Recover to a different computer

Hello Douglas, If you only intend to restore data files such as documents, photos etc, then the answer is definitely yes, you can install Acronis and do this.

Now for some extra statements about doing this.

If you only have a single PC license to your Acronis software then you will get a warning about too many activations when you install it on your new computer and will be offered several choices for how to resolve this.  One of those choices will allow you to transfer your license from your old computer to the new one.

If you want to transfer more than just data files (documents etc) to your new computer, then that is a whole different story - Acronis True Image cannot be used to transfer programs or applications between computers, and it is not recommended to move your old version of Windows to your new computer unless both are running the same version of Windows, i.e. Windows 10 - this is primarily because of how Windows is licensed to specific computer hardware unless you have a full retail boxed version of Windows.  Even so, moving Windows to new hardware poses additional issues with regard to needing additional hardware device drives for all the new components present in the new system that were unknown to the old system - this in turn requires the use of Acronis Universal Restore to prepare the moved copy of Windows to work on the new hardware.

Sorry if that is more information than you were looking for, but better to be comprehensive that not.

That's very helpful. No I realised I could not transfer software. I was thinking of taking the cowards way out and simply buying a new Acronis 2016. I don't have adisc for Acronis 2015 so I am not sure how I would install it on the new computer any way.

Douglas, you don't need the disk for ATIH 2015 to reinstall provided you know your Acronis Account credentials, i.e. your registered email address and password - you can download the installer for the latest version of your registered product from the Acronis Account web pages, plus other utilities like bootable rescue media etc.

OK thanks. I can probably dig up that info. But if I transfer the licence to my new computer I will be stuck if i find I then want to go back and backup somthing else from the old computer, although if it is no too much I suppose I could just use copy and paste.

Dougas, you always have the option to create the bootable Acronis Rescue Media and use that to create further backups on the old computer once you have moved the software license to the new one.

Alternatively, depending on how brave you feel with opening the old computer case, you could always remove the hard drive from the old computer and connect it to your new one using either a USB caddy or internally on a spare cable if there is one.

The third choice is to simply mount a backup image of the old computer hard drive (on your external drive) using ATIH 2015 on your new computer, then browse the contents in Windows Explorer to find and copy any additional files that you want from within the image structure.

Thanks Steve. That all sounds good fun. I'll wait until I get the new pc and see how I get on. It will , of course, have a different operating system which will doubtless provide new challenges.

I have Acronis True Image 2015 for PC Upgrade (English) 1 license(s) on my HP Pavilion HPE (circa 2012). It has OS Windows 10.  Unfotunatly the mother board died last week. Though for some reason the week before I had an inclination to clone the HP HD to and external HD. 

All that said, I decided to buy a newer tower, a Dell XPS with OS Windows 10.

Now for the hard part...

Is it possible to hook up my external drive and clone the HP to the Dell? I believe the HP and Dell may have OS issues even if they're both the same Windows 10.

The thought has crossed my mind to salvage the HP HD and install it as a second HD. That way I could open that HD when I needed to use the software on it.

Your assistance/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Lou

Louis - technically it is possbile, but I would not recommend it.  

1) OEM licenses may not transfer from system to system.  Good news is both systems have Win 10 and Windows 10 license is hardware based, so in your case that would work since it's laready has a registrered version of Win 10 on the new hardware.  

2) Was your old system OS installed as Legacy/MBR or UEFI/GPT?  Most new systems will have UEFI/GPT installation as that is the more modern version and GPT gives you better partition support and bootability of disks greater than 2TB.  That said, if  the old one was Legacy, the new system may have an option for legacy/CSM/MBR mode, you could enable it, but you'd be going backwards with technology.

3) A clone will not actually work in this case.  You would need to take a full disk image of the original OS drive, then restore that image to the new system image (please don't do that until you've imaged your new machine first though - just in case).  Or, use a different drive for this task.  After restoring the image, you'll need to then run Universal Restore on the system to genarlize the drivers so your system doesn't BSOD on boot for choking on an unsupported driver.

4) You may also need to check the SATA mode in the bios.  If the old system was installed in SATA - RAID, the new system should be set the same.  Most likely, it will be AHCI to start with.  Whatever the setting is on the old system, that's how it should be set on the new one.  Windows 10 is actually pretty good with this one though - Windows 8.1 and earlier, not so much, but there is a Microsoft tool that allows you to change it if need be.  

All in all, it is possible, but it's certainly not the cleanest result so you may get a working OS with all settings, apps and data, but the OS may have issues with the systems are too different.  That said, working in IT, I do this all the time, but primarily workign with all new systems.  We have a single base image that we deploy to numerouls types of new hardware and UR restore then allows them to boot and work just fine.  However, in our environment, they all have the same SATA mode, alwasy use GPT/UEFI installs, etc.  

Louis - just reread your post.  Backup your "cloned" drive - just in case.  The pop it in the new one and run UR and it should boot, assuming the OS install method is supported on the new system and the SATA mode in the bios is the same.  Please take a backup of your drive though, before you do this.  As you have a clone and the original drive from the old system, technically I guess you already have 2 copies though, but better to be safe than sorry.

So I have read that you can move large data files from one computer to a new computer with True Image 217 but how?  I cannot use exploer due to the large size.  I have tried to find this answer and am not seeing it.  Maybe it is the wording.  By the way, Acronis is not nice making one pay for support, that is something that they did not disclose when purchasing, just sayin.  Thanks for the help, I have been trying to figure this one out for days, that is one of the reasons I purchased it!!

Susan, welcome to these user forums.

If you have Acronis True Image 2017, then I would request that you open a New Topic for your question in the Acronis True Image 2017 Forum where this is more appropriate than picking this particular topic in the 2016 forum which relates to a very different question.  We will be more than happy to try to answer your question for you but will need more information from you, i.e. what version(s) of Windows, what type of large data files, what size(s) of files etc.