Cloning or Imaging
I have an SSD on one computer and I wonder if Acronis True Image 2014 has the tools to clone it to a different second identical SSD? It would save me a ton of time.
Okay. I follow.
Now here's the kicker. I have two new-build PCs. Both are Win 7 Pro x64 32 GB RAM. One has an ASUS Sabertooth Mobo; the other an ASUS Z79-a. Both have Samsung AVO 250 GB SSDs I'd like to use as the boot drives. The Sabertooth works fine; the Z79 build just doesn't make it. I've dealt with Microsoft help, thinking it is a Windows issue, and with SAMSUNG support, who would like me to run a test to see if it is the SSD. (The typical failure is that the second SSD hangs up on boot to Windows after most, but not all, Windows upgrades.)
I can almost always get to safe mode. Can I install ACRONIS in safe mode? And if I can, can I then transfer the image or backup from an external HDD to the SSD in safe mode. (I can make the backup from the Sabertooth machine's SSD.)
Can do you one better, with the premium edition you can create a Linux based boot media and or a WinPE boot disk with the TI app added on so you can boot your machine and backup, restore, or clone a disk. Just be sure to do your research so that you fully understand the processes and procedures for each task.
Looking at all the options from various sites I plan on taking one HDD off line from my functioning PC and introducing the suspicious SSD in its place. I will then write 1&0s over the entire SSD, twice, using different apps, as a prophylactic measure if there is a virus or other malware on it and to delete all existing files. Then I will use the ACRONIS backup approach to write a back up to an HDD and then restore it to the blank SSD.
Anybody see any issues here? Any suggestions?
You should investigate if Samsung has a recommended tool to Secure erase the drive. If so that tool should be used. SSD drives differ from HHD drives when erasing data. Once a data cell has been reset on an SSD it is wiped clean. SSD drives cells are reset by writing 1's to each cell, 0's will not reset a cell.
Thanks. Will do.
Ebchantech: Done. It was a convoluted trip I do not recommend to anyone but with a lot of tech support the drive has been wiped. Not documented in the manual nor on line.
But now I am on the Acronis side and there is not much of a documented approach to cloning nor backing up and writing Disks Partitions either. Such is my luck!.
Advise?
LinusF
Your post #2 "Both have Samsung AVO 250 GB SSDs "
Question:
Any chance you were referring to the Samsung EVO style?
If Samsung Magician software installed which comes with the EVO disk
Secure Erase for EVO is available was per these illustrations.
Depending upon whether you have MBR or GPT style partitioning, you can review my signature link 3 below
and check out item 2 and item 1.
The best type of backup to have is the disk image which includes all partitions and this is illustrated in picture 1 of signature link 2-A below.
All restores (or if cloned) should be when booted from the user created TI Recoveryi CD.
Thanks a bunch for the hint of using the Samsung's Secure Erase. I knew about it jut figured anything could reformat. Problem was that it took one of the Samung itechs on the telephone for over an hour (week days only) to finally successfully clear off this SSD. And I had to hook it up to a second PC. I am using your other PDFs. Godsends! I'm indebted. And wish Acronis had Support-page links to them.
Thanks for helping out Grover!
After more than three weeks of tracking down one issue after another I find myself still tracking down an issue.
After a two day hassle getting the Samsung SSD cleaned off using Samsung's tool and having to use a lot of time on the phone and and going to good ol
' DOS (AKA Command Lines) several times and having to physically remove the SSD and add it to an operating PC, I thought I'd be at the end of the rope. But wait!, as the hucksters say, I find that it took Acronis over 12 hours to make the diskette back up of the 250 GB SSD (on the operating machine) to a brand new external HDD via USB3. I finally just let it run overnight, It did shut off at some point; I had elected that option. The last of three partitions kicked off at 0020 hrs this morning.
However, when I try to safely remove the external drive today in broad daylight, I have gotten the busy signal for the last 4 hours. I've checked with Task Manager and found nothing obvious happening. Any ideas? I'd hate to blow the deal at this last step.
Sounds like you still have use of the PC, did you choose to validate the backup when you confugered the task? If so,the validation may still be in progress.
I still have the use of the functioning (host) PC to which the external HDD attaches. Once Acronis (?) releases the Disk Copy on the external HDD, I will open up the not yet functioning PC, re-install the cleaned off SSD and boot from the Acronis boot disk. I surely hope.
What should I see in Task Manager if validation is the issue?
Recovery failed. Bummer.
I let the PC go for another 12 hours and then turned it off and unattached the external HDD.
At the end of the process the first time I got errorcodse 0x00040007.
At the end of the second try (using a different choice of tib file), I got 0x00040002.
I will make another stab at a backup.
I made two more tries. Each failed with a long list of issues. I have followed to the letter Grover's techniques. There is something escaping me.
I can send e-mails of the event logs but, I must say at this point, I have lost confidence in Acronis. What I am trying to do is simply make a disk back up of a small SSD to an external drive which has nothing else on it. Not rocket science.
I would like guidance for which I have not found FAQs on either. I would like to totally erase from my system all the Acronis backups. I can just zap the files. But then how does Acronis know that all the backups schemas it has on file should be erased on its side?
Is it worth paying for a support incident?