Cloning a proprietary drive
Hello:
First post, a bit of a novice at cloning and I did do a search first, so please be kind. :)
I have a rather expensive HDD audio player (NAIM HDX) which just had the main HDD replaced under warranty. The out of warranty cost would have been over $600 (the drive itself is a Seagate 500Gb pipeline AV drive - $40 on Amazon). This drive contains a windows XP-based operating system in a proprietary implementation. I would like to make a bit-for-bit copy (duplicate) of the drive so that, should it fail out of warranty, I can simply swap it out.
Will Acronis Drive Image permit me to clone (duplicate) this drive exactly so that I can just substitute into the hard disk player and have it work just like the original? There are a couple of partition on the drive as well as one or more hidden partitions (but a bit-for-bit copier shouldn't be bothered by this, should it?)
Thanks,
Keith
The clone function of ATIH is an exact mirror image of the source drive used for the clone. The clone will copy all partitions on the disk. I agree with the above poster in that you can perform a full disk mode backup and restore that backup to another disk as a way to avoid any data corruption that could occur using the clone feature.
Thanks for the responses. Unfortunately, being a novice at this, I'm not sure what you mean by backup and then clone. The hard disk player has no computer facilities accessible to the user. All I can do is to take out the master drive from the player (a bit like a DVR, I'm guessing). Then I need to duplicate it. I have a separate windows 7 computer that I was going to install Acronis on, connect the two drives and clone one to the other. So what would the recommended process be?
Since you have access to this Forum I suggest that you click on the Acronis True Image 2014 Web-Help link on the left side of this page. Read through the Backup and Restore section and under Tools and Utilities section the Clone section. After reviewing the documentation ask back here with any questions. You must have at least a basic understanding of the terminology and methodologies used by the application in order to perform successful clone and/or backup/restore operations.
Even though your device is not a computer this should make little difference. I would suggest that you remove the drive from the device, hook it up to your PC, attempt to access the drive using Windows Disk Management console and capture a screenshot of that screen. Having a look at how the disk is structured in that way greatly improves the ability of the Forum MVP's to be of assistance.
OK, I read the web help sections and have two questions. It looks like I should use the "Automatic" and "As Is" modes. The first question relates to a comment on the As Is mode: The web help section says:
"If you elect to transfer information "as is," a new partition will be created for every old one with the same size and type, file system and label. The unused space will become unallocated. As a rule, "as is" transfers are not recommended as they leave a lot of unallocated space on the new disk.
Given that I want an EXACT copy (bit-for-bit, or is that referred to a sector-for sector?) of one 500Gb drive to another 500Gb drive, and that the first drive is not full, will it convert available empty disk space in the data partition into unallocated space or will it just create an identical partition with available space on it (like the original)?
The second question is do I need True Image Premium. The chat support specialist said I did but he didn't as any specific technical questions about the cloning so I think he was just trying to up-sell me to their most expensive product).
Help is greatly appreciated!
Keith
If source disk contains no unallocated space and target disk is same capacity an as is transfer will create an identicle disk just like the source drive.
You should spring for the Premium version, compare the feature set of the products and base your decision on what best fills yor needs.