Can I clone just the boot partition, not the whole HDD?
I want to clone only the boot partition (C:/) of a HDD with 3 partitions (Docs, etc. on these), and clone it to an SSD drive that will be my boot drive with all my programs. I assume this will speed but my PC. The SDD is 96Gb, and the C:/partition is 98GB, but only 40Gb are used, so there is plenty of space. So far I can only find software to clone a whole HDD, not a partition. Can ATI 2012 do this?
I've attached a jpg of the disk console. I have my XP (with SP3 streamed) installation disk. Disk 2 is a clone of disk 1 - I used Acronis True Image Home ver. 11 (2007) to do this. I thought I might either delete the Timon & Pyrrho partitions, or merge them so that I end up only with a single Sagara partition, and then clone C: to the 96Gb SSD drive. But I'm not sure how this would end!
Thanks,
Robert
OK. This is what we are going to do.
- first, produce an Acronis recovery CD if you don't have one, and boot your computer on it to make sure it sees all your disks and you can use your keyboard and mouse,
- disconnect all you disks except disk1 (the one you want to backup),
- put your SSD in your computer, at the same spot at disk 0,
- choose a disk to backup to and set it up. It just needs to be an NTFS partition on an internal disk or an external USB disk,
- boot your computer on your recovery CD,
- choose add new disk, select your SSD (pay attention, the drive letters are not the same as in Windows, so look at the drive labels),
- ATI will propose to create a partition on the SSD. Skip that partition creation, this will leave the SSD unallocated,
- still from the CD, create a disk and partition backup of your entire disk1 (all partitions),
- once the backup is done, validate it using the recovery CD, once it is validated...
- select the backup you just did and start the restore, still from the recovery CD,
- select to restore the SAGARA partition:
+ the new destination is your SSD,
+ make the restored partition primary and active,
+ do not change the drive letter,
+ leave a 1MB offset before that partition, adjust the size so that it occupies the rest of the disk to the right,
- once the restore is done:
+ restore the MBR+track0 and the disk signature.
- shutdown the computer, remove the Disk1 and whatever disk you used for the backup. At this point you should have only the SSD in place.
- make sure that your BIOS is set to boot on your SSD,
- boot the computer. If the boot fails (NTDLR missing or something along these lines):
+ boot the computer on your Windows CD and choose "repair startup". This might take a couple of passes to adjust the boot records, etc. You need to reboot inbetween passes.
- once the computer has booted normally, reconnect your drives and adjust your partitions the way you want. Produce a disk and partition backup of your SSD!
Let us know how it goes.
Can't get past the first step! Acronis True Image 11 has no function to create a recovery CD. For safety I regularly clone disk 1 so if things go belly-up I can just swap the disks. Perhaps I should just knuckle under and upgrade to Win 7 and do a complete reinstall of my programs to the SSD.
Thanks,
Robert
This link shows you where you can download the version 11 bootable media and you can then create the same CD you would have done if you had the "create bootable media" installed.
http://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/forum/2009/11/5933/TI_11-d…
All my drives are WD. The last one came with an Acronis True Image WD Edition - so I was able to used this to create an ATI Boot disc. However, looking at the list of steps to take this further, it seems a bit daunting to me (as another member has just posted). So I'll take my time and go over it. But before I do, is it not possible to delete/merge the other partitions to end up with just the a C: drive primary partition, and then clone that? I've software to do the delete/merge partitions.
Thanks for your help,
Robert
If you want you can backup the entire hdisk or jsut one or more partitions. Youy can also restore the entire disk or jsut one or more partitions.
You can find the user guide for ati11 here:
http://www.acronis.com/support/documentation/legacy.html
Btw, if you're using ati11, it doesn have an option to create a bootcd, see section 7.2 in the user guide:
"
To create bootable media:
Run the Acronis Media Builder wizard. To do so:
Click Tools & Utilities in the main menu and then click Rescue Media Builder on the Tools & Utilities screen
or
Select Programs -> Acronis -> Acronis True Image Home 2011 -> Tools & Utilities -> Bootable Rescue Media Builder from the Start menu.
Click Next and follow the wizard's steps
"
Just to keep things straight, ati use "clone" to mean making a hdisk a copy on another hdis, so it's an entire hdisk kind of operation. Basically, ati copies the contents of one hdisk onto another and that target disk is ready to be used. You get one clone per target disk.
Everything else, ati calls a backup. You have lots of flexibility re backups. With backups, ati copies the poriton of the disk (one or more partitions, the entire disk, or selected files) and puts the copy in a file. You can have as many of these backup files onthe stroage disk as will fit.
Robert,
Moving to Win7 + SSD is a good idea (this is what I did). Then, doing a clean install is probably a good idea if you have the time and you can reinstall your programs. If you have programs that run only on XP, you can still use virtual machines on Win7.
If you still want down the path of restoring your current system, you will find out that the procedure I described is pretty easy to follow.
After a bit of reflection, I've decided it's time to move to Win 7. And if I don't like it, I can always revert back to XP by swapping a couple of SATA cables, and start again! Many thanks for you help.
Seems sensible to me!
Having just had this self same problem myself I can also give you the best answer for it.
I've had to use O&O DiskImage 6 to do this, as it's one of the few products that allows you to clone either a whole drive or just an individual partition.
To clone my HD Win 7 partition which was 104gb to my 356gb SSD took about 14mins, it was also fully bootable. I just cloned it, changed boot drive in Bios and everything ran without a hitch.
I really don't understand why Acronis can't offer this, as I really like using the products and even upgraded to True Image (and Plus) 2012 to see if it was a new feature and it's not.
So I would say if you want to just clone an individual partition get O&O DiskImage as you can do it with that, for all your other needs Acronis is the way to go.
I have no familiarity with O&O DiskImage but I'd be very careful of cloning when going to a SSD. A clone implies an exact copy and if you aren't using a HD formatted by at least Vista you may well end up with a non-aligned partition which will reduce the performance of the SSD considerably.
Personally, I've never cloned a HD or a partition. The image backup and restore offers more flexibility and is less confusing, IMO.
Having just had this self same problem myself I can also give you the best answer for it.
I've had to use O&O DiskImage 6 to do this, as it's one of the few products that allows you to clone either a whole drive or just an individual partition.
To clone my HD Win 7 partition which was 104gb to my 356gb SSD took about 14mins, it was also fully bootable. I just cloned it, changed boot drive in Bios and everything ran without a hitch.
I really don't understand why Acronis can't offer this, as I really like using the products and even upgraded to True Image (and Plus) 2012 to see if it was a new feature and it's not.
So I would say if you want to just clone an individual partition get O&O DiskImage as you can do it with that, for all your other needs Acronis is the way to go.
You dont have to go that far. Acronis Disk Director* can move or copy a partition to another partition.
* $49.99 per license
I have Disk Director, and although it will copy a partition it won't do an exact copy of a boot partition so you still have to spend time fiddling in order to get it working.
As I looked at that as well when I was going through things.
Where-as the clone I made is now running fine, no problems, I've not had to get out the Win 7 disks to repair the installation, or re-install anything.
It's just a shame that the option to clone a partition is missing from Acronis, as then it would be the only product I'd need, but as it is I've had to purchase another piece of software to do the job, and it's done it well and without any hassles.
To put things into perspective, I've spent about 8 hours trying to work out how to do it with Acronis, and was getting ready for a lengthy re-install as the easier option. Once i found DiskImage it took me 14 mins to have the drive ready and working.
I have Disk Director, and although it will copy a partition it won't do an exact copy of a boot partition so you still have to spend time fiddling in order to get it working.
I've had no problem cloning partitions. What you describe sounds like the master boot record for the entire drive, not an individual partition, so copying a partition naturally doesn't touch it. However, Disk Director's "clone disk" function does take care of the MBR.
I have Disk Director, and although it will copy a partition it won't do an exact copy of a boot partition so you still have to spend time fiddling in order to get it working.
I've had no problem cloning partitions. What you describe sounds like the master boot record for the entire drive, not an individual partition, so copying a partition naturally doesn't touch it. However, Disk Director's "clone disk" function does take care of the MBR.
There is a quicker method explained here to saving and copying the MBR in DiskDirector but I would not recommend experimenting in a real situation.
I have an old PATA disc (Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD1600BEVE), formatted in FAT32 and coming from an old laptop and I want to clone it (transfer it entirely with its OS, all its programms, files, etc.) on another disc. This destination disv has two partitions, one formatted in NTFS with several files of mine and another empty one, formatted in exFAT.
How can I clone the disc into the second partition?
Thanks
Panagiotis, welcome to these user forums.
The topic you have posted to is very old from 2011, so 6 years ago and is unlikely to attract further responses.
I would recommend raising a New Topic for yourself in the forum for the version of Acronis True Image software that you are using - there are separate forums for 2017, 2016, 2015 and this forum for 2014 or earlier products.
A quick response to your question - you cannot use cloning to transfer your old PATA drive to a separate partition of another drive - cloning will wipe out the target drive if you attempt this and create a duplicate of the PATA drive on that second drive.
If you are intending to boot from the OS on the old PATA drive, then you will need a second PATA drive if this is to be installed in the same old laptop.
If you are looking to migrate the OS on the old PATA drive to a different laptop or other computer system, then there are other challenges that you will need to overcome to do this, but again I would not recommend using cloning to try to do this. Please come back with a New Topic if you wish to pursue this question further and we will try to help you.
Panagiotis, welcome to these user forums.
The topic you have posted to is very old from 2011, so 6 years ago and is unlikely to attract further responses.
I would recommend raising a New Topic for yourself in the forum for the version of Acronis True Image software that you are using - there are separate forums for 2017, 2016, 2015 and this forum for 2014 or earlier products.
A quick response to your question - you cannot use cloning to transfer your old PATA drive to a separate partition of another drive - cloning will wipe out the target drive if you attempt this and create a duplicate of the PATA drive on that second drive.
If you are intending to boot from the OS on the old PATA drive, then you will need a second PATA drive if this is to be installed in the same old laptop.
If you are looking to migrate the OS on the old PATA drive to a different laptop or other computer system, then there are other challenges that you will need to overcome to do this, but again I would not recommend using cloning to try to do this. Please come back with a New Topic if you wish to pursue this question further and we will try to help you.
Thanks, Steve, I really did not know that there are different fora for the various Acronis True Image versions. I will follow your advice and open a New Topic to the appropriate forum.