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Restore backup to new drive

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Hello,

I have a hard drive that has stopped working. I have a complete back up on an external drive. My question is, when installing a new drive, do I need to install my current version of windows first?

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David, welcome to these User Forums.

If your 'complete backup' of your failed HDD includes your Windows OS, then you can do a 'bare-metal' recovery from the backup image to the new drive by using the Acronis bootable Rescue Media to boot the computer.

There should be no need to reinstall your Windows OS on the drive first if the above is correct, as the first act of the recovery process will be to wipe the drive clean in preparation for restoring the partitions from the backup image file.

Thanks Steve for the response. Since I did not create a bootable media, but in fact have a single version backup, can I do the bare metal recovery using the f11 feature that I set the pc to show when booting?

David, if the failed drive is also your Windows OS drive, then you will lose the F11 (Acronis Startup Recovery Manager) option when replacing the drive, as that comes from the MBR of the drive.

You should be able to sign in to your Acronis account then download a CD/DVD .ISO image file and burn this to optical media for booting from.

Ok, I found the file in my account for the media. I will try this when I get home. Strange that it was all ok last night, get up in the morning and see the blue screen telling me that windows was unable to recover your pc, bootable media not accessible. The drives are 8 years old, so, that is the first thing I am going after. I will surely let you know of the outcome. Thank You again Steve.

David, one last suggestion for the blue screen issue..  It is often worth trying to boot Windows normally rather than attempting a Startup Repair when Windows offers this, then tells you it can't be done!  I have seen this on a number of occasions where just doing a normal start has worked in these circumstances.  It is also possible that you have hit a failed Windows Update and Windows will sometimes try to redo this on another boot or else roll the update back.

I tried that from a power down, but kept getting the same result, "diagnosing your pc" then unable to recover. My only options were to shut down or advanced options. I went into system restore and found a restore point from 2 days ago but was very hesitant about proceeding in case the drive had indeed failed. Never really had much luck with system restore.

David, I would certainly give system restore a try if available, especially if your alternative is to have to restore a full backup to the drive, as the first step of any restore is to wipe the target drive anyway.

The other option here would be to attempt to make another backup of the problem drive which should tell you if there are any actual drive issues such as bad sectors etc.  If doing this, ensure that you do not overwrite your good backup image by accident or use a different backup drive.

Ok Steve, system restore worked well. Seems an Adobe flash player update was the problem. I am currently installing updates to see what happens. 

Final post, I hope! The updates went without a hitch. Quicken files were still where I left off yesterday. Strange indeed. Those gremlins in the middle of the night seem to have a way of really messing things up. I want to thank you sir for your insight and your time! You never stop learning about how things work.

David, always glad to read of good news, hope all stays working well for you.