Why do I have to do this?
The harddrive on my computer was showing signs of a failure in the near future, so I installed a new second harddrive and using the Acronis Home 2013 Clone tool, cloned the original drive to the new one.
Acronis did this effectively and from the users point of view painlessly, as all I had to do after the shutdown was swap the SATA cables.
But afterwards, this is where I've had some pain and confusion.
Everything works as it should, but a lot of the software is now moaning for me to re-register the products as apparently they think it's a new install.
Can someone please enlighten me on this subject as I don't see a clone action as a new install of apps.
Thanks
Ax
Thanks for the note Pat.
At reboot, the only disk connected was the new cloned disk, the old one was still in the machine, but the SATA data cable to it was disconnected at the MOBO.
Sorry I don't understand your second comment, why would I want to mess with a recovery CD? (Though I did make a Boot Recovery CD before commencing the clone action).
As I was using TrueImage 2013 the clone action was direct from the old drive to the new drive, and that process went perfectly, much to my relief.
Ax
arturo-x,
Although ATI is designed to do recoveries of disk and partition backups and clones starting from Windows, we recommend to do these operations from the recovery CD. This avoids various risks of failures. Many users can do these operations as designed from Windows, so that you know.
Software registration is often associated with hardware information, including disk information. If some software complains after a clone, something didn't quite go right during the cloning process.
If your old disk is still running, do a full disk "disk and partition" backup, including the active partition, if it is not on your system/software disk. This is the backup you need to restore to a new disk.
PS: i am running software notorious for registration and activation and I have had never any issues. So your case is not a general case.
Mmnn! Thanks for the note.
Sorry I don't quite follow what you've written (It's written quite quite okay, but I don't understand the content) so I'll take one point at a time with how I interpret... probably wrong.
I needn't have bothered to get the latest version of ATI, I could have carried on with my old version as it doesn't matter what's installed on the HD it'll all be done on re-boot from the Recovery CD?
So that Recovery Boot CD I made with ATI is enough to do all the business required to effectively copy from one HD to another?
And then when I re-boot after cable changes it will all work perfectly?
I wonder what the point of the Clone tool in ATI is?
FWIW. The cloning process went okay.
After disconnecting the SATA DATA cable on the old drive, and putting the new drive SATA DATA cable in its place, rebooted the machine, it went cleanly and without hitch.
All major applications work okay, just that some of them wanted re-registering. (Not All)
I've not yet found an app (And there's a lot of 'em on the machine) that either fails to run or moans about anything else.
The old disk is still in the machine, but it's disconnected from Data and power for the time being.
Sorry but I don't understand your second from last paragraph...
Are you saying, I need to reconnect the dodgy drive, put everything back as it was, then using the ATI Disk partition and Backup tool do that process from the old disk to the new disk overwriting the cloned version on the new disk?
Then when I swap the cables and reboot the machine it will boot using the new drive?
Thanks
Ax
Mmnn! Thanks for the note.
I needn't have bothered to get the latest version of ATI, I could have carried on with my old version as it doesn't matter what's installed on the HD it'll all be done on re-boot from the Recovery CD?
To be clear, you can/should do the backups from Windows, so that it is easier to schedule, etc. Only recoveries and clones should be done from the recovery CD. If you have an old version of ATI, it might not support recent OSs. In this case, provided that the recovery CD sees your hardware correctly, you could use it both for backups and recoveries.
So that Recovery Boot CD I made with ATI is enough to do all the business required to effectively copy from one HD to another?
Yes. You could use the CD both to do do the disk and partition backup AND to restore it on the new disk.
And then when I re-boot after cable changes it will all work perfectly?
Yes.
I wonder what the point of the Clone tool in ATI is?
It is a good question. Cloning is exactly the same as the combination of a disk and partition backup of the entire disk with an immediate restore. Cloning involves more risks, is less flexible, etc. So I don't see much benefits over a disk and partition + restore, aside from the fact that you don't need a third disk to store the backup, and that it is faster (a single operation rather than 2).
Are you saying, I need to reconnect the dodgy drive, put everything back as it was, then using the ATI Disk partition and Backup tool do that process from the old disk to the new disk overwriting the cloned version on the new disk?
No you don't need to if you system is operating correctly at this point.
Thanks for the clarification, appreciated.
Ax
One last thing...
So with the 'disk and partition backup' I would have to make the backup somewhere, then take that and do a restore onto the new disk?
What if you've only got the dodgy HD and the new HD, where do you put the backup ATI is producing, not really practical to put 300+ Gigs onto DVDs?
Ax
No, DVDs are not ideal. Many of us backup to external hard drives. I backup to external USB hard drives. They're fast, reliable, and reasonably priced.
Indeedy... I do have a 500 Gigs USB HD attached to the machine for general day to day backing, but my concern is that the 'disk and partition backup' process, like the clone process will wipe the existing data on the USB backup HD?
I have no idea, does it?
Also there's the speed issue, even with USB2 it's a slow process compared to internal SATA drives with sizeable caches.
I guess, another situation where TANSTAAFL applies.
I do have a NAS networked to all the machines in the house for major backing, but that's chronically slow compared to internals, and SWMBO would be exceedingly distressed if I overwrote all her stuff, accidentally. ;-)
Thanks for your input, appreciated.
Ax
Arturo-x, images are treated as another file, think of a zip or RAR file that contains a compressed representation of a set of files, an True Image tib file is similar except it contains disk structures. As it is treated by the OS as a file, you can have as many images stored on a drive as will fit.
The contents of a destination disk will only be destroyed on recovery of a tib file, the source tib file will not be destroyed by that process. This is one of the advantages of making disk images rather than direct cloning, you can store a number of images offsite, you can make incremental or differential images, you can make a number of complete disk images if you prefer, you can also schedule image making or run tasks that can manipulate the archives/images you make.
If speed is a concern and you ahve the internal space, why not purchase a removable caddy, this connects straight into the Sata/IDE bus, once an image is made you can remove the drive caddy and carry on.
On my system a USB 2.0 drive can image a 500GB disk (220GB used space) in 40 minutes with standard compression.
Indeedy... I do have a 500 Gigs USB HD attached to the machine for general day to day backing, but my concern is that the 'disk and partition backup' process, like the clone process will wipe the existing data on the USB backup HD?
No. Backup is safe. clone is not. That's why I keep recommending that users choose Backup and avoid Clone (unless there's some compelling reason why they must clone). Backup and restore achieve the same result as clone, but it's much safer, more flexible, and gives you much greater backup redundancy.
Thanks folks, I now understand.
Ax