Exclusions Setting re Backup of C drive using ATI2020

Gary, the excluded data set by default for all Acronis backup tasks are all temporary data that would be removed by the regular Windows Maintenance task with just one exception for System Volume Information which if you have Windows System Protection is enabled, is where System Restore points data is stored.  Microsoft have disabled System Protection by default for over three years in all new installs of Windows 10. 

All the larger excluded data is recreated by Windows when the system is booted.

Cloning depends on more factors than just whether to use the Active Clone option in Windows or using bootable media.  What are you considering using cloning for?  What type of computer do you have?  Personally, cloning outside of Windows using rescue media is my preference for the rare occasions when I use this feature. 

All C: drive OS recovery operations should be performed by booting from the Acronis Rescue Media, and in particular using the Windows PE version of that media for best compatibility with your installed hardware.  Attempting this type of recovery from within Windows will always require a restart into an offline environment due to locked OS files, but the offline environment will be from a small limited Linux kernel OS with lots of restrictions regarding the devices it can support etc.

When in the recovery environment using bootable media, then just closing the main ATI application and then closing the black command prompt window hidden behind ATI should cause the PC to be restarted.  If you want to power off the PC then wait for the PC to start the restart (show BIOS options) then press & hold the power button at that point.

Thankyou Steve for reply.  Sounds like I should leave exclusions at default setting of enabled.  I do use System Restore and regularly make a restore point.  If System Volume Information is excluded I gather this means I will lose any restore points should I do a recovery.  That is ok with me as long as it does not cause any issues.

I clone my C drive regularly and recently just made my first ever backup.  Will heed your advice about cloning and doing backup recovery using bootable media.  Sounds like a safer approach.

My system specs are:

Computer type:   PC/Desktop

System Manufacturer/Model Number:   MSI

OS:   Windows10-64bit, Version 2004...OS build 19041.804

CPU:   AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8 GHz 12-Core AM4 Processor

Motherboard:   MSI PRESTIGE X570 CREATION MOBO

Memory:   G.Skill RAM, F4-3600C16D-32GTZR, 32GB

Graphics Card:   MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Duke OC 11GB

Monitors are:  Samsung 32inch Odyssey G7 & Dell UltraSharp U2713H 27 Inch

Browser:  Google Chrome

Antivirus:   Kaspersky AV

I have been making a clone of C drive regularly using bootable media CD created from iso file downloaded in July2020 from my Acronis account.  I have made C drive clone many times in past 6 months without issue using this disk.  However I have noticed recently that when I access ATI using that bootable created media I have an issue with ATI being slow/unresponsive/freezing temporarily when responding to mouse clicks with beeping noise from PC.  It does still work and I can successfully still clone my C drive but something is wrong. This happened just after I made my first ever backup of C drive with ATI within Windows environment.

To try and solve the problem...using ATI2020 I created bootable media using simple method for both iso file and creating bootable media burnt directly to DVD disk.  So have two DVD disks using simple method.  However when I use each of these bootable DVDs to clone C drive, when I get to the Destination drive step it does not continue and I get a notification saying:

"Unable to lock the disk. Boot your computer from a Linux based bootable media, try again" so is a problem.

Would appreciate any help to solve this as obviously the bootable media working ok is important.  Thanks … Gary

Gary, some further questions here:

What are you cloning your C: drive to and how is the target drive connected?

The downside of using cloning is simply that this will always be a manual operation and unless you swap the cloned drive and replace the original one by it, you will not know that the cloned drive will boot correctly or successfully!

This is why I rarely use cloning - I have regular scheduled backups that run unattended to different backup drives throughout the week which means that any recovery would only be a few days old.

The unable to lock the target drive message when cloning is most likely caused because that target drive already contains a previous OS clone and / or because the PC has not been fully shutdown before attempting the clone.

The first action of any clone (and recovery) would be to wipe the target drive of all existing data and partitions - this so that the partition structure from the source drive (or backup image) can be recreated on the wiped drive.  Therefore, one method of avoiding the lock issue, is to do the wipe yourself before attempting the clone, so that you are in effect cloning to an empty drive.

To wipe the target drive, open the Acronis Tools & Utilities folder from the All Programs menu, then select the 'Add new disk' tool.

When using the tool, please take care to choose the correct target drive!

Note: look at the model and interface details to confirm you have selected the correct disk, i.e. a USB external drive (in my example above).

When the correct disk is selected, click on the Next button, and you will see a further pop-up warning to tell you that the selected disk contains data that will be wiped!  Click on OK.
Note: nothing is deleted until to tell the tool to Proceed with the action!

A new panel is shown asking you to choose the Partition scheme to be used to initialise the target disk.  You need to choose the scheme that matches the source drive, i.e. MBR or GPT.

To confirm the OS partition scheme, open Windows Disk Management, then right click on your OS C: disk drive on the far left side (Disk 0) then on Properties. 

In the Properties panel, open the Volumes tab, and look at the Partition style: which will show as either GPT or MBR.

Select the same method to Initialise the target disk in the Add new disk wizard panel.

There is no point in creating any partitions on the initialised target drive, so just leave the drive showing as unallocated space, ready for the clone or recovery operation.

When doing any Clone (or Recovery) using the Acronis Rescue Media, then either use the Restart option before selecting the rescue media boot option, or else force a full Shutdown by pressing & holding a Shift key while clicking on Shutdown.  This will avoid any issues by the OS using Hybrid Sleep mode because Windows Fast Start is enabled.

Thanks Steve... I solved the "Unable to lock the disk. Boot your computer from a Linux based bootable media, try again"  by simply creating a fresh bootable media DVD using the advanced method>Linux based media.  It works fine.

Getting back to the exclusions question regards creating a backup. If System Volume Information is excluded I gather this means I will lose any restore points should I do a recovery.  That is ok with me as long as it does not cause any issues.  I have system restore enabled.  What are your thoughts about this and is my understanding ok??

Also can u tell me if I exclude nothing ... so everything is included in the backup what issues can this cause if any ... or is it a case of there are no issues if nothing is excluded??

Thanks Gary

Gary, if you exclude the System Volume Information folders then any restore points would be lost when a recovery is done.  Personally I have never seen any issues from this and if you have system protection enabled, then new restore points are created as normal.

If you don't use any exclusions, then it just basically means that your backups are a little larger than they need to be, i.e. including temporary files etc, along with the system pagefile.sys, hibernation file (hiberfil.sys) (if present) and swapfile.sys.  The latter are recreated on boot if not present anyhow so just add extra size to the backup, typically 20 - 30 GB or more.

Of the exclusions, when using the bootable rescue media, I normally take a moment to add those 3 specific files to the exclusions list just to save a little time and file size.  The rescue media doesn't have any set exclusions otherwise.

Thanks again Steve.  I have decided to just simply not exclude anything as am ok with the extra use of space.  I actually have a Samsung 860Pro drive set up to be a dedicated page file drive separate from the C drive.  My PC is super fast so time is not an issue.  My backups go to another Samsung 860Pro which has plenty of spare space.

The following is dialogue between me and Acronis support: 

"Thankyou Abhishek.  Created the Linux Bootable Media from advanced section and it works.  I can create a clone of C drive ok without the "Unable to lock the disk. Boot your computer from a Linux-based bootable media, try again" error message.

However I notice that once newly created ATI2020 bootable media is on my screen; mouse click produces a beep sound from my PC motherboard.  This also occurred with my previous bootable media created 6 months ago.  Bootable media is slow/unresponsive.   However if I wait several minutes the issue goes away and I can continue to use the bootable media in a way where it is responsive.

I should point out that I have 9 storage devices total in my PC and about 7TB of data ... so am thinking this is perhaps a case of bootable media needing time to be ready for use.  Also recently I made my first Backup of C drive within Windows and it was after that this problem started...maybe the bootable media needs time to locate that backup on my PC.  When I go within Recovery my backup appears there without need to browse for it. What is your opinion of this? "

Steve the following Acronis Forum link discusses this too with input from you too:  https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-true-image-2020-forum/true-imag…                     their situation sounds similar to mine...lots of data and drives.  Also my OS is UEFI as is also my ATI bootable media so that is sorted out.  Your opinion Steve would be appreciated...Regards...Gary

Gary, I only very rarely use the Linux based rescue media, and then only for testing out a scenario from other users in these forums.

The rescue media that I do use for all my own PC's is Windows PE but created using the MVP Custom PE Builder tool, which for me offers a whole lot more flexibility and options than any of the media produced by the Acronis Rescue Media Builder program.

I would recommend trying the MVP Custom PE tool to see how this performs on your PC where you will be able to see how much time is taken in booting into the WinPE desktop environment, and where time is taken to launch the ATI application from that PE desktop.

The MVP media includes a number of extra tools not found in the Acronis media, i.e. a File Explorer, Notepad, PDF viewer, Web browser, Image capture, Command prompt plus the ability to add in other WinPE compatible applications.

Link to the MVP tools via the Acronis Community Tools link in my signature.

Thanks Steve for all the info.

I just wanted to say though I now make a full custom backup of C drive regularly this is new stuff for me and I have never done a recovery.  In past I have alway relied on a clone of C drive as it is a exact image of the source drive...it has saved the day on many an occassion for me over past decade.

ATI backup process involves a lot of compression and thus also decompression via Recovery.  Can I ask has it always worked perfectly and what problems have u encountered when doing a recovery via bootable media? How was the OS post the recovery?

Regards ... Gary

Gary, you can turn off the compression in the Advanced options for your backup task if you are concerned about it but this has to be done for a new task as cannot be changed after the task has run.  That said, I have never seen any issue related to compression being used.

Personally, I rarely ever use cloning but regularly use both Backup & Recovery, and only use the bootable media for any recovery that involves the Windows OS.  I have not encountered any problems with doing Recovery other than those that were related to the original disk drive I had made the backup image from, i.e. a failing drive with multiple bad sectors being backed up in order to recover the content to a new drive!

+ 1 to Steve Smith's comments

Steve I am tad confused by the Clean up versions feature.

Please look at pics 1, 2 and 3 attached.  Pic 1 shows my original first backup C,  OS drive.tibx  , then I make a second backup C,  OS drive-0001.tibx as per Pic2.  Then I did a Clean up versions where I deleted the original first backup (the oldest of the two) and end up with what you can see in Picture 3.  The size of the original 1st backup has shrunk down to 12KB but it has not been removed from my Backup location.

Is this normal and what does it mean?

I am guessing that the  remnant 12KB   .tibx file maybe contains data describing the backup scheme to ATI, so is necessary and kept.   I have not deleted any versions outside of ATI using File explorer but if I hypothetically did....is the solution just to delete the entire Backup scheme itself and start afresh.  I have active protection turned off as I prefer Kaspersky to deal with ransomware and nasties as it is excellent AV.

Thanking you... Gary

Gary, the new .tibx files work differently to how the older .tib files did, so it is normal for the behaviour that you are seeing and the 12KB .tibx file needs to be retained as contains metadata used to allow correct recognition of all subsequent files.

See the following KB documents published by Acronis with regards to .tibx files.

KB 63518: Acronis True Image 2020: do not delete first tibx file

KB 63227: Acronis True Image: Do not delete .TIB or .TIBX files outside of Acronis True Image

KB 63498: Acronis True Image 2020: new tibx backup format FAQ

KB 63425: Acronis True Image 2020: Limitations of tibx backups

KB 63516: Acronis True Image 2020: Incremental backups do not create separate files when using new backup format

KB 63445: Acronis True Image 2020: how to view and manage backup versions in new backup format

KB 63444: Acronis True Image 2020: tibx backups in local destinations

Steve u recommend trying the MVP Custom PE tool at webpage for community tools:  

https://kb.acronis.com/content/59335?build=38530&distributor=73&edition…

However its system requirement at page are Windows 7, 8, 8.1 or 10, both 32-bit and 64-bit

• Installed Acronis True Image 2019, 2018, 2017 or 2016
• Optional: Installed Windows ADK (5.x, 6.x or 10.x) for additional components such as MSiScsi and Bitlocker support. Windows ADK is not required for building media from WinRE.

Q1...My version is ATI2020 build 38530.  Will it work on my build?

Q2...Have created DVD-RW using Windows PE with ADK features installed on my PC using latest ATI2020; build 38530.  It is the part of adding drivers that I do not understand?  Which drivers and where do I find them... I know that they are not in a programs .exe  file?  Can u give me a good guide or reference showing how to do this part?  

Q3...Is it ok to use a DVD/CD-RW media? or must it be DVD/CD-R media only?  I prefer to use RW media as bootable media requires updating sometimes.

Regards ... Gary

Gary, the Community Tools KB is in need of being updated!

The MVP tool works fine with all current versions of ATI - I use it myself with both 2020 & 2021 and it works great.

What drivers are you thinking about for Q2 ?

If you take the option in the MVP tool to create media based on your Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), assuming the tool will be used on the same PC, then it will pick up the drivers that may be needed from WinRE without you needing to add more.

Typically, drivers are only needed when you have devices that the tool doesn't support correctly 'out of the box', i.e. some disk controllers or drive, network cards or graphics cards. 
If you look in the D:\MVP_ATIPEBuilder_v186\Drivers_Custom folder of the MVP tool (or the path where you have installed it), you will see a number of 'Internet shortcuts' shown there for obtaining drivers from Dell, HP, Intel, RAID and Ethernet sources.

If you want to add specific drivers from your own PC then it is best to use a tool such as Double Driver which can do this for you and put all the drivers in separate folders that you can copy into the appropriate folder of the MVP tool.  Note: this is the same tool that the MVP script uses if you take the option to add drivers from this PC when creating the media.

My own MVP tool has drivers added to the \Drivers_Custom\x64\NIC folder for my Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9560 160MHz and my Realtek Gaming GbE Family Controller Ethernet cards which were extracted using Double Driver.

For Q3, I never use DVD media other than for Linux distro's and don't have any RW media so cannot advise other than to say that there shouldn't be a problem with using RW media.  I prefer to use USB memory sticks and typically buy these in bundles, i.e. I last bought a bundle of 10 x 16GB USB sticks a few years back that are all still working just fine for various different purposes.

My main rescue media is a USB 3 external HDD 2TB drive with a manually created 'survival kit' type drive which I can use for both Windows upgrades / installs and for rescue media launched from a 32GB FAT32 boot partition, plus save backups etc in the large NTFS partition on the drive.

Steve I only clone my C drive - to exactly the same brand/model/size of M2 NVme SSD/Samsung970Pro.  My destination drive is in an Asus external USB-C hard drive enclosure USB3.2 gen2.  Both source and destination drives are using GPT partition style by default and the final clone destination drive remains as GPT post cloning to it.  I was wondering why use 'Add new disk' tool as cloning process will eventually give notification as per attached pic where it is indicated all partitions will be deleted and my source and destination drives remain GPT post cloning process.  Could I for example delete the destination drive Volume via Windows Disk Management and format it prior to cloning?

Also how do u exactly skip the Partition Creation stage of the tool after going through the disk initialization stage..do I select next and then cancel the tool when I get to the partition creation stage?

I have some further questions I was hoping you could comment on below. Have been experimenting with different ways of creating bootable media and results as follows:

1.       Have created DVD-RW using Windows PE with ADK features installed on my PC using latest ATI2020; build 38530.  U are correct adding drivers is not necessary as this bootable media method works so I can create a clone. This type of bootable media there is no freezing of UI at all.  Also resolution is much higher. I think this will be my method of choice.  But when I get to the destination drive selection part of clone process;  message saying: "Unable to lock the disk. Boot your computer from a Linux-based bootable media, try again" error message happens.  However, when I select OK for dialogue box presenting the above message;  the selection of destination drive process continues so I can finish the cloning process.  Have taken note of you advice to use the 'Add new disk' tool to wipe partitions off the destination drive before doing clone process.  I will need to experiment with that down track.

2.       If I create Linux Bootable Media from the Advanced section of bootable media tab under tools, I can use this media to boot to create clone of C drive; but bootable media is slow/unresponsive.   However, if I wait several minutes the issue goes away and I can continue to use the bootable media in a way where it is responsive…initially when the Acronis screen is available I just wait 2 minutes or so and it works ok to clone/recover etc.  We know that however this is caused by having lots of storage devices…9 and lack of drivers. But it works so I can get end result of clone or recovery

3.       When I first created bootable media for ATI2020 it was downloaded as an   .iso  file from my Acronis Account Page which then burned to DVD.    When I use bootable media from this source iso file;   I get the message: "Unable to lock the disk. Boot your computer from a Linux-based bootable media, try again" error message when attempting to select destination drive for cloning … cannot get past this point of process.  It appears to not be Linux based and I cannot rely on it to clone/recover.  What type of bootable media is this bootable media…is it Linux based?  It seems basic and with Acronis notification indicates is not Linux?

I do not have a need to add any special drivers when creating bootable media as 1&2 work and the MVP Custom PE Builder process is too tedious for me.  Have noticed in past with update of ATI, sometimes previously made  Bootable media does not work anymore so having to recreate this bootable media is tad tedious.

Now I also do regular Full Backup every 3 days and a separate incremental backup process every week too.  Hopefully cloning + backup/recovery will give me good insurance against a disaster. I create backups within Windows and assume it is best to do recovery from bootable media. Do you create your Backups within Windows or do you do it from bootable media?

I do think the bootable media process needs to be improved. It is so fundamental to have a fully effective bootable media to recover/clone; so is also something that would make Acronis more reliable.  Recovering or cloning within Windows has its issues.

I have used thumb drives for bootable media in past but noticed that when I look at the resulting clone under Disk Management it does look more different to C drive source drive than when I do the same process with DVD-R.  I have never had to use a clone to replace C drive where the clone was created using USB thumb drive bootable media… so do not know if it is an issue.

Thanks Steve. I am certainly improving my knowledge of bootable media and ATI....Gary

Gary, first question:  What type of PC is involved here with the Samsung NVMe M.2 drive?  Is it a laptop or a desktop / tower PC?

My reason for asking is that if this is a laptop, then it is recommended that any clone is done with the target drive installed in the laptop, not in an external enclosure, to ensure that it will be bootable!

Please see KB 56634: Acronis True Image: how to clone a disk - and review the step by step guide given there.

Note: the first section of the above KB document directs laptop users to KB 2931: How to clone a laptop hard drive - and has the following paragraph:

It is recommended to put the new drive in the laptop first, and connect the old drive via USB. Otherwise you will may not be able to boot from the new cloned drive, as Acronis True Image will apply a bootability fix to the new disk and adjust the boot settings of the target drive to boot from USB. If the new disk is inside the laptop, the boot settings will be automatically adjusted to boot from internal disk. As such, hard disk bays cannot be used for target disks. For example, if you have a target hard disk (i.e. the new disk to which you clone, and from which you intend to boot the machine) in a bay, and not physically inside the laptop, the target hard disk will be unbootable after the cloning.

I have never bothered to purchase an external enclosure for NVMe M.2 drives, and have never used cloning with that type of drive either.  I have successfully used Backup & Recovery with my own Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD's, where I did this just last week using 2 identical drives (backing up the original to my external HDD, and restoring to the new SSD installed in the laptop).

So, the next question, have you tested installing your cloned SSD in your PC and booted into Windows from it to confirm that the clone will actually work correctly?

The reason I have been using the 'Add new disk' tool to prepare any disks prior to doing a recovery etc, is to help avoid any lock issues caused by flags set on the drive by Windows that would suggest the drive hasn't been shutdown fully (due to hybrid sleep / hibernation), plus because my new 970 EVO Plus SSD came as not initialised and wouldn't be found as a target drive for recovery otherwise.

See the attached zip file with images showing use of Add new disk without creating any partitions!

The ISO download from your Acronis Account is of the Linux version of rescue media as Acronis do not have a license / permission to redistribute any Microsoft Windows PE based media - this has to be created from within ATI on a Windows PC.

Most of my backups are scheduled & run from within Windows but when I am intending to do any disk replacement or upgrade, then my normal approach will be to create a completely independent full disk backup after booting from my external WinPE HDD drive which I will use to recover to the new disk.  The reason for this is simply to avoid any issues with my scheduled tasks if they are run after a recovery being done which restores back data in the Acronis folders from before the date of the file being recovered from.

Thankyou for reply Steve and info regards cloning with a laptop situation.  I actually have a Desktop PC

Have subsituted 2 clone destination drives into place of C drive in PC and they work without issue.  One was made using ATI2020 advanced method Linux based bootable media and the other bootable media was using advanced method Windows PE with ADK features installed on my PC.

I get a vibe that you consider Backup and Recovery to be a better way to restore a broken C drive OS, rather than cloning.  Is this correct and is it correct because it is more problem free? Do you consider it to be more reliable?

I went to Windows10 mid last year after using Windows7 and ATI for cloning from 2010 until mid 2020.  Clones substituted for C drive always worked and creating bootable media within ATI2010, 2013 and 2015 was straight forward without issue.

​​​​​On Windows10 and ATI2020 been experimenting with different ways of creating bootable media and results as follows:

1.       Have created DVD-RW using Windows PE with ADK features installed on my PC using latest ATI2020; build 38530.  U are correct adding drivers is not necessary as this bootable media method works so I can create a clone. This type of bootable media there is no freezing of UI at all.  Also resolution is much higher. .  But when I get to the destination drive selection part of clone process;  message saying: "Unable to lock the disk. Boot your computer from a Linux-based bootable media, try again" error message happens.  However, when I select OK for dialogue box presenting the above message;  the selection of destination drive process continues so I can finish the cloning process.  

2.       If I create Linux Bootable Media from the Advanced section of bootable media tab under tools, I can use this media to boot to create clone of C drive; but bootable media is slow/unresponsive.   However, if I wait several minutes the issue goes away and I can continue to use the bootable media in a way where it is responsive…initially when the Acronis screen is available I just wait 2 minutes or so and it works ok to clone/recover etc.  We know that however this is caused by having lots of storage devices…9 and lack of drivers. But it works so I can get end result of clone or recovery. I think this will be my method of choice.  Waiting several minutes for bootable media to be ready is ok.

3.       When I first created bootable media for ATI2020 it was downloaded as an   .iso  file from my Acronis Account Page which then burned to DVD.    When I use bootable media from this source iso file;   I get the message: "Unable to lock the disk. Boot your computer from a Linux-based bootable media, try again" error message when attempting to select destination drive for cloning … cannot get past this point of process.  It appears to not be Linux based and I cannot rely on it to clone/recover.  Acronis support tell me this is simple bootable media but do not think it is Linux based otherwise I would not get the error message.

Have taken note of you advice to use the 'Add new disk' tool to wipe partitions off the destination drive before doing clone process to avoid the: "Unable to lock the disk. Boot your computer from a Linux-based bootable media, try again" error message.  However I did this using ATI2020 within Windows.  Selected GPT initialisation and then did not create a partition.  Once I selected Proceed,  Acronis prompted to restart PC which I did.  But however after I got back into Windows the destination drive was not changed at all and looked like it did before I did the 'Add new disk' process...No change at all.  Is this because I did the Add New Disk within Windows and should I have done it from ATI Bootable media?

Thanks again...Gary

I get a vibe that you consider Backup and Recovery to be a better way to restore a broken C drive OS, rather than cloning.  Is this correct and is it correct because it is more problem free? Do you consider it to be more reliable?

Gary, IMO Backup & Recovery is simply safer than using cloning!  With B&R the working source disk is removed from the PC and set aside safely, then any changes only are made to the target disk installed to replace the removed source disk.

Part of the reason for my opinion here is the number of users who have come to these forums over the years and who have managed to get cloning wrong and ended up with 2 disks that no longer will boot and a long path to recovery because they had no backup either!

With the advent of new NVMe M.2 SSD card drives, I only use B&R for the simple reason that I haven't bought an external adapter for this or any other PCIe card type drive!  I did look but then found far too many choices for different types of interface, mSATA, NVMe, M.2  all which need a specific adapter because there isn't one that can accept all variations!

I only use the Windows PE or Windows RE versions of the rescue media and apart from needing to use Linux media for a very old 32-bit non-PAE IBM Thinkpad T42 laptop, this works just fine.

To my knowledge, there should be no real difference between the ISO image that you can download from your Acronis Account and the Linux media (or ISO file) you create on your own PC.  Any difference would lie in the software used to convert the ISO to a USB stick or burn it to a CD/DVD disc.  The Acronis Rescue Media Builder tool can create both USB & Optical media directly, so doesn't need to involve third party tools such as Rufus etc.

I cannot remember if I have run the Add new disk tool from within Windows recently as I have been mainly working with NVMe M.2 drives so as above, I have used B&R, removed the original SSD and then run the tool from the rescue media and all worked fine!

Thanks Steve...I can confirm that for me the 'Add Disk Tool' works fine using ATI Bootable Media.  This way allowed me to initialise my destination drive without creating any partitions so disk is unallocated space prior to cloning to that destination drive. However even as unallocated space without a clone of Windows on it; I still get the "Unable to lock the disk. Boot your computer from a Linux-based bootable media, try again" error message when attempting to select a destination drive stage of cloning.  However, when I select OK for dialogue box presenting the above message;  the selection of destination drive process continues so I can finish the cloning process. Also the clone works when substituted for current C drive.  'Add Disk Tool' does not work within Windows for above process...I suspect this may have something to do with it being a clone with Windows on it...guessing here.

After all this experimenting my method of choice is create Linux Bootable Media from the Advanced section of bootable media tab under tools, I can use this media to boot to create clone of C drive; but bootable media is slow/unresponsive.   However, if I wait several minutes the issue goes away and I can continue to use the bootable media in a way where it is responsive…initially when the Acronis screen is available I just wait 2 minutes or so and it works ok to clone/recover etc.  We know that however this is caused by having lots of storage devices…9 and lack of drivers. But it works so I can get end result of clone or recovery. I think this will be my method of choice.  Waiting several minutes for bootable media to be ready is ok.  I see from other posts this is a known behaviour for others as well.

Thanks too for all your help and when you post back I will mark this post as solved.  I hope in long term Acronis get this bootable media aspect of ATI better sorted out as it is critical to ATI for cloning/recovery etc and core to making ATI dependable.  I shall from now on do both cloning and backup/recovery so I have a better safety net so to speak.  My concern with Backups is that they are occuring with a non-static C drive OS.  In cloning that is not an issue.  However many users vouch for Backup/Recovery so shall use it too.

Regards.........Gary