Disk cloning 2018 vs 2014
I recently upgraded to the 2018 version of Acronis, and am having problems with disk cloning. In the past, I would use the cloning option to make duplicates of both my 1 tb SSD, and a 6 TB hard disk. I have several 1 TB hard disks I use for cloning the 1 TB SSD, and a separate 6 TB disk for cloning the main 6 TB disk. I would use the automatic options, select the to / from drives, and the operation would start and complete without issue.
Now, with 2018, I run into a problem, using the exact same steps, where the destination disk AFTER disk amount used displays as fully used, verses the actual amount (typically 30 - 50 percent, depending on the drive being cloned). Then, the process has problems completing, and will hang as thought its run out of room on the destination drive.
When I revert back to 2014, which I did this morning, the operation reports a normal destination drive used value, and completes normally.
Has anyone run into anything like this? I talked to support, and they weren't sure what the problem was. Suggested I send them logs.
En réponse à Deryl, welcome to these User… par truwrikodrorow…
Thanks for the quick reply. I'm in the process of cloning my 6TB drive using Acronis 2014. I wanted to make sure that drive was cloned before going any further. I tried searching the log files but couldn't seem to find anything related to the cloning operation started yesterday afternoon. Is there a specific file/folder I should be looking for? I've never tried reviewing the logs until today.
Deryl, download a copy of the MVP Log Viewer Tool from the Community Tools link in my signature and this will find any ATI 2018 Logs and start showing you these with the latest Backup / Cloning tasks from the ti_demon folder. The log viewer works in New Generation mode by default but this can be changed via the Tools menu options - this is the mode used by ATI 2017 & later versions.
Thank you. I can see the logs now from when I initiated the cloning operation yesterday. I did restart the computer, and was presented with the linux status screen. I came back the following morning, and the process was still running, but wasn't progressing. It showed the status bar complete, but still had what appeared another partition to copy (3 of 4 complete from what I remember). I let it run for about 10 more minutes, and it wasn't making any further progress, so I cancelled the operation. That was around 7am this morning. So, the program has been running over 15 hours. The log doesn't show anything past the restart action.
I was able to successfully clone the same 2 hard disks using version 2014 today. The operation took about 5 hours to complete.
8/7/2018 3:39:29 PM: Operation Clone Disk started.
8/7/2018 3:39:29 PM: Operation description: Clone Disk 1. Clearing disk ( Reboot required ) Hard disk: 1
2. Clearing disk Hard disk: 1
3. Copying partition sector by sector ( Reboot required ) Hard disk: 3 -> 1 Drive letter: N: -> E: File system: NTFS Volume label: Size: 5.458 TB
4. Copying MBR Hard disk: 3 -> 1
.
8/7/2018 3:39:37 PM: Computer restart is required
Note that the operation will be canceled if you choose not to restart your computer now.
: ⎂Restart/⎂Cancel
8/7/2018 3:39:42 PM: Computer restart is required
Note that the operation will be canceled if you choose not to restart your computer now.
: ⎂Restart/⎂Cancel: User response: ⎂Restart
Question, after you chose Restart when prompted did the computer actually restart? The log you posted looks like the machine did not restart.
yeah, the first time through the screen I cancelled, then the second time I restarted. You can see that in the last line of the log.
: ⎂Restart/⎂Cancel: User response: ⎂Restart
It then sat chugging along cloning the drive from about about that time in the log, until the next day at around 7am, where I cancelled the job.
So what it sounds like to me is that your computer cannot restart or boot into the Acronis Recovery environment to complete the clone task.
It also looks like your 6TB disk is formatted as MBR so must have say 3, 2TB partitions on the disk?
Since the 6TB disk is not an OS disk but only data, your computer would not require a reboot to clone the disk. For some reason it thinks it should. I have only seen this happen when a boot record exists on the disk that is attempting to be cloned.
I would recommend that you create Recovery Media using the Media Creation tool found in the installed True Image application, boot the computer to that media, and then perform the clone operation. This will avoid the requirement for restart.
I'll give that a try and see if it helps. I've attached a PDF with screen shots showing what I see when running the process. At this point, the before and after disks are identical, since I successfully cloned the hitachi drive yesterday using Acronis 2014.
Something different is happening with the 2018 version of the program. When I cloned the drives yesterday using 2014, I didn't have to reboot the machine.
Also, when I get to this point, I am able to continue and reboot into the linux screen. Cloning appears to start and proceed. The problem is that the cloning operation won't complete. The last time I tried it ran for over 15 hours, and was still processing when I cancelled it the following morning.
Deryl, I think that there is a difference in the displays rather than in function here. From your PDF document for the clone of the 6TB drive, this looks to be a single partition drive (5.458TB) and the display simply shows the capacity, not the portion of used or unused data on the drive.
As to why the clone looks to take such a long time and hangs, that is a different issue and perhaps the log file from the standalone ATI app might give a clue, though this is not guaranteed.
When using ATI 2018 please ensure that you have the latest build #12510 so that you have all available updates for known issues. The next steps here would be to either try using the Active Clone feature for ATI 2018 which doesn't (or shouldn't) require restarting into the Linux environment, or try creating the new default WinPE Rescue media for ATI 2018 and see if that works as expected. The final option would be to open a Support case direct with Acronis and let their support team investigate why you are seeing this issue when using the 2018 product but not with 2014?
You may be right. It's hard to tell. At best its confusing. I still suspect its an indication of the problem.
I did talk to the support team. They opened a ticket, and said they would send a follow-up email requesting logs. I never saw anything come through my inbox. I don't think the logs will help much in this case.
I keep feeling like I'm missing something. Again, I'm executing the cloning process as I have for the last 8 years, with other versions of Acronis (2010 and 2014). Never had this problem. I'm stumped.
Thanks for your help.
Your disks are GPT format so your PDF cleared that up. I would say your issue is simply that because you get a Reboot is required message and you acknowledge that to happen, your computer cannot execute the reboot so the clone fails to execute.
I am confident that if you attempt this using Recovery Media you will have success. I think the reason your machine will not reboot and carryout the task is that your computer uses UEFI to boot and that is keeping the reboot from from happening possibly because of Secure Boot enabled.
Deryl, when you are in the standalone application following a restart to perform the cloning, you can access Logs from that environment and save them to a permanent location such as a USB stick.
I just created a recovery disk, and used it to boot to acronis 2018. From what I can tell, it is working. I didn't kick off the cloning, but was able to get to the from/to size screen for the cloned partition, and it was showing the correct values. So, there something about the new 2018 version of Acronis that is having problems in Windows recognizing the correct TO drive size. It does this on 2 different machines I own, both with Windows 10. So, it not limited to a specific machine's setup/hardware it seems. The one machine is an older Sandy Bridge motherboard, and the other is a newer Coffee Lake chipset board.
I do appreciate your help with this issue. I'm curious why other users haven't reported something like this. The next step will be to see if I can complete a cloning operation using the recovery media. I don't have any more time to spend with this for now.