Cloning smaller drive with TI2009
I see mention in several places that when you clone a drive with more than one partition on it to a larger one that the new partitions will be proportional to the size of the originals.
I need to clone files to a smaller drive. Can I use TI2009 clone to do this?
I made a bootable drive on a 1TB drive when I had problems with the internal 350GB drive in a computer. Now that the 1TB drive is what we want to restore to the 350GB drive I need to clone the image back to the 350GB drive. The complete size of the drive image is under 300GB, so size is not a problem.
Thanks,
Pat
I have cloned to both a larger, same, and smaller size drive. It always worked beautifully - using automatic setting.
As far as I am concerned, Cloning is the only safe backup. Verifying a Image does not assure that it will work properly. However, trying and failing will destroy the Target and likely trash its partition, too.
With a clone, you can check it out easily by substitution and booting new drive.
Try to avoid a USB external drive if you can - slow!
On the other hand, using two SATA drives - both connected to the motherboard, a complete cloning operation takes about an hour and a half.
Goodluck!
Hello patintexas,
Thank you for using Acronis Products
You can clone the source hard disk drive to destination even if the size of the source drive is bigger, but size of data should be less then the size of destination hard drive. Regarding the transfer method there are 3 choices:
- as is;
- new disk space is proportionally distributed between the old disk partitions;
- new disk space is distributed manually.
It always worked beautifully - using automatic setting.......
....As far as I am concerned, Cloning is the only safe backup. Verifying a Image does not assure that it will work properly. However, trying and failing will destroy the Target and likely trash its partition, too.
. Circumstances may dictate your choice of methods. For example, I would offer different choices.
If I were moving to a larger drive, I would choose to Restore an image and resize the partitions manually. If I were to perform a clone, I would use the manual mode and have control over the partition sizes. Each method has its own benefit and limitations and the proper choice might be controlled by the hardware and circumstances.
1. The automatic setting (cloning) does not properly control the partition sizes if the partition is a small diagnostic or recovery partition. This type partition should be maintained at the same size as original. Automatic and proportional changes the size and there has been postings of the result not being functional. Using the "manual" setting enables the user to have better control over the partition sizes. Automatic works ok for a one partition disk but for multiple partition disk, the resulting partition sizes is not always what the user wants.
2. As for cloning being safer, there have numerous postings on the old forum about a botched clone where the original & target became non-functional. Whether this was a user mistake or a software mistake, one could argue but it has happened far too many times for cloning to be considered safer. Whereas, if the are restoring an image to a new drive, the source does not have to be installed and it can be safe and secure not attached. If the restore has problems, you can always redo the restore or perform another image creation and try again. So, to me, restoring an image to a new drive has less risk--not more. It is certainly true that restoring an image to an existing drive does have a risk factor but this risk is less because you can retry using previous images. A botched clone leaves nothing but trouble and it takes an image restoration to recover from a botched clone.
Again, circumstances may dictate your choice of methods.
GroverH..........you make a valid point and I will remember that for future purposes.
Dmitry........There are 3 choices.....but which choice do you recommend to choose when cloning a bigger (source) drive to a smaller (destination) hard drive.
Hello Sal,
I understand the question and will do everything possible from my side to give you a clear explanation.
Actually it doesn’t matter which transfer method you will choose. I would recommend you to choose manual method so you can redistribute free space on the destination hard drive yourself.
Please note that in case there is any type of USB storage device attached to the machine (USB hard drive, card reader etc) the clone may fail.
If you face such an issue temporarily detach any USB storage device that is plugged in. Perform the cloning or restore with the USB storage device detached.
If you have an inbuilt card reader, then disable it through Windows Device Manager:
- Hit Win-R to get to the command prompt;
- Type in devmgmt.msc and hit Enter;
- In the Device Manager window locate your card reader (it probably starts with letters SD, MMC etc);
- Right-click on the card reader and select Disable.
Also, as a workaround, you can try performing the same operation from Acronis Bootable Rescue Media.
Let me know if you need further assistance.
Thank you.