Another Black Screen
I have the full, paid for version of True Image 2015 Build 6613. I just tried to do a clone image of my C drive to an external HDD and when it went into re-boot it flashed the windows 7 screen and then the Acronis loader screen showed for about 1 second then it just went completely blank. The computer was still running and the monitor light showed as on. I left it for around an hour just in case this was normal and this was my first try. Nothing happened and when I checked both the computer and monitor were off. I re-booted and it started in windows 7 fine so I checked both drives the clone seems to have worked but what concerns me is that the C drive shows content of 193gb while the external drive only shows 185gb. Is this normal or how can I check.
I don't want the external as boot drive at this point, just in case something goes wrong with a win10 install but I would like to be sure it's OK
Many thanks.
Denis.
Denis,
Please consider the following.
The procedure for cloning disks in Acronis is well documented. The recommended procedure is using Acronis Boot Media. It does not include imaging to an externally connected device. The destination (target) is installed in place of the source (disk you are cloning from).
Windows does not support booting the OS from USB devices. I suspect you did not perform a clone, and instead performed a partition level back up. It sounds like you may have not got all the partitions because of the size discrepancy. I'm only guessing. Why would you assume something is working "if you can't see it"? This is not normal or expected. You won't find this stated anywhere in the user guide. The forums are not monitored by Acronis staff. This is a user to user form. The MVP's are volunteers.
We are happy to try and help. If you would like assistance, please confirm the operation you wanted to perform and the expected outcome. Please include the steps you performed. Was the operation initiated from the installed version in windows, or did you use bootable media? The software is complex and the terminology can be daunting. There is a learning curve and we understand this. The more information you can provide, the easier it will be for someone to assist you.
Hi and my apologies if I sounded somewhat abrupt. Unfortunately it appears that Acronis is not the program for me, I really seem to have chosen the wrong one this time as it just doesn't do the things I want especially with files and folders which was my main reason for the purchase.
At no time did I want a bootable drive, just all the files from 'C' drive with direct access to them onto a remote drive. So, I will ask again. Will the 193gb from 'C' drive be the same as the 185gb on the external drive because maybe True Image cleaned them up a little?. The only part of the operation I missed in the first post was: clicked on clone, set origin and target, pressed start. There were no partitions on either drive.
Maybe I should have just used Windows Explorer.
Denis.
Hi Denis,
I don't believe you made the wrong choice. The good news is the software is powerful and capable of doing much more in addition to what you are looking for. You might want to investigate backing up files, directories or partitions on a schedule. This runs automatically when you want it to. The copied images can be validated and you can receive email notifications for tasks when they complete or don't run. Images offer great flexibility. They can be mounted and browsed like a "giant folder" you can copy single files, directories or the entire image back to another location. You can even write to them in certain situations.
Windows Explorer can do exactly what you want (manually). XCOPY, also built into windows can be scheduled. Acronis however is a comprehensive solution combining the best of all of these things together. Acronis doesn't clean things up for you its own. It does have an "exclusion" feature, but you have to specify the file types to exclude when a back up task is created. By default, only .tmp files are excluded and I'm pretty sure you didn't have 8GB of temp files on your disk. Have a look at the user guide and familiarize yourself with some of the programs features. Again, we are happy to assist if you find yourself in a situation and are not sure how to proceed.
One of our Elite MVP's has created the following knowledge base full of helpful information. Also worth a look.