Cloning - Tick to include or tick to exclude
Cloning a disk with two partitions. Only want the first one. Do I tick to include folders or tick to exclude.
Yes, this really should be obvious, and it really is not!
And in the manual it just says:
Exclude by files and folders - this tab allows you to select specific files and folders from the
folder tree.
But it does not say tick to include or exclude. And when I tick, I get counter intutive things listed on the right.
Fun Fact for those that find the cloning thread:
Recommendation to download and use the TrueImage2014.iso which when burned creates bootable media, I use Active@ISO for all boot media creation. It is freeware and reliable, works for USB Boots too. I have elected not to use bootable media as I have installed TrueImage2014 on AMD's RAM Disk utility. This is also freeware and allows you to create up to 4GB partition on system RAM (RAM 10X Faster that SDD) and will allow for the program to run on a drive other that volumes selected to clone.
Clone does not work on a HDD/SDD that has not been initialized. Been at it for hours before is noticed this. Apricorn is the only product I've used to clone but have not had luck with that product and Windows 8.
Testing in automatic mode now to determine if formatting the drive is optional. Data from 320Gb HDD --> 256 SDD. Excluding factory recovery partition as I have upgraded to Windows 8.1 Pro from Win8 OEM.
Green Bar used to hang quit a bit prior to drive initialization, program seems to run smoothly now. 5 Minutes in the green bar starts to hang and folder tree is not select-able. Folder tree did not present, recovery partitions are usually hidden. Clicked PROCEED anyway and the TrueImage clock is ticking...after 10 minutes the program does not advance (likely due to there being an absent folder tree in the right pane. This leads me to believe that I will not be able to exclude that partition. I will delete and absorb that 16Gb of space using the Windows Disk Management Utility after clone.
Clone Disk executed, asking to reboot so that it can have full access to system resources. Update will resume when disk clone is done and HDD removed before powering on. My chassis has hot swap bays, you my need to prepare for this while clone is taking place.
Update: Overall clone took about 30 minutes to move about 130GB of data and my rig booted right up.
Other thoughts: Originally purchased TrueImage2013 and qualified for FREE upgrade due to compatibility issues with Windows 8.1. This product outperformed Apricorn cloning software in time to perform.
System specs;
Asus P6T Mother board
Intel I7 920 @ 3.2 GHz (OC'd)
CoolerMaster V-10 Heatsink outfitted w/ Cougar 120mm Fans
12 GB Patriot Ultra low latency RAM @ 2000GHz (OC'd)
Muskin Cronos SDD
2 Visiontek R9 290X in Crossfire
Thermaltake Toughpower 1000w PSU
AeroCool Strike-X Open Air Chassis
The "clone" function found in the tools menu of TrueImage Home is at disk level. The clone is a copy process which make the target disik identical (close but not exact--technically) to the source. Whatever exists on the target disk is wiiped so the target disk assumes all the characteristics of the source. The exclusion of a partiton is not possible.
The alternate solution is to create a disk image backup and then restore the backup. Whether you can or should exclude a partiton will depend upon your situation as what you may want to exclude could be your hidden boot partition and your restore will fail to boot.
My signature 2A will help with the backups and my signature link 3 can hep with the restores. There is little difference between a new disk created via the clone process as compared to one created via the restore process and the restore method is much the safer method.
Hi Jeri. FYI Clone works fine on ssd not initialized.
Thanks GoverH but that does not answer the question.
Other thoughts continued: Now that I have a SSD for my primary drive and more than enough RAM, I've decided to move the page file off SSD to the RAM Disk. SSDs have a relatively short life span compared to HDD and this will ensure that I am not unnecessarily writing to the drive. For systems that have lots of RAM a page file may not be necessary but I didn't want to run into any difficulty as some programs rely on it. There are lots of thread out there to provide more information should you wish to try this. So far the system is stable and I've run all my software and benchmarks.
ATI uses the pagefile to create snapshots for imaging. Some users experience errors when pagefile is of insufficient size. If you encounter not enough memory or not enough storage space errors increase the size of your pagefile.
You are correct in your large enough RAM statement. In fact, so much so that this should indicate to you that the benefit of moving the pagefile off your SSD to another disk will reap you limited benefits when it comes to disk write count. You would reap greater benefit moving your temp file folders to another disk as writes to those locations are much more frequent and much smaller in size which doesn't help matters any.
As far as lifespan of SSD's, with modern SSD design lifespan is sufficient for these drives to outlive the rest of the hardware in a machine. The exception to this would be for situations where very high write usage takes place such as databases for example. For the consumer it is not an issue.
Thank you, but that is not the issue.
The problem was that the amount of data on the disk exceeded the size of the new drive.
Acronis offered to not clone some parts of the disk. Great.
What was not clear
and what my question addresses
is
do I tick the boxes to include parts of the disk, or to exclude parts of the disk.
I believe there is a terminology issue here. Cloning a disk using the clone function within ATI does not present the user with the option to include or exclude anything. Those options appear when performing a backup and/or recovery function. In recovery mode you would tick boxes to include items for the recovery task.
Thanks.
I am using Acronis True Image. which has a clone option. It is this I am referring to.
I was confused becase the default had nothig ticked. And when I started ticking things, the interface was very confusing.
I will assume that boxes are ticked to include.
Cheers
The check boxes are for file to exclude, if space on the destination drive are an issue than check folders of nonessential file may be the solution.
I cannot believe that this ambiguous UI still exists. It is also difficult to believe that Acronis must scan/process for every tick rather than allow us to check a few folders and then have the application scan.
I am still unsure as to whether the check mark is to inclose a folder in the close or to exclude a folder during the cloning process. Fortunately this has not become a critical issue yet.