Newbie: Performing cloning procedure for laptop hard disk
Hi,
As a newbie, I want confirmation that I have understood the procedures necessary to clone my laptop hard drive to a newer bigger laptop hard drive that I am upgrading. This is the first time I have used my Acronis True Image 2015 software for cloning to a new upgraded hard drive. I have created system images before but never cloning.
From what I understand I need to put the new hard drive in the laptop first and then connect the old laptop via USB, otherwise I will not be able to boot from the new cloned disk. That seems unfortunate, as I thought it was possible to clone to a new hard disk connected via USB and then swap the drives; however, it says that the target hard disk if connected this way via USB in a bay, it will become unbootable after cloning. As a newbie an explanation would be handy as to why.
Then the cloning should be done from Acronis Bootable media, which I created on both a DVD and a USB flash drive. Having put the new hard drive into my laptop and the old one connected via USB, I'm assuming that I then turn on the laptop and boot with the Acronis Bootable media using either the DVD/Flash, but the instructions state to run Acronis True Image which I assume is from the bootable media.
Then comes the next part. I am cloning from a 1tb to a new upgraded 2tb hard drive. So do I only need to select the Automatic mode to have my old disk's partitions automatically and proportionally resized to fit the new disk. I assume therefore this option means it won't leave empty unformatted hard disk space, and the 400gb will be cloned onto the new disk leaving newly formatted empty space of 1.6tb.
Then i select the old hard disk connected via USB as the source disk, and the new hard disk installed in the laptop as the destination disk.
However the next step I am slightly confused about. I am asked to click OK to allow the product to erase all data from the destination disk (which is said is required to do the cloning). However, does that mean the old hard disk is actually erased? What if the new hard disk fails to clone properly or doesn't boot or whatever the case may be, what then? Or am I given the option to redo the cloning process BEFORE the ol d hard disk is erased?
I would appreciate feedback and clarification on my query before I proceed with upgrading to my new hard drive. Also any other steps that I should take would also be appreciated if applicable.
Thank you.
Steve, thank you for your reply which was much appreciated. I had already made a system image backup to an external back-up already today.
How, before I clone, do I find out the logical sector size of my new seagate 2 tb Sata iii hard drive? My current 1tb Western digital one is 512 bytes per sector. I was already assuming the new 2tb one would be the same, otherwise I would not then be able to clone to the new HD and it will have been a waste of money buying it? I surely hope not?
Thoughts?
Marcus, with your new 2TB drive connected, do the following:
- Run msinfo32 in command line that should popup a GUI window called "System Information"
- In the left pane select "System Summary->Components->Storage->Disks". This should load info of all drives in the right pane
- Find your desired drive and check the value for "Bytes/Sector". it should say "Bytes/Sector 4096 or 512"
If your drives are of different sector sizes, then you can do a Backup of the source drive and Restore this to the target drive and the process will take care of the sector size for you.
Thank you for your reply Steve. I didn't know you could run msinfo32 in a command line from the Acronis bootable media (sorry if I'm misunderstanding here)
I just realised that hard drives have physical and logical sectors, and that some are 512/512 or 512/4096, so I assume the important one which msinfo.32 shows is the logical one. Also, do I need to concern myself with setting the order of booting, or should booting automatically default to the Acronis bootable media if the boot is uefi?
The above was for my older backup laptop, an HP Pavillion. However, I also plan to do my new Acer Aspire V3-772g laptop; I opened this one up today to have a look inside to confirm that it already has a second drive bay since it is a 17.3" laptop.
Therefore, with that in mind, can cloning be carried out differently in this case; i.e. swapping the old drive, the source drive, into the secondary bay, and placing the newer bigger drive into the vacated primary space, as the destination drive and cloning then carried out booting up from the Acronis bootable media?
Much appreciate your feedback
Marcus, the msinfo32 would need to be run from within Windows - the standard Linux based rescue media wouldn't recognise the program and it is unlikely that even the Windows PE rescue media would run it without needing additional resources.
msinfo32 just shows the value as Bytes/sector without worrying about physical and logical sectors - see screen shot below.
For your new Acer laptop with the second drive bay, yes you can use these without needing to use a USB connection - the principle is the same - put the new drive in place of the current boot drive, move the current drive to the second drive slot or connect externally.
Steve,
Thank you again for your reply. Understood on the swapping of drives for each bay for my newer laptop. A further question; how do I run the msinfo32 from within windows while the new drive is in the primary bay, since that is the one that would be booted up and would not yet have windows on it? This is why I was confused.
Marcus, sorry - I have been assuming that you are doing these checks on your existing system before you start replacing drives, i.e. just connecting the new 2TB drive externally via USB and check the sector size while running Windows on the current 1TB drive.
Sorry, that was partly my fault lol. Should have made that clear which one as well. Thanks for the advice Steve.