Sector by Sector Copy - Can my 2017 version do this
Items of importance:
Z-170 Chipset - Asus z170 Deluxe UEFI with Legacy Support
Samsung 850 Evo 500 gb SSD via SATA3 gpt (has 2 microsoft created partitions, 2 of mine)
Western Digital 4tb Black Caviar (Adv. Format - 4k) via SATA3 mbr (broke drive into 2 partitions 2tb each)
Windows 7 64 bit SP1
I have been using Acronis for cloning my drives since 2011. Here is what I do so you can see what is happening.
I don't use backups, iso. I prefer to clone my drives to a drive of the same exact size. I allow Acronis to control the size of the partitions (or simply don't manually change the sizes). When done I have a back up of my SSD and my HD. Now if either should be corrupted, I can recover that entire drive. If the drive has a hardware failure and can't be used, I have an emergency replacement till I can gert a replacement. I put the clones aside until needed.
The question I have comes from a Faq from Microsoft on gpt vs MBR partitions under uefi bios. It says you can't do a sector by sector copy of the drive and it also says that for Advanced Format Drives (4k) it can't do a sector by sector copy. Is Acronis able to starting with 2015 on through 2017 (I don't know where my 2018 disc is so I am not posting in that forum - can't prove ownership) do exact clones of drives that are gpt/mbr partitions, in uefi/legacy bios, and with Advanced Format. I have 2 drives one for each of my hard drives so there is no spanning or shrinking or moving or leaving out files (which you can't do anyways in cloning). I just want to know if acronis can do this before I go with gpt boot and an AF mbr drives.
Thank you.


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It didn't look like it really covered my topic. 1 thing that concerned me was that you recommend making a backup of your data before you clone. I am confused isn't the purpose of using Acronis True Image 2017/2018 or previous versions was to backup/clone for having more than 1 copy of your data.
The next thing I saw is that the info provided stated uefi with gpt is supported only in systems 8 and above at x86 and x64 with Vista 64 sp1 and above (so I assume that means win 7 x64 is included)
My source disk is GPT and my OS supports UEFI |
After operation completion, the partition style will remain GPT, the system will fail booting on BIOS, because your operating system cannot support booting from GPT on BIOS. |
After operation completion, the partition style will remain GPT, the operating system will be bootable on UEFI. |
This is a copy from that instruction page. Now my bios comes equipped with a CSM and allows uefi and legacy. So how does that fit into the statement above. The first suggests that when the cloning process is done, it will damage the sources from being able to boot (doesn't comment on csm).
So does your true image alter the source during or after done cloning.so it isn't 100% the same it was before I ran the clone process. The reason I turned to Acronis long ago was because Norton Ghost had major issues that required manual changes to get the clone to work. Is that going to be the same with Acronis now that I am using a win 7 gpt uefi/legacy configuration?
There was no comments really about advanced format disk and how the cloning works with them. I searched the term advanced format and 4k in two different searches and neither showed up.
From what I am reading it is making me very leary now of using Acronis True Image. I guess the question then is can acronis manage cloning gpt to another drive of same size and gpt format and I can use that clone should my master crash and I either need to restore the cloned gpt back onto the master or switch to using the clone instead. If I have a 4k/Adv Format hard drive and I am cloning to a disk of the same size and format gpt/mbr will the clone also be able to be installed into computer and the drive ran just like the master that it was cloned from (obviously in both scenarios any data/installs done between clones will not be there). I don't use raid, other types of OS or partition types (only gpt/mbr in ntfs), no weird wiring, no dynamic host, or things that a user using their computer to play games, run applications like Office, making DVD\CD data backups, watching movies (usually either iso or the actual disc - bluray or dvd). I am now not sure about Acronis after reading things as I said above.
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Tim, the key reason for the warning about having a backup before making a clone is aimed at those users to have done this without understanding the risks involved and have ended up with an unbootable system because of mistakes made.
Cloning can be safe when done correctly, i.e. do not attempt to boot with both cloned drives connected, ensure that the correct source / target drives are selected etc.
The restrictions with regards to OS support for UEFI and GPT are imposed by Microsoft not Acronis.
See webpages: Frequently asked questions about the GUID Partitioning Table disk architecture and GUID Partition Table and Windows support for hard disks that are larger than 2 TB which provide a lot more detailed information in this topic area.
With regard to the combination of UEFI / GPT and Legacy / MBR the key here is the way in which the Acronis Rescue Media is booted which needs to match the way that the installed Windows OS boots. If this is mismatched, then corruption or migration could happen, i.e. if your OS boots in Legacy mode but you boot the Rescue media in UEFI mode, then ATI will convert the filesystem from MBR to GPT when doing a restore or clone. A warning would be given in the Rescue Media about this conversion if would happen.
See forum topic: Warning "After operation completion, operating systems will not boot from destination disk in the BIOS" which has screen shots from the rescue media showing the warning message when booted incorrectly.
See also webpage: BIOS Mode - See if Windows Boot in UEFI or Legacy Mode
Reference to support for 4 KB logical sector sizes is covered in the ATIH 2017 User Guide: Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) in the section entitled:
How to migrate an original system to a larger hard drive?
Acronis True Image 2017 now allows migrating or restoring systems from a previously created archive, to hard drives larger than 2^32 bytes (2 TB for disks with standard 512-bytes sized logical sector or 16 TB for disks with 4 KB (4096-bytes) sized logical sector).
You can do it using Acronis media or booting to UEFI-based operating systems with Acronis True Image 2017 installed:
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