possible to alter clone disk volume to allow booting with both clone and new HD?
I clone my PC windows disk regularly, using an older version of Acronis (2009 I think). I do this on all my desktop machines, one being Win-7, one being 10, one being an older XP. Aside from regular backups, there is nothing quite as reliable as a clone to ensure you really can go back to a working state, in the event of corruption, infection, or failure. I also do this whenever its time to migrate to a larger main drive. But after a clone, you MUST either disable one of the drives (clone or main) in the BIOS or physically disconnect it. The reason, apparently, is because the two drives are now so identical (down to the volume info I think) that the OS will not operate properly with both connected. I've tried it... its NOT pretty. But it would be nice to be able to keep the clone drive enabled, at least as an option when I boot, so it just comes up as a "drive D", without a conflict. Is there some kind of program I could run on one of the drives after cloning, to make it look different to the OS so that there would not be a conflict? The program would probably have to be placed on a bootable CD, but I can deal with that. I just need a better understanding of what volume (or other) info on the clone needs to be changed, without ruining its ability to be used as a bootable clone.
In reply to Randy, welcome to these User… by truwrikodrorow…
thanks @ Steve Smith ! It is interesting that these articles mostly say that the disc collision is more of a problem on newer (Vista and on) systems, but that XP and older simply fix the collision when the duplicate ID is detected. I've absolutely NOT found that to be the case, as its only recently I've set up any machines with a newer OS than XP (long list of reasons), and have always found that under XP pro (SR3), attempting to boot from a newly cloned (Acronis clone) drive WITH the original drive still connected (say to a higher SATA port), immediately causes some scary problems, and I could very quickly could tell disk writes were almost randomly going to the wrong drive.
There doesn't seem to be a single "fix" in those linked articles that will ensure a disk with an altered MBR ID will remain bootable, and though it seems "possible" to accomplish this by subsequently "repairing" the disk or altering some of the OS boot data (I suppose stored in the registry), it all begs the question whether a newer version of Acronis might simply deal with this problem, allowing the user to choose whether to let the program alter the clone so that it both remains bootable WHILE becoming unique. My version is very old (2009), but if a newer version actually addresses the issue, that would definitely inspire me to upgrade! Do you know if the newer versions handle this as I'm suggesting?
Randy, I am not aware of any changes to cloning with the later / latest versions of ATI. A clone is exactly that, an identical copy of the source drive on the target drive, including right down to the unique disk signature being cloned / duplicated.
I have seen forum posts from users who have been able to get two such drives to work in their computers where they have changed the BIOS / UEFI settings to alternate between the different drives.
I believe that to get this working you would need to first boot each drive separately, one at a time, then try introducing the second drive, perhaps try connecting it via USB initially to see if Windows then complains about any signature clashes?
If you can get the 2 drives to co-exist together, then you could use utility programs such as EasyBCD along with iReboot to control booting from each on demand.
Hey @ Steve Smith , you're right... I just check with Acronis, and they haven't added a fix for this problem in their 2018 version.
Well its not that big a deal to remove or disable one or the other clone in the BIOS, or even remove one physically. In fact I finally bought a removable SATA "bay" so I could easily remove a backup clone completely right after making one. Once in a while though, it becomes necessary to be able to boot both your last clone, and still have your "current drive" available to bring the clone up to date. That's where a true fix would be more useful.
Typically the need arises when something, usually some piece of new software has unexpected results that are so hard to deal with, that the easiest thing to do is simply go back to a you're last genuine clone, and bring it up to date. It happened recently with a new version of Malware Bytes, which I've come to trust so much, that I didn't bother to follow my personal rule: "CLONE BEFORE UPGRADING"! Well that was a mistake. the new MalwareBytes totally blocked the Chrome browser from working, prevented any of my shortcut FTP windows from connecting, and several other problems I really didn't want to waste days on. Especially when I saw similar complains on that MB version going back a couple of months, with no resolution or response from the company!
Well I just opted to go back to my last clone, but sadly I've been busy and haven't cloned in 3 months! During that time 100 things changed, some major! Of course most of it just involved reinstalling things and copying over data. But surely you can see where bringing a 3 month old clone up to date would be MUCH easier if you could boot off the clone (moved, say to SATA 0) while keeping current (and now corrupt) drive on SATA 1, so it is seen as drive D, and there for easy reference. Its amazing how much "stuff" you miss or forget you changed over a month! I'll typically have to manually copy my latest Mozilla info directories for both email and web browsing, re-install a few updates or other changes I've made, copy over newer music files, business documents, calendars, all sorts of things! Its sad, but the easiest way I've found so far is to connect a third "mostly empty drive", boot off the drive that's more up to date and copy the whole "documents and settings" tree, then boot from the clone I want to go back to along with the extra "data" drive, and start rebuilding from there. Thats a considerable waste of time.
Well anyway, this doesn't happen often. But every couple of years I get "bitten" and need to go back to my last clone, and bring it up to date. Thats when I put on a fresh search for a one click solution to this ancient problem, and am always surprised no such "quick fix" exists yet.
Randy, I understand your rationale for wanting to use cloning in this way and that you have proven this as a recovery method for yourself.
Personally, I very rarely use cloning at all except in very rare circumstances. My preference is to have ATI installed and to use the ability to schedule automatic backups and then to be able to recover to any specific point in time (based on my backup version images).
Unfortunately, there are too many users who come to these forums who suffer serious data loss from having embarked on using cloning with no real understanding of some of the issues that can arise, especially when using OEM software that is bundled with new drives!
See topic: [IMPORTANT] CLONING - How NOT to do this that was written in response to the above...
One good point about ATI 2018 is that it now allows for doing live cloning from within Windows without the need to reboot by using the Microsoft VSS snapshot method, but this does require that the target drive does not contain a copy of the Windows OS, else it still wants to reboot to do the clone.
@ Steve Smith I used to use "Ghost" to do my cloning, that is until they changed their method so that the end result wasn't a pure clone anymore. I'm happy with the way Acronis works.
Of course I do regular data backups too, and truly it is only once in a blue moon I ever have to resort to a clone. BUT when its needed, I sure am glad I have them!
There there other reasons for a clone. It makes it really convenient when you want to try another machine. I happen to be lucky enough to have unlimited licence installation disks for most Windows OSs, due to my work. This means if I'm experimenting with some new PC (never really "new", just a good buy I find at a flea market or e-bay usually :-) ) that I think might be better than what I'm using, I can drop in a clone, let windows complain about the "significantly different hardware" issue, repair it with my service disk, and of course install proper drivers for whatever hardware it has. Then I can quickly see if it is indeed a better machine or a lemon! If it is a better machine, I can go move my key hardware over, and the clone disk is already full of all the drivers needed to recognize my peripherals, immediately load their drivers, and probably even recall all my preferences and associations.
Then there' another disaster related reason. Call me paranoid, but I keep some clones under lock and key in hidden places like fire proof safes and such. You have to understand that I rarely delete anything, and this has been going on a LONG LONG time. Hell, I even have ATARI emulators from back when I first migrated to the PC/Windows world. I have a lot of history. And why not? Drives keep getting bigger, so its not like you ned to purge to make room. I just saw Seagate Baracuda 7200 rpm high speed 1Tbyte drives for less that $50, shipping included, on Amazon. So If my "time capsule" machine is stolen, burns in a fire, or for whatever reason is suddenly rendered useless, not only to I have a backup, but a fighting chance at complete "resurrection", once my "saved" clone is "born again" into a new machine. All that probably sounds religious, but when it comes to a PC, its not a matter of "believing" its a matter of being physically prepared. :-)
Randy, understand and agree with your reasons for both backups and clones. There is no such thing as having too many such things, paranoid or not, as data is too easily lost without such precautions!