I am new and confused
What I want to do is create a bootable clone of my hard drive so that when my current HD goes to never never land, I can plug in my clone and get back to work. I back up all my data in a couple of places but I hate reinstalling all the apps etc.
I have read the cautions about using the cloning feature and the recommendation to use the back up feature instead. But it seems that I would need 3 hard drives to do this:
One is my current HD, the second is the target for the backup (partitioned and formated) and the third is the new raw unpartitioned drive - the same size as my current HD.
It seems I would be writing the .tib file(s) to the second intermediate drive. OR.., do I write the .tib file to my current HD?
Current specs of currrent HD is 750GB with 400GB free. It has a single "C" drive.
I believe I understand the backup and recovery processes (perhaps) but I was unclear where to put the backup files.
Am I on the right track or totally lost in space?
Thanks,
Tony
Please heed Pat's advice. Make disk Backup images, and do not Clone. Having multiple backups is much better security than a clone, and is safer.
Thank you, thank you thank you, one and all.
I think the fog is lifting. But..., I still have a couple of questions.
What is the size of the backup image compared to the original 400GB hard drive? Is it one to one or is it compressed?
I have a SATA to USB adapter that I use to access conventional SATA HDs as USB devices. Can I use this as a target disk and also make it bootable using the "Make Media Bootable" option? It seems I read that one cannot make a USB hard drive bootable. I am not sure what that means. Does this mean that any USB drive large enough to contain my disk image cannot be made bootable?
If I choose to make a bootable recovery "CD", will a DVD work just as well? Or do I actually need a CD?
I am not so worried about creating sequential images for data backup. But my interest is creating an bootable HD that contains the more static information such as apps, settings, logins etc. A snapshot in time every few months is sufficient. My data is backed up redundantly in a couple of places including Acronis Online. The big video files etc are on external HDs.
Sorry to be dense. But this is a bit more technical than I usually get.
Thank you again,
Tony
What is the size of the backup image compared to the original 400GB hard drive? Is it one to one or is it compressed?
Total disk size is mostly irrelevant. ATI will backup just sectors in use, and compress, so backup size would be perhaps 60%-70% the size of the "in use" amount of your disk. Compressed size varies considerably based on the type of data. e.g. Already-compressed video and audio won't compress further.
I have a SATA to USB adapter that I use to access conventional SATA HDs as USB devices. Can I use this as a target disk and also make it bootable using the "Make Media Bootable" option? It seems I read that one cannot make a USB hard drive bootable.
Yes, you may use it for backups. No, you can't make it bootable and you don't need to anyway.
If I choose to make a bootable recovery "CD", will a DVD work just as well?
Yes, or USB flash drive. But, don't "choose" as this should not be up for debate. Create the bootable Rescue Media, and test it, as you may need it one day.
OK.., got it.
One last thing... Since it is probably going to take several hours to back up and make a disk image of my entire HD, do I need to disable any scheduled tasks such as online backup. email backup, anti virus scans? Or ....?
Thanks again.
Tony
Not always required, but might be prudent. There are reports that Outlook e-mail backups don't always work properly if Outlook is open when ATI is backing up, so you might at least close Outlook before starting the ATI backup and not reopening it until after ATI has time to create its "snapshot".