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I have a laptop with a dying hard drive that I need to replace. I've tried to create a system image to an external HDD without any success. How will Acronis True Image help me? If I use it to create a system image, where does it go and how do I recover it once I install my new internal hard drive? I'm just not sure what to do at this point. I'm getting a little bit confused.

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MelT,

It would be helpful to know what went wrong with your attempt to make an image the first time around as this may or may not have some bearing on whether True Image can work on your current system.

Using True Image you would again image a complete disk to an external hard drive. If your current drive is severely unwell you might have to make a sector by sector image, which TI can do, but in this mode your external drive has to be at least as large as the disk you are imaging.

To recover the image you would need to boot from the Recovery CD which you would either make from within True Image once installed, or download the ISO version from your Acronis account and then burn that to a CD. From here you can recover your complete disk image.

How much used space is there on your current drive and how big is your external drive?

You can download the trial version which works for 15 days, some features such as cloning are disabled, but you would be able to make a disk image. There is a Recovery CD available for download with the trial, however it can only recover images, depending upon what your problem is with your current drive, you might need the full version of the recovery CD to make a complete image of your drive.

Colin,

My current internal HD is 1TB and the external HD is also 1 TB. The used space on my C drive is less than 65 GB. My OS is Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit).

So far my attempts to clone my system image to the external HD and backup my C drive to the D drive or create a backup online all using TI have failed. At this point I'm about ready to take a hammer to my laptop! lol

I guess my only option at this point is to just replace my internal HD and start over. Then again maybe all of this is over my head.

Btw, I have True Image 2013 and True Image Plus Pack. Should I have purchased Data Migration as well?

MeIT,

First, what failed, what actually happened?

Second we need to sort out some terminology otherwise we will be at cross purposes :) . Acronis have a specific meaning for 'cloning', that is a copy of one drive is placed on another drive as is, no intermediate file produced. It can be place on a larger drive or with some provisos a smaller one (depends on exactly how much smaller). No scheduling can take place nor can a task be made.

Cloning of an OS drive should be performed using the recovery CD, non OS drives can be cloned from within Windows. When a drive is cloned, the source drive must be disconnected on first reboot.

An image is a copy of the used sectors of a drive stored in a tib container file, which can be scheduled and manipulated in various ways.

Data migration, not sure what you mean here, if you are refering to the Acronis product Migrate Easy, this is just the cloning feature sold as a separate product.

Colin,

Thanks for your help but I think my case is an example of why everyone should back up their data, etc. as often as possible. Every attempt I have made to create a backup of my files has been unsuccessful whether I have tried backing up to CDs, flash drives, external hard drives or online. Every attempt I make to do a backup causes my laptop to freeze, crash and shut down. I should have heeded the warnings I was getting when running diagnostics a lot sooner. I was able to copy over some folders with my documents, photos and some other data so not everything has been lost. I will make one more attempt and try to make a Recovery CD before I replace my internal hard drive with a new one. Crossing my fingers.

How did it all turn out????

We all learn by doing and crashing. I sure have.

My strategy nowadays is that when I get a new computer, I create a "Disk Backup". ( Ill explain the "" in a bit)

Then I load my important programs on it and also transfer my email accounts, messages, etc, and other settings that are particular to my programs that I have just loaded. like customisation files for user menus and stuff like that.)

THEN, I make another Disk Backup appending the date to the image name.

In this fashion, when , in a year my system starts bogging down and is unmanageable and disk defrag and disk clean and add/remove programs are not doing anything, I recover the Disk Backup with the programs already in place to the old clogged up drive and this then "wipes" the offending drive of its data and generally fixes the bogging down problems.

BTW - I keep all my data files on a separate drive so that they are always ready to go. ( Backing them up too)

[The reason for the "" is that I am just starting with TrueImage and am unsure of their terminology. My old software PerfectImage would call these operations a clone but apparently in TI a clone is different.

Guess a question I have is what is difference between a clone and a backup???

DataMagnet wrote:

Guess a question I have is what is difference between a clone and a backup???

From your description, you would want to make a full disk Backup. That's good, as you can store multiple full disk Backup on a single external HD. A single Clone would use up an entire disk, and Clone is a risky operation that should be used only by advanced users. Clone does absolutely nothing more a full disk Backup and Restore would do.

So, do full disk Backups.

BTW, I do something similar. I create a full disk Backup of my brand new PC, before it has ever been booted. I can use that to restore the PC to its factory-fresh pre-boot state. Then as I setup the PC, configuring Windows options and installing applications, I make more full disk Backups. I save all those, so I can restore to those early states if I ever want to.

Hey Tuttle - Thanks

THAT which you describe is exactly what I was wanting to know. I have run into Backup Software that leaves stuff out and then when I went to get my system back to the places such as you describe, things would not boot up because it left something out.

BTW - Can the True Image restore individual files/Folders. If so Do I need some additional feature from Acronis to be able to do this. I have TI Home 2013

Yes, ATI can restore selected files/folders. This can be done from either a files/folders backup or a full disk backup. So, a full disk backup really is comprehensive and flexible: you may use it to restore an entire working system, or restore/copy just individual files or folders.

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