Failed Attempts to clone a 1 terabyte drive to a 500 gig drive
I just purchased ATIH 2012 yesterday and ran into a problem I can't seem to locate the resolution for (within the forum).
I have attached a 1 terabyte drive (windows 7 bootable drive) and newly formated brand new 500 gig drive inside my desktop computer. I'm attempting to clone the 1 terabyte drive to the 500 gig drive -- the data on the large drive is 1/4 less than the smaller drive total size.
The software suggests what looks like appropriate partition changes to the 500 gig drive, I click the proceed button and the process begins to work (for about 30 seconds) and requests a reboot. After reboot, the seemingly dos based Acronis imaging /cloning tool appeares (or at least a cursor appears as well as the language). Then a message windows pops up and the machine reboots back into windows without completing the cloning process.
The popup window happens so quickly, I can't see what it says nor can i pause the screen.
Ulimately, I need to be able to clone the large drive to the smaller drive (while making the smaller drive bootable so that I can permanently remove the large drive).
If there are any suggestions or techniques for accomplishing this with atih I would love to hear them.
thanks.
317-796-3306
thank you.
When you do a "reboot" procedure from TI in Windows the program is running in automatic mode. In some cases, TI aborts and nothing is changed. In others, TI (or DD) bascially corrupts the partitions/drive.
Could you please expand on this? I'd like to know more about this possible disaster situation.
tuttle,
The automatic mode is supposed to abort if it "sees" something that it doesn't expect or can't process. For example, if it's supposed to do something and when it reboots the drives can't be found. In many cases, it does abort. This causes the "nothing changed" problem that people complain about. I read that and see it as a good thing -- nothing changed = no data loss.
Though it's less likely to happen with TI than DD the automatic procedures can leave a drive unusable if the procedure gets aborted incorrectly (like part way through) or (even worse) if it continues when it shouldn't. The main reason for this is that the drive is in an unstable state with the partitions and file systems in flux. With TI you are generally restoring so there is usually only one partition at risk (the one being restored) and it can usually be restored again if it fails. With DD you can end up with a scrambled drive that's unrecoverable. This is the reason it's so important to create an Entire Disk Image backup before making partitioning changes if any data on the drive is important to you.
If you boot to the TI/DD CD and do the procedure manually (or even if you choose to use an automated function) you can usually see if something doesn't look right. Also, if there is an error you can see that. I generally only use the automated procedures for testing or for systems that aren't important. Manual procedures (with backups) for most changes. I'd rather spend half the day creating backups I don't have to use than who knows how many days fighting to recreate the system, assuming it can be recreated.
I think some people tend to avoid critical backups because of the size. If they have a 2TB data drive and want change it they don't want to take the time or don't have the space to back it up and so they just hit "proceed" and hope for the best. I suppose this does work most of the time, but it only takes one disaster and you won't ever want to go through it again -- take the time and get enough space, it's well worth it.
Thanks, good information.
What are "automatic procedures" in TI? Are those tasks that run on a schedule?
No. I was referring to the "reboot" procedures: operations that run automatically and are out of your control.
OK so, apparently, the 2 "bootable" cd's aren't bootable, so I had to resort to creating usb drives. so now I can boot into the acronis loader thing, but now it suggests it can't see my smaller 500 gig (brand new) seagate drive.
I tried to attach the drive to an external usb port, but then the software had trouble loading the acronis menu and hangs.
so....now I have no idea what to try next besides request my money back and try something else.
any suggestions?
It is good that you are testing the recovery CD on your computer.
One option is to purchase the Acronis Plus Pack and create a WinPE-based recovery CD. This disk will contain Windows drivers and should see your disk much better.
Another option is to try some other backup software. Don't forget to uninstall ATI before installing some other imaging software. Test their recovery CD as well.
OK. Discovered the problem related to drive not appearing while using the bootable usb thumb drive I created. Apparently the master boot record was goofed up. I simply had to use the diskpart command to CLEAN the disk that represented the disk the software couldn't see. I started the disck copy from the large drive to the smaller drive -- only time will tell if the desktop will bot from the smaller drive with the larger drive removed.
the exact command was:
from within a windows 7 dos session
diskpart
list disk
(select the disk that I'm having a problem with) select disk (disk number)
CLEAN
then shutdown the machine and boot from the thumb drive and run the clone tool.
t