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cloning hard drives

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A while back, using the Acronis software provided by Western Digital, I had no problem cloning the "C" Western Digital hard drive to an external Western Digital hard drive with an esata connection. Nowadays it won't happen with the purchased Acronis software I now use. Any particular reason? thx
Jim

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Could be several, are you using the Bootable Media Disk when attempting to clone? Can you see both target and source disk in the application? Do you receive any error messages?

Bob, I do get an message that stipulates that the external hard drive is not recognized for cloning. The "C" drive used for cloning is the main drive of the computer. The external hard drive with esata connection is for cloning as a backup, useful when problems occur with main drive. thx Jim

Assuming you are attempting to clone internal drive to external drive correct? You are not attempting to backup the
internal drive to the external drive, correct?

Bob: Yes, it is an internal hard drive cloning an external hard drive. Of course the external drive cannot be utilized as an internal drive unless that external drive is removed from its carrier and inserted inside the computer, replacing the original "C" drive. I just remember that before when I used the Acronis software that is associated with Western Digital hardware, I could clone the "C" drive to an external hard drive without a hitch. thx Jim

Things have changed. Clone now requires that the source disk be placed externally and the target drive is placed internally where it will live after being restored. You need to do the clone operation in exactly the reverse of what you are doing

Alternatively (1) go back to using an older version of Acronis that does allow clone to external drive. :-)

Alternatively (2) use a full disk image backup to the eSATA drive instead of cloning it. :-)

Thanx, folks: What I have done and not mentioned before is to clone the internal "C" disk on another internal "D" disk and use that disk to clone an external disk. It does work. It's just one more step to get the data from the "C" disk to the external hard drive. Thx. Jim