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Disk Clone - original?

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If I clone my laptop HD to a spare HD in a USB enclosure, will (1) both of the disks be bootable when installed in the laptop and (2) does this have to be done with the good drive removed and the empty one installed in the laptop using a bootable disk? It seems as though last time I did this, I just cloned from the internal drive to the external?

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Ted:

(1) They should be.
(2) That's the best method to use and is required for laptops with nonstandard BIOS disk geometry (Lenovo, Compaq, and some others). But (1) may work if your laptop has standard BIOS geometry (255 heads, 63 sectors/track).

In general, method (2) should work on almost anything while method (1) may work just fine on your hardware. With cloning, be careful not to erase the wrong disk and do not boot the PC with two identical disks attached.

I cloned the disk and when it was put in the laptop, it looped on the first Dell screen... I put the original back in and it works fine..BUT I think that I see the problem but am not sure and have not idea how to correct it if it is the culprit... When looking at the origianal disk in the laptop under hard drives, it is partitioned as OS(C:) and RECOVERY (D:)... NOW .. when I view the clone when hooked up with the USB enclosure on another computer, it is partitioned as RECOVERY (M:) and OS (N:)... I understand that the letters M, and N were assigned as the next available letters in the machine viewing the clone disk, BUT I am certain that when the clone is installed back in the laptop, it reads them as RECOVERY (C:) AND OS (D:).. therefore it is reading and trying to boot from the RECOVERY as it is C: instead of OS as it is D: as it should, Is there anyway to change the clone so that OS will be first (C:) and the RECOVERY partition will be (D:)

Ted:

When viewing the cloned disk on another PC, open Windows Disk Management console and verify that the OS partition is a primary partition and is set as Active. That's all that should be needed for the drive letters to come out correctly.

Are both disks the same type (both IDE or both SATA)?

Both drives are of the same type / mfg.. only different size... When I viewed the cloned drive on another compuiter, the OS was marked as active but still was the second in locical order.. same as in description above... the RECOVERY partition is M: and OS is N:. This has me baffeled as when the computer was new, I cloneda larger disk from the installed factory HD using ACTI and then popped it in and all was well. Now this??? Help?

Ted Laurila wrote:
... When I viewed the cloned drive on another compuiter, the OS was marked as active but still was the second in locical order.. same as in description above... the RECOVERY partition is M: and OS is N...

When viewed on another computer, the order of drive letters is irrelevant. It will depend on whether the other computer has any drive letters reserved, if it has ever "seen" the target disk before, and if not then the drive letters will be assigned in accordance with the predefined Windows drive lettering scheme as outlined here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/234048

The order that the two partitions are listed in may have no correspondence with the way that the partition's drive letters will turn out when you boot from the cloned disk. The active partition should always be assigned C: on first boot. While what you see may be confusing, I don't think it is at the root of the problem. Something else is going on here.

I would recommend that you try the cloning method that is most likely to succeed. Delete all of the partitions on the target disk. Shut down your PC. Remove the main (source) disk and put it in the USB enclosure. Put the blank target disk in place of your main PC's disk. Boot from the Acronis recovery CD and clone the source disk (in the USB enclosure) to the target disk (in the PC). After the clone completes, shut down the PC. Disconnect the USB disk and boot the PC from the freshly-cloned internal disk.

I sincerely appreciate your efforts.. thank you.. I have decided to do as you suggested in the above post and use the recovery disk method... The disk that I want to clone to has been seen by the computer before when it was new... UGH! at any rate, I am proceeding you you suggested.. I have tried to clean up the target drive but have been unable to remove everything (partitions).. is there an easy way to just wipe the target drive clean and reformat it while it is in the enclosure before I proceed to remove it and insrtall it in the laptop? Thanks again for ALL of your help...

Ted:

On the newer versions of TI, the option to clear partitions is somewhere under "Prepare Disk". Or, you could use Windows Disk Management to delete the partitions. Do not format the drive. Just delete the partitions and leave it blank.

I appreciate all of your efforts in helping me... I removed the partitions form the destination disk, installed it in the laptop, booted from Acronis Bootable recovery disk, and started the cloning process. I selected YES to removing everythiing from the destination disk and also selected AUTO clone... The first time I tried it, at the 32 minutes remainiing point, everything froze up and stopped. I started the process again from scratch and this time it made it to the 19 minutes remaining point when again it froze up.. The thrid time should have been a charm, BUT NO.. this time duiring the cloninig process the entire system froze up at the 12 minutes remaining (Operation 4 of 6) point. I gave up and reinstalled the source disk in the laptop until I can figure this thing out... maybe just make a good backup and let it go at that but cloning shouldn't be so hard.. When I did it when the laptop was new, I just plugged the new drive into an enclosure, connected it via usb top the laptop, and cloned it using ATI.. then I installed it in the lapptop and it took right off... Any more suggestions? Thanks again for your time and efforts.. Ted

Ted:

It sounds to me like you're doing everything correctly. The software should not be freezing up. Out of curiosity, which version and build of TI are you using? If recent (TI 2009 or TI 2010), check on the Acronis web site on your account page to see if there is an updated build of the bootable media CD. If available, it will be an ISO image file that can be burned to a CD. Acronis updates the Linux drivers on the boot media more frequently and it may fix the problem that you're having.

Perhaps someone else may have other suggestions - please jump in...

Ted:-
You wrote well and in detail about your drive cloning tribulations.. then the lights went out. It's like watching a movie three-quarters of the way through, before everything goes to black. :)
Any news on your cloning exploits?