Skip to main content

Backing Up and Restoring Question

Thread needs solution

I have a PC that I built myself and my main drive is a SSD drive, maybe 240Gig.

I purchased another SSD drive but bigger in size. It is a 960GIG.

I have backed up my C: drive to another drive on the my PC. I have also cloned the C: drive to an external HD.

So, here is what steps I am going to do to make the switch.

1. Shut down the computer and remove the C: SSD drive

2. Install the larger SSD where the other one was.

3. Boot from my rescue DVD I made.

4. Install the clone onto the new bigger SSD. Altho I am not quite sure what people here are saying about both drive being the same in order to restore the clone to the new drive.

5, Restart with the new SSD and hope the computer gods have seen fit to bless me with a carbon copy of my old drive with all the programs and files put back where they were.

Does that seem like a good solid plan? If not, why not?

0 Users found this helpful

Rich, your plan looks good with just a couple of clarifications needed.

First, see KB document: 56634: Acronis True Image 2016: Cloning Disks - this will set out all the key important points about cloning plus has a video tutorial of the process.

Next, see webpage: Check if your PC uses UEFI or BIOS - this is important for your step 3 when you boot from your rescue DVD - this should follow the same boot mode as used by your Windows OS.

Third, as you are cloning to a larger SSD, you have a choice of letting ATIH automatically resize your partitions to fit the new drive or to clone 'as is' - the choice is yours, but if you clone as is, then you will have a lot of unallocated space on the new drive to be allocated later.

Last, at your step 5.  Please ensure that you do NOT try to restart with both SSD's installed in the system.  I am assuming here that in your step 4. that you will be connecting your original SSD to the computer as the source drive for the clone, pointing this at the installed bigger SSD as target.  This is important as both drives will now have the same unique disk signature and booting with both connected will confuse Windows!

Rich,

In Acronis parlance, a clone is a single operation, as Steve describes.

A "disk and partition backup" however is different. It creates first an archive TIB file that contains an image of all the information on the disk. You then restore this image on the new disk.

So if by "cloning" you mean "imaging", and "installing the clone" you mean "restoring the image", then yes, you procedure is right. Just make sure you actually take the imaged disk out of the computer, put the new disk on the same connector.

Make sure your rescue media is booting on the same BIOS setting as your original system disk. BIOS if you were on a legacy BIOS/MBR set up, UEFI if you were on a UEFI/GPT set up.

Never boot the computer with bot the original and the restored/cloned disk at the same time in the computer. After the computer has booted OK on the restored/cloned disk, you can reconnect the older disk to the system and do whaterver you want with it.