Creating a System Disk Copy on Another disk
This question is going to sound pretty simple minded to other users but I just installed the program an hour ago. In reading I'm confused about whether you need to do something like a new-disk scan if the disk you're creating is intended to run on the same machine as the original disk.
Said another way I'm making a copy of my Win8.1 system disk (C:) on another disk. So, when done, I should have two identical bootable disks. I read something about the need in to run a utility that looked at a copy disk that's to go in a different machine. That's not the case here.
Do I need to do anything special or just restore to the second disk.
Thanks for your reply.
Until you began talking about new hardware we were on the same page. There's no new hardware involved. The drive I intend to restore to is one I've used in this system for several years. Actually this is a test to be sure backup and restore actually work. I've had two out of two failures with restoring clone files at the most chritical times. So, I'm switching to Acronis.
Sounds like it will be pretty easy then. Take full disk backup of original, save image to safe location like an external drive, restore image to new drive. Then swap drives out (leaving only the new one connected exactly where the origina was and not having the other plugged in during boot) and verify it boots.
There is a clone option in Acronis as well. Honestly, I don't use it much as I prefer the backup and restore method since it's practically full proof and has the added benefit of giving you a backup in the process... which is your saving grace in the event something ever goes wrong (even if you plan to clone).
If you do decide to try the clone feature as well, still take a backup first - just in case. Then proceed with the clone. The recommended cloning method is to take the internal drive and put it in an external enclosure and put the new drive exactly where the original used to be. Clone from the external to the new drive and shutdown the system. BEFORE YOU BOOT the system, disconnect the external drive (with original disk)... you don't want to try booting with 2 drives that have the same hardware ID as that can confuse the bios and make changes to the bootloaders that will make both disks unbootable. ALSO, if you do clone, please don't start the process in Windows as it will modify the bootloader on the OS as well... should something go wrong and Acronis can't boot, then it may not reverse those changes and also leave your system unbootable. By using the offline recovery media to start cloning, you avoid this type of issue which is not worth the risk when it's just as easy to boot from the offline reocvery media and completely avoid this potential risk.
I have to confess I didn't follow all that. I made the backu pcopy in Windows using the default screens in Acronis.
But now I have the issue I was trying to avoid. I made the backup, then changed drives around and was going to restore when at the last minute I got the screen shown below. Why won't the exact copy boot? If it won't, what's the good of this system?
JIm, make sure both disks are formatted the same first. If the original is MBR and the new one is GPT, this is probably the reason (or vice-versa). You want both disks to be formatted the same way. If they are, and you are restoring the full backup to a different drive than the original, let it do its thing and see how it behaves when it's all done. You're not at risk as long as you you've pulled the original "working" drive and have it out of the system when restoring (to make sure you don't restore to it on accident if there is a problem. Worse case, the system doesn't boot with the new drive and you shutdown, pop in the original drive and it's like nothing happened and then we troubleshoot some more. I suspect you'll be just fine though, but let's find out (with the original drive removed ).
:)
It continues to amaze me how anybody but ultimate geeks can manage their computers. I've been building and using desktop computers since 1981. I've probably assembled 15 computers. I've written software that sold over much of the world. I thought I understood disks and partitioning. But, I've never heard of GPT and thought MBR stood for a location on a disk where the Master Boot Record resided. And that this MBR was a piece of code containing the structure of the information on the disk and other stuff needed when the CMOS hands off to Windows. I also believed that when one of these programs created an image it was an entire image of the drive, not something shaped to fit into some structure. So, if the disk is formatted in the form of a ostrich it would put back the image of an ostrich wherever and whenever it's asked to restore. As a minimum, a program that purports to allow ordinary people to backup and restore should mention if some disks are ostriches and other are penguin and never the twain shall meet.
Since I didn't know there were ostrich and penguin disk structures 'til just now, I don't know how to tell what my disks are, but the drive I'm experimenting with is several years old and my C: drive is reasonably new. So, chances are the old one is an ostrich and the new one a penguin. Given that, there's no way to test whether Acronis will restore my stuff or not. I've only had the need to recover my operating system twice since the registry entered my life and both times restore failed I went merrily along making regular backups week after week, month after month, year after year trusting they could be restored if ever needed just to find out at the critical moment the software didn't work. For twenty years my running joke about backup software has been, all backup software backs up 'cause you can see that but, restore is so rare it often and in my case never does.
Just as an aside I was using and entirely different program to back up my data files. When I tried to restore them for the first time it failed immediately and the vendor said they no longer support version X - 1. I should buy another copy of their stuff that didn't work and if it doesn't work then they'll discuss the problem with me so long as I discover it before they've gone to version X+1.
I'm sure it's obvious how frustrated I am over backup software.
Okay, I've determined the disk the image came from is GPT and the disk I'm trying to restore to is MBR. So, now I'm trying to convert the target disk to GPT. Every instruction I've found for doing this says:
"If the disk contains any partitions or volumes, right-click any volumes on the disk and then click Delete Partition or Delete Volume." [emphasis added]
If? I thought all disks (except maybe brand new completely blank disks which aren't MBR or GPT) have at least one partition. How else does one put data on it if there is no partition on the disk at all?
Assuming the MBR disk in all one large partition, it isn't clear how to delete this partition. Anybody know?
Stand by, I may have found how to delete the one partition.
Jim, for your post #4 and image attachment, see forum thread http://forum.acronis.com/forum/119666#comment-365312 for that same error message:
Warning! After operation completion, operating systems will not boot from the destination disk in BIOS.
This is caused by not booting in the correct mode from the Acronis Rescue Media.
As your source drive is formatted for GPT, then you should be able to boot from the Acronis Rescue Media in UEFI mode, then restore the backup of the GPT drive to your second drive and this should resolve the issue of GPT vs MBR.
Thanks for your reply. I haven't checked yet to see if my BIOS has the dual boot mode feature. But:
I changed the target drive from MBR to GPT then deleted the single partition and tried the restore again. It gave the same redbox Warning, but I decided it meant if the machine comes up in BIOS mode the disk will not boot. And, since it has been coming up in UEFI mode all along I assumed this would not be a problem. So I went ahead and it created a drive that boots and seems to work in almost all regards. So, it did the job without changing to a mode to boot in UEFI mode while restoring the image. I'm inclined to think if I had just proceeded the first time it would have done what I thought if should and change the MBR disk to GPT then restore the image. That is, I don't think it was necessary to change the drive to GPT before starting the recovery.
I'm more confident now that I will be able to restore a lost system drive.
Thanks to all who helped and forgive my rant but think about how arcane some of this is and Acronis is selling this program to novices.