Cloning to a larger hard drive
I have a 120GB SATA SSD hard drive that I run (dualboot) Win/Linux.
I have not had any problem cloning this system to an identical hard drive using Acronis Bootable Media. This is how I keep a backup always ready to pop in.
Now, the 120GB is almost used up so I just got a pair of 200GB SSD drives.
Can I use Acronis Clone (Bootable Media) to do this upgrade even though the disk sizes are different? My idea is to enlarge the partition of the "cramped" OS once this is done.
Do I need to do some prep work first?
Thanks for anyone's help.
Paul


- Log in to post comments

Thanks for your Speedy reply!
Yes, doing a full backup first is a great insurance policy and thanks for reminding me of that.
The 120GB disk has 2 60GB partitions. The first, and bootable one is Win10, the second is Linux and that's the one I need to enlarge. How do you think Acronis will handle the resizing, not "knowing" that I want the 2nd half enlarged and not necessarily the first, and bootable one?
In creating a dualboot disk you have to put on Windows first. That's the reason I have them in this order.
- Log in to post comments

Paul, sorry I forgot to reply about the Linux partition.
Typically, in my own experience, Acronis tends to use sector-by-sector when dealing with Linux (ext?) partitions so you would probably end up with your new disk looking the same as the original because of this, but this would then leave you with the extra 80GB (approx) as free / unallocated space on the new drive, which you could then use a tool such as gparted to allocate to your Linux partition.
The alternative method would be to use Backup and Restore here instead of using cloning. This would allow you to Restore only the Windows partitions initially, then if needed extend the Windows partition further to grab some of the additional space. I would use a partition manager tool such as Acronis Disk Director (if you have it) or else Easeus Partition Manager or AOEMEI etc - there are a number of good free PM's available.
You could then Restore your Linux partitions and then use the same PM tool to increase your main OS partition (depending on whether you have all your data in this, or your user partitions otherwise) before creating or restoring your Swap partition to the remaining space.
- Log in to post comments

If you are reading this Steve S. - since you responded to my post and sound like you have a pretty good handle on this software let me ask you this:
Can I use ATI or the clone software and transfer just the Linux partition to another Hard Drive and also make that OS bootable? This would solve my problem entirely.
- Log in to post comments

Paul, yes, you should be able to restore your Linux partition(s) to another drive and make that OS bootable but you will need to use a tool such as EasyBCD to update the Windows Boot Manager to point to the new drive where Linux is living.
- Log in to post comments

Steve Smith wrote:Paul, yes, you should be able to restore your Linux partition(s) to another drive and make that OS bootable but you will need to use a tool such as EasyBCD to update the Windows Boot Manager to point to the new drive where Linux is living.
Thanks again Steve,
Since I already have the larger drives on the way I think I will stick to my original plan now that you say it is possible. I do need to dualboot into Windows on a rare occasion and not having to swap out hard drives is much better for me.
- Log in to post comments

Paul, you always have the option of using Grub2 as your default bootloader instead of using the Windows one if your main OS is Linux rather than Windows.
- Log in to post comments

I Acronis True Image installed on Windows 10 and I can not clone the system disk to a new disk SSD !
Thank you very much
- Log in to post comments

Favia, welcome to these user forums.
We will need more information from you to understand how to help you.
Please see KB document: 56634: Acronis True Image: Cloning Disks which has a lot of information including a video showing how to do this.
See also KB document: 1540: Difference between Backup and Disk Clone - you can use Backup & Restore instead of using cloning. It is strongly recommended to make a backup of your current disk drive BEFORE attempting to clone it.
Please use webpage: Check if your PC uses UEFI or BIOS to determine how your current Windows 10 OS boots, i.e. does it boot using UEFI or BIOS - this is important as you should always boot the Acronis Rescue Media (needed for either cloning or backup / restore) in the same way as Windows boots.
- Log in to post comments

Well my larger SSD hard drive arrived. I tried cloning but I get a boot failure msg. Next I did a backup/restore onto the larger drive. This worked, and as Steve said I had the original partitions at the start of the drive with the Windows one on the "left" (using GParted), followed by my Linux partition and then a hefty unallocated space following that. It looked like now all I had to do was increase the Linux partition which I did using GParted. Problem was when I tried to boot up... no dice - boot failure again. Now I don't know what to do. Steve mentioned using Grub2 so I will investigate that. Maybe he'll give me some help? Hint - Hint!!!
- Log in to post comments

Paul, take a look at https://sourceforge.net/projects/supergrub2/ which should offer you an immediate way out of the current boot failure situation hopefully. This will link to http://www.supergrubdisk.org/super-grub2-disk/ with more detailed information and a video tour.
See the Grub2/Installing wiki at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/Installing for more information about how to install Grub2 and in particular, the second section for "Reinstalling GRUB 2" that you can scroll down to and which has details of how to use a Live CD for your installed Linux distribution to repair / install Grub2.
- Log in to post comments

Thanks Steve!
Just made a bootable USB using the .iso from your link. I will run this and see if I can repair the hard drive.
I will post the results.
Paul
[Added later] Interesting! Using the bootable USB I viewed the hard drive contents with and without the expanded Linux partition and there is no visible difference. I Was able to manually boot though so it looks like a repair to the MBR is needed and I don't know how to do that. I will have to get moving in that direction - first stop will be using the link you gave me.
- Log in to post comments