Perforning cloning operation from recovery cd vs. from windows?
Hi. In the past I have had problems with doing a clone of my main hdd that had a linux partition (dual boot). I had an issue where the MBR was overwritten and GRUB became lost. That turned out to be a real mess.
I have read, in a couple of posts on this forum, that in order to avoid problems, it is better to run a clone operation with Acronis from a recovery cd as opposed to running it from the windows program.
Before I load another linux partition and GRUB, I would like to know why doing a clone of a disk with Acronis with the recovery cd would be safer than doing it from the windows interface.
Thank You
Tom
Scott,
That was a fantastic reply to my post. It made a lot of things clear.
Yes, I know about not being able to boot when two identical (cloned) disks are in the system. I generally have to go into the BIOS and select the disk that I want to boot from...it will work properly then.
I think that I will take your advice about switching from a clone to a backup, and I think that you mean "sector by sector" backup. I did not think about the fact that the clone could be rendered useless by a bad byte in a critical sector. I suppose that I was blinded by the overall ease of recovering my system with a clone as opposed to a backup.
Let me just ask this one question, which may be very simple to answer. Lets say that my main disk with the MBR goes bad. If I have an Acronis recovery CD and a SBS backup of the primary active partition (on some other drive), then theoretically all that I would need is a new blank HDD and I could be up and running again fairly quickly, without having to reload the operating system(s). Is that correct?
Thank You
Tom
Easiest way is may a full disk backup. Then restore full disk including disk signature and MBR. If restoring to diff size disk, then refer to userguide or grover's guides
May I ask for one final clarification?
"Easiest way is may a full disk backup."
Do you mean a full "sector by sector backup?
Thank You
TOm
No. You almost never want to do that.
Scott,
"Then restore full disk including disk signature and MBR."
I will assume that standard "disk backup" under Acronis, will back up "disk signature" and the MBR automatically? I looked for switches under the "advanced" tab but found non relating to the above. Perhaps you are referring to an option during a "restore" operation.
Thank you again for all of your help.
Tom
Tom,
If you have time for some research reading, here is a couple links which I believe you will find helpful.
How to backup version 2012--
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/28705
My Backup & Restore Guides.
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/29618
Scott mentioned my guides and the above is a couple examples. After the above, if you have more reading time, look at index topic #3 in my signature index below.
Thank You Grover, very, very much for the link and the effort. I have glanced through the pdf and seen that there is much to be learned from it.
Good Job.
Tom