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Complete Backup to SATA Drive

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Hi,

I've made an Acronis full system backup to a SATA HD. If my present hard drive ever crashes, and I replace it with the new SATA HD, will the computer automatically boot up using the image disk exactly as it did with the old HD before the crash? In other words, will the new HD be immediately recognized without my having to do anything else?

Elliott

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No, you will have to boot from the bootable cd and restore the image to the new replacement HDD.

The image is a compressed version of the sectors that are actually used on the partition which you backed up. It is not something that is recognized by anything other than Acronis until you restore it onto the partition from which it was originally created. After restoration it should be identical to the partition state at the time you did the original backup.

Elliot,

Did you make an image or a clone?

If you made an image then as Dev-anon and Doug Walby say, you've just got an image of your system - a little like sticking your drive contents inside a zip folder. If you've made a clone though, so long as it is inserted into the same computer with exactly the same hardware as when it was made, then it will indeed boot straight off the drive.