old disk. Resize only the NTFS partition to take advantage of the increased disk size. When all partitions are restored, restore the MBR+Track0 and the disk signature.
I finally got the nerve to remove the old drive and install the new. I was amazed at how quick Acronis TIH formatted the drive (I guess it did, cuz I didn't) and copied the image of my last backup to the new drive. Everything went great except for a glitch with the backup it used. I tried to edit the scheduled backup afte the restore but every time it says "WARNING the file xxxx.tib exists, do you want to overwrite it?" no matter what I tried to do. I gave up and created a new backup task.
I checked the task and event log and it shows the b/u used for the restore in green date background but the log stopped at "locking partition C:" and does not show the last seven operations nor the operation has succeeded entry. The new task's first b/u shows everything ok with green date and full log entries.
Now the real problem; the new disk has all the original 3 partitions, 55MB FAT EISA configuration, 144.11GB NTFS system, 4.85GB FAT 32 unknown partition, plus a new 316.75GB unallocated. The original drive was a 160GB and the new one is 500GB. This results in just 91.45GB free so how do I enlarge the system partition or do I have to create a new drive letter for the big unallocated logical partition and forget about expanding the system partition? I just don't want to run out of space on the system partition.
Post a picture of your new disk as shown in Windows Disk Management graphical view similar to what is shown in this attachment.
http://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/forum/2011/05/21542/manufa…
Is this a Windows 7 installation?
Richard,
It looks like you have restored the complete disk image instead of restoring each partition one after the other in the same order there were in windows. When you restore each partition after the other, individually, ATI allows you resize the restored partition. You would have been able to resize your C:\system partition accordingly.
At this point, you have 2 easy options:
- download a free partition manager (eg AESUS), and resize your partition,
- redo your restore, each partition at a time.
OK, see my post on Friday 7-29, I have Windows XP media center edition SP2.
OOPS! I booted to the Acronis bootable rescue media and do not recall any prompt to allow me to process the restore in that manner. It did restore in the exact order as before, which confirms what you said. Guess I do not know how to do the restore any other way. The disc ask me if I wanted the full acronis program and as I remember I said yes. Is that where I messed up?
I have a copy of wintool partition wizard home ver. 6.0 but after looking it over and reading the help file, I was more confused more than ever and have no idea how to use the thing to just resize the system partition.
Thanks for your patience, I am a memory corrupt senior citizen.
Richard
When you boot on the Acronis rescue media, browse to your backup, choose restore. When you select what to restore, make sure that the check box at the disk level within the backup is not checked. Select only one partition at a time, do not select the MBR+Track0. This will change the restore process: ATI will offer you the possibility to resize as you selec the new destination of the backup.
Remember that the drive letters are not necessarily the same on the CD as in Windows. For example, your partition C:\ might have the letter D:\ on the CD. Look for the label of the disks/partitions (eg: "System") to avoid restoring onto the wrong partition/disk.
You just need to make sure that you mark the right partition "active" (probably C:\System)