Clone XP renders both copy and original useless. Great.
got a fresh install of windows, all software and drivers working great, new motherboard w/ all the right drivers, 2 new hard drives.
Windows was running great and this is a music production machine so I have 3 days of sowtware and samples installed, and a couple soundcards + native VIA HDA, and a cheap video card. Again, all running great.
Decided to clone XP to be safe and used Acronis USB boot version, just downloaded the latest version that goes with my new WD 640 black HDD.
Clone from a new Samsung F3 500 onto the new WD black, went fast and reported successful.
rebooted with only the clone drive attached, widows booted hard and wasnt right. BSOD halfway into loadup, next boot it made it to the desktop but Avast! wouldnt initialise, BSOD soon after. About the 5th boot i had it run long enough and Avast started up, seemed alright, i ran some things and got another BSOD. Googled the hell out of it and I tried everything to get it stable, updated every single device driver, (including volume drivers and HD drivers) and uninstalled Avast.
seemed alright for awhile but as soon as i started opening things it would crash again.
Thought i finally had it right when i read about a VIA audio driver, replaced it with a better version, and was going great, untill i installed my delta audio card and tried to run my musid workstation.
BSOD again. After 18 hrs of messing with this, Im giving up, reinstalling XP.
OH forgot to mention... the original XP that i cloned is just as messed up, BSOD all over the place. driver conflicts and software hangups, no-boots, garbage. Tried a Windows recovery of the original and it CRASHES THE INSTALLER.
There were about 6 different BSOD errors, all leading to no usefull info whatsoever, could be anything wrong.
I pulled my audio cards, uninstalled them, stripped windows drivers down to the essentials, disabled onboard sound, changed and reinstalled video cards (had another brand laying around, known good). I TRIED EVERYTHING.
So thanks for the great product, Now i look forward to another 30 hrs of installing XP.
This is my system:
Antec true power 430 watt
Asrock p43de3
intel P4 3.2 (upgrading next)
4 gig G skil RAM... matched to motherboard, TESTED GOOD 8 passes MEMTEST 86
WD 640 black, new, tested good
Samsung F3 500GB tested good, couple months old
Seagate 500 GB cuda single platter 5 months old
Nvidia quaddro fx550
M audio Delta 1010lt PCI
Native instruments Session I/O usb audio
and one pissed off guy.
Did you make an image backup using Acronis TI before hand? If so restore that image to the new disk. Can you do a repair install? See http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm. Does it boot into safe mode?
I didnt make a backup image, I figured cloning about was the same, just more convenient. My plan was to get my system onto the WD black drive for performance reasons. (not that the spinpoint is slow, but the black has way faster random r/w speeds).
I think i ununstalled drivers in safe mode but if i remember correctly something still caused a bsod in safe.
The original i havent tried to get back into, the windows xp sp3 disk failed twice to repair it, causing bsod each time. Im sure i can never boot into it again, so i've moved on. Wiped the WD drive, Reinstalled windows, everything is gravy with the new install. Cant afford to waste anymore time on this, I'm in the middle of my band's demo (lots of virtual instruments, drums are programmed) so I have a lot of stuff to reinstall. Im making an image this time, both before and after i install all the software.
Hope the Imaging goes better, and im not using acronis TI
Well its unfortunate that the cloning failed but making the backup image and cloning are not the same thing. Cloning copies the drive from an old one to a new one. An image takes a snapshot of the drive at a particular point in time and can be updated periodically. You get more flexibility with an image than with a clone.
The risks to cloning is not limited to any single software. My cloining guides include this warning.
Well I finished a clean XP install, imaged it to 3rd drive, I couldn't disconnect my main drive cause Its the WD drive (needed for my Acronis version to run)... and restored to 2nd drive, all went well after i placed it in the first partition and restored the MBR and checked the "drive signature" box. Was sure to order my drives correctly in BIOS when I restored it, so all is well and I can boot off either drive by switching it in BIOS. Gotta be carefull not to let the new restore get the wrong drive letter.
Im gonna put Ubuntu or something on my second drive and then ill have a bootloader for everything.
So I used acronis again for the imaging, (USB bootable) funny that the version that comes with WD drives is so much better than the version with Seagate drives... even tho both are acronis?? The one with seagate wont let me restore to a any other drive than the original.
Ill never clone again, but the Imaging worked great
Hi David
The only reason I would click "drive signature" is if I had a program that relied on that to operate (Photoshop Elements for one) or I was restoring to the same original drive.
Windows can get iffy if you have two drives with the same drive/disk signature attached in an active system as my reading is that you have.
Glad to hear that imaging worked fine.
Glad you got everything sorted. Now keep making regular backup images of you boot drive and any others you need.
David,
Often times, the reason drive letters get mixed is when a new target disk gets cloned or restored and the source drive is not removed on first boot following the procedure. You will also get fewer problems if you perform the restore or clone when booted from the the TI Rescue CD and only the target disk is attached on first bootup following the procedures.
It sounds like you might benefit from the procedures used by forum contributor xpilot. Click on my signature link below and review item #11. I personally have two quick inisert caddies as my two tops drive bays and they make for very quick & easy switchinig of disks as referenced in item #11.
And if you are new to TrueImage, the "How to's" listed in item #8-DD provides help in learniing the various features of TrueImage Home.
yeah it would be nice if the program told me what that "disk signature" checkbox does... i assumed i needed to check it because i was restoring a different drive with no boot record on it yet. No harm done from what i can tell.
And again, i couldnt detach my main drive cuz its the only WD drive that i have and Acronis will not run without that drive hooked up... kind of a crippling feature if you ask me...
The caddies idea is nice, But this is an Audio workstation, I need all 3 drives running in it, 1 system, 1 media and 1 for samples. Plus i dont have the money to buy 2 drive bay caddies.
When people want to do a clone or image or whatever, usually its at a time when the system is failing or trouble is on the way... I diddnt have time to read up on all this, I'm not computer illiterate, just wasnt aware that cloning wasnt as safe, and still dont have a clue why.. I guess thats what i was looking for with this post.
And again, i couldnt detach my main drive cuz its the only WD drive that i have and Acronis will not run without that drive hooked up... kind of a crippling feature if you ask me...
That's one of the restrictions of the WD and Seagate versions that are supplied for free. Perhaps you might consider purchasing the Acronis release which does not have these restrictions.
yeah, fuck your software and im not buying the shit. Just tried to run my DAW and my vst plugins folder is MISSING and of course i try to search within the image i had made, and acronis failed to mount the image and assign a letter, froze up, and now im looking at Windows hanging with no explorer running, blank desktop for 20 minutes now.
Im not buying this shit are you kidding me? I'm a week behind in my project now because i trusted the reviews of your software and i still have a mess on my hands.
still hangs my whole operating system trying to view the image. Googling it im finding about read write mode workaround or whatever but this is rediculous. I have a VstPlugins(2) folder with a quarter of my Vst's in it, but no original VstPlugins folder. This was the fully functioning, for the 2nd time, fully installed XP system that i imaged.
David, if your so unhappy stop posting about the mess you created in the first place because you didn't bother to make a backup at the beginning.
1. I DID NOT CREATE THIS MESS, ACRONIS TI FAILED TO CLONE MY DRIVE. CLONING IS A METHOD OF BACKING UP.
2. ACRONIS FREEZES XP TO A STANDSTILL AND WONT EVEN SHUTDOWN PROPERLY AFTER I USE A SIMPLE FEATURE TO VIEW A BACKUP IMAGE.
3. still unsure of the localion of my VST folder after this image, a new image of another completely new system with aaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllll the software installed, and was working before I tried the more preferred method of Imaging.
seems to me you are missing the details, i'm not a professional acronis ti user this is the first time i tried to backup my system and I use trusted, legit version of the software and it fails, and it fails again.
I'm not a beginer when it comes to PC use. The software simply failed for me.
Note the WD and Seagate versions are run by the True Image engine but have been altered by Seagate and WD to their own requirements.
I know that the WD version is based on TIH 2009 with one difference that it has W7 capabilities, 2009 itself doesn't.
I'm unclear whether the cloning was internal drive to internal drive or internal to external and whether (if external) the cloned drive was being booted as external or had been inserted itnot he computer and booted.
The BSOD codes would be helpful in trying to work out what is upsetting XP.
You might not have to re-install XP completely a repair install may work as this only touches Windows system files and registry entries.
Has chkdsk/r been run on both drives?
As you are starting the cloning from the rescue CD a reverse clone might stop the strange goings on.
As others have said, an image would be better, not least because an image can be validated and mounted.
I'm unclear whether the cloning was internal drive to internal drive or internal to external and whether (if external) the cloned drive was being booted as external or had been inserted itnot he computer and booted.
The BSOD codes would be helpful in trying to work out what is upsetting XP.
You might not have to re-install XP completely a repair install may work as this only touches Windows system files and registry entries.
Has chkdsk/r been run on both drives?
As you are starting the cloning from the rescue CD a reverse clone might stop the strange goings on.
As others have said, an image would be better, not least because an image can be validated and mounted.
---All cloning/Imaging was done internally, 3 new drives, 1 of them an untouched Media drive, the other two are alternating system drives, XP audio workstation on 1, XP internet cruizer/software tester on the other. -- I was carefull to have the drives ordered correctly in BIOS and there is no issue with letters or booting or any of that, and Acronis TI was ran booted via USB media at the time of imaging, both pre-software and post software. After Imaging post software installation, tons of Vst Plugins (virtual instruments, effects etc... hours of work.. even some software is missing/broken/gone. even Zipeg and Adobe Acrobat reader.
---I have no BSOD codes, I encountered no blue screens. Acronis Ti is upsetting xp, as posted by quite a few users that have encountered the image mounting issue with Acronis Ti, using xp, vista, or win 7.
--- i have installed xp in a proffesional manner and have ran chkdsk utility before and after installing, and had a clean system at the time of cloning, defragged, clean registry, safe mode sagerun, confirmed working.
--- I am not cloning anymore. Both of those systems were trashed, I started over, got to XP's running smooth on 2 drives, (imaging sucsessful) installed all vst's and software to audio XP, was working great, could run all my projects, so i cleaned up, made an image, and now all my installations after the first image point have broken.
--- and like I said, I cant mount the Image using Acronis, the same software that i used to create the image. Hangs XP terribly, i have to hard reboot.
FWIW i cannot do a successful XP system restore, I went back to 2 different restore points , both before the 2nd image, and windows boots back up and greets me with an "unable to restore" message.
David,
Which version of TIH are you using WD, Seagate or TIH itself? If TIH, what build?
As you are unable to mount an image are you able to explorer it via Windows Explorer?
If it is possible are you able to see either in Task Manager or Services to see if TIMEMOUNTER is running or loaded.
I assume none of your files or drives are True Crypt encoded drivers or any other sort of compression.
To be honest I'm at a loss as to what might be causing your problem.
Are you sure that no virus or malware has snuck onto the system which is being exacerbated either by cloning or contained within the images.
If you are using True Image itself, now might be the time to run the system report utility and if purchased (Acronis version) within the 30 day time limit raise a support ticket.