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Problem with clone/backup/restore of laptop drive to new larger drive

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I have been trying for a few days now to clone or backup/restore the 500gig seagate momentus XT drive in my lenovo X61 thinkpad to a new WD 750gig drive (new drive is the advance format type)

OS is Win7 ultimate 32bit

I have the ability to have the drive in the laptop and in a drive bay or in a usb enclosure

I have tried clones / backup-restores from within Win7 and from bootable acronis CD -- using Acronis Home 2010 - 7154

I have bought 2011 - but it is so buggy - I went back to 2010 several months ago

The drives are seen in the bios if in either internal to the laptop or drive bay. the 750gig is seen and can be partitioned and formatted as data drive and seems to work

The actual process of cloning or backup/restore seems to work and complete in acronis. I have tried this with as is, proportional, or manual partition sizing

I can boot the new 750gig WD scorpio black without program, but in all cases the new drive and OS has internal issues like

windows update is not working - says service not running need to reboot

getting into windows live mail fails with error about corrupt calendar data

etc.

so something is clearly not working correctly in the OS registry, software on the new drive..

anyone have suggestions on how I can get a working migration of my existing 500gig drive to the new 750gig drive in my laptop

thanks
steve

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it would be helpful if you posted a picture of your Windows Computer disk Managemewnt so we could see the arrangement of your partitions.

Users of the ThinkPAD have reported their best success by
1. Remove the old disk and insert the new disk as its replacement
2. Old disk can be elsewhere--in bay or external enclosure
3. Boot from the TI Rescue CD and Perform the clone or the partitions restore
4. When complete, shutdown and disconnect the old drives
5. First boot following procedure should be with only the new drive attached.

If performing a restore, on the screen where the target disk is selected, also select the "Recover disk signature".

Click on my signature index below and look at items 3-BB and 3-CC. This will provide an overview but may not exactly match the steps you need as I do not know how your partitions are arranged.

You should be able to accomplish your procedure using either the clone or the partition restore. If you chose the disk restore method, all partitions would be expanded including the non-lettered partitions--which is usually not recommended. If you clone, I would use the manual method plus the move//manual option (as per my guides) so you can control the partition sizes.

If you clone, be aware of the risk factor.
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/17852#comment-53851

Assuming your current disk has its starting sectors aligned, this alignment should carry into your replacement procedure.

partition arrangement is

win 7 reserve - about 14gig
OS - win7 - about 144 gig
DATA - about 306 gig

end goal is to only have the new larger space in the data partition and leave the other the same

I have not tried the specific scenario you describe, but will today
I did all previous tries with TIH2010 - I'm currently making a full disk (all partitions) backup of the 500gig properly working internal disk using a TIH2011 boot cd -- I have one done with TIH2010

These full beasts are about 200 gig TIBs

once I have this I will try your your scenario of having he new drive internal on the clone or backup restore..

the strangeness is that all seems to work, but I do not have a stable system done to the wierd program errors described..

As you look at the Computer Disk Mangement display,
which partition is listed as ACTIVE?
Which partitions has drive letters
Was the partition sequence you listed taken from the Disk Management Picture--not the text display.

If the partition sequence you listed was from the actual disk management picture, then
If you chose the Clone "as is" option, it would reproduce the new disk with same dimensions as the old disk with unallcated space at the end. Then, you could use the Win7 Disk Management and expand the data partition into full size.

When you boot into the TI Rescue CD, you can use the Add disk option to delete the existing partitions from the 750 so your restore or clone would be to unallocated space.

thanks,
I read your guides.
I get the advice and clearly understand the partition order / size thing -- This is my third time placing a larger internal drive in the laptop -- went from 160 to 320 to 500 and I have made 2 500 gig clones to have backups with no issues -- all updates done with acronis

this is first advanced format drive -

I can clearly see partitions and their orderfirst partition has no drive letter, second is C drive, third is D drive -- they have clear names and easily to see
The 750gig clones / backup-restores look proper in the partition views and they boot without problem -- it is internal to windows 7 that I see odd problem -- many thing seem to work fine, but other are hosed like windows live stuff (mail), windows update is non functioning etc.

This is my first drive with OS partition that is an advanced format drive and that maybe an issue -- the WD align utility used under windows 7 says the drive is aligned properly -- the older drive is not list as not supported for the alignment issues as it is not advance format drive or SSD

anyway - thank for the hints -- will try them when current image backup finishes

steve

You did not indicate which partitioon was marked as Active??

An example of manual cloning.
Manual clone with move method to be manual.

Partition 1:
Note the proportioned size by TI is larger than desired so editing will begin with this partition 1. The goal will be to resize the partition to its original size (14GB) and any excess unallocated space placed at the endo of the partitions to make available for other partitions. Thus any excess will be placed in the “free space after” windows.

The “free space before” should be 1mb to provide a starting sector of 2048. The free space put there by the program may be satisfactory or you may have to put the space there yourself.

Confirm the correct selection of partition “type” as confirmed by the Windows Disk Management view and confirm the proper partition is marked as “Active”.

Partition 2 :
Note the proportioned size by TI is larger than desired so this partition must be edited to reduce the partition size back to its original size (144GB). The goal will be to resize the partition to its original size and any excess unallocated space placed on the end to make available for other partitions. You should be able to grab the middle of the partition with the mouse pointer and drag it to the left so there is no “free space before”. Any unallocated space will be placed in the “free space after” window.

Confirm the correct selection of partition “type” as confirmed by the Windows Disk Management view.

Partition 3 (Data):
Use the mouse pointer and grab the midddle of partition and pull it to the left so there is “0" free space before. Use the mouse pointer and grab hold of the right margin of the partition and extend the right margin so it the 306gb partition consumes all the unallocated space.

Free space before=0
Free spade after=0

After bootup, if the first partition (14gb) was assigned a drive letter, use Windows disk management and remove the drive letter. The active partition should be the same as orignal disk management picture.

Note that my guides illustrated how to check the starting sector both before and after the resizing.

ok,

will look at the actual screen when backup finish, but if memory serves I think the ACTIVE one is the 1st partition tition with the win 7 OS system reserve on it. the 2nd partition with lable OS and is the C drive is the one with boot on it..
I think this is as your are saying and matches the original disk, but will double check

thanks

Here's an update to this set of issues..
I tried all combinations and suggestions to clone/(backup/restore) the 500gig laptop drive and it's 3 partitions to the new 750gig drive.

Nothing worked... The process seem to finish and the new drive is bootable, but had numerous issues in running stability as described

so I give up on that and since I have a fully working 500gig drive that was updated from XP to vista and then to Windows 7 and cloned from 160 to 320 to 500 gig drives -- I will used that as base while I do a rebuild of Windows 7 from scratch on the laptop lenovo X61 tablet on the 750 gig drive

I'm maybe 50 precent into this rebuild -- installed Win 7 32 bit ultimate and well into installing all the software and data file from scratch. working now on getting itunes going and getting the files and library transferred -- app by app and data by data..

So far this rebuild is working well on the 750 gig drive - no issues yet - 3 partitions - slowing reinstalling apps and getting data in place.

it may be a blessing to just do this as it has been 4 years since the base purchase of the laptop with windows XP without a baseline rebuild (only updates).

thanks
steve

Thanks for the update Steve. You probably chose the wisest course of action.

yep

getting some stuff installed and updated each day and I'm making interim images with TIH 2010..

I have another of the 750gig drives and will try a recovery from the last image at one point to see if I can properly have a backup recovery plan for the new drive and will also try a recovery to smaller 500gi drive when I get to full rebuild and it my main use of the laptop as my new production HD.

again rebuild and reload going well -- images are made and validated on a network share