Backup - Drive Image - Cloning

[Chuck Engels]

Thanks Tim, Ghost has been around forever but I am not a big Norton/Symantec fan and would rather use something else if available. The option I am trying out now is free so that is even better.

I have successfully installed the cloned drive and booted up the machine perfectly.
One thing to mention;
The cloning makes a copy of files at particular times during the process. If you have a program open it will copy the files perfectly at that particular time but if you make any changes after the files are copied those changes will not appear on the cloned drive.
As an example I had Outlook open during the process. When I installed the cloned drive and started the computer it only had emails from shortly after the cloning process started, not any emails that I had sent or received during the cloning process. Also, changes to a Word document made during the cloning process were not on the cloned drive, the original file was there but not the changes.
My recommendation would be not to have any programs open during cloning.

This will be my new solution, very happy with the product considering it is free

[George Tyndall]

This will be my new solution, very happy with the product considering it is free

That's fabulous news, Chuck.

I'm going to try the same thing this weekend, but with Acronis TIH2011, and report back later.

[1horsemoviemiss]

My son who is an IT specialist (who occasionally helps his mum!) set my old PC up with Gentoo to do images that are supposed to be bootable discs. The first image took many hours but subsequent images took far less time. It must refer back to compare & make changes as necessary. My old PC has been unstable for a few years now making the image necessary.

However I now have a new fangdangle PC which he is going to set the win7 on a linux platform & I guess even though win7 has it's own dedicated recovery partition, he will still set it up to be imaged to an external HD. I assume it will be Gentoo again since it is his favorite. I have no idea exactly which Gentoo software it is & no way to ask him since he rarely answers my emails & lives half a world away! You would have to work that out yourself. I say that because I already know(think) there are several forms of Gentoo image software. Also he may have tweeked the software he used on my old PC.

I have never had cause to use it for reboot & naturally I hope I never have too! lol

[George Tyndall]

I'm going to try the same thing this weekend, but with Acronis TIH2011, and report back later.

Haven't had time to do that.

Chuck, did you insert the clone into your machine as has been your usual past practice, and did it work flawlessly?

[Chuck Engels]

I have successfully installed the cloned drive and booted up the machine perfectly.
One thing to mention;
The cloning makes a copy of files at particular times during the process. If you have a program open it will copy the files perfectly at that particular time but if you make any changes after the files are copied those changes will not appear on the cloned drive.

As an example I had Outlook open during the process. When I installed the cloned drive and started the computer it only had emails from shortly after the cloning process started, not any emails that I had sent or received during the cloning process. Also, changes to a Word document made during the cloning process were not on the cloned drive, the original file was there but not the changes.
My recommendation would be not to have any programs open during cloning.

This will be my new solution, very happy with the product considering it is free

[George Tyndall]

I forgot that you said that already.

[Chuck Engels]

Not a problem George

[George Tyndall]

I'm going to try the same thing this weekend, but with Acronis TIH2011, and report back later.

Jonathan, who is a very knowledgable technician and who says he has been with Fry's at City of Industry (California) for 10 years, looked at the machine in my signature and we had the following conversation:

"You've got a space for a second internal drive, so install the drive that you will clone your C drive to in that space."

"That won't overload my power supply.?"

"The drive will consume only 8-10 watts, perhaps 25 when it's first spinning up, so not a problem. Besides that, the only time both will be running is during the actual cloning process."

"Why is that?"

"Because I'm going to suggest that, once the clone is finished, you shut down and then disconect the power to your source drive before re-booting with the cloned drive to be sure it is functional. Use it for a few days to assure yourself that the clone was successful.

"Once you're sure, shut down, disconnect the power to the cloned drive, re-connect the power to the source drive, and then boot with that source drive. Don't reconnect the cloned drive again until you are ready to make another clone from the source drive. When that happens, you are going to need to boot with both drives connected. If Windows 7 has difficulty booting when there are two drives connected, each containing the OS and programs, give me a call."

My questions for muvipix members are:

1. Do you see any problems with that overall recommendation?

2. If Jonathan is not available (and he isn't at the present time), can you make suggestions what to do if Windows can't boot when both drives are powered when I re-boot for the purpose making a new clone? Should I leave the cover off the machine and connect the power cord to the target drive only after the machine has booted from the source drive (easy to do as it's on top of the source drive and just below the cover)?

3. Is Chuck's method of cloning to an internal drive in an external case for some reason preferable to Jonathan's method?

4. The new drive is 2TB--double the size of my current internal. Is there a way to parition the new drive and then periodically re-clone to alternate paritions?

5. Chuck, according to the site for the software that you used, the cloned drive will even boot to different hardware, but Jonathan says that, although that may be true for some of the hardware such as the disc drives, if it is the motherboard that dies, then it will need to be replaced with an identical motherboard or the clone will not work. Can you or any other member shed light on this??

[Peru]

I'm going to try the same thing this weekend, but with Acronis TIH2011, and report back later.

My questions for muvipix members are:

1. Do you see any problems with that overall recommendation?
I always temporarily connect the destination drive internally to clone.

2. If Jonathan is not available (and he isn't at the present time), can you make suggestions what to do if Windows can't boot when both drives are powered when I re-boot for the purpose making a new clone?
If the boot drive order is correct, you won't have a problem.

Should I leave the cover off the machine and connect the power cord to the target drive only after the machine has booted from the source drive (easy to do as it's on top of the source drive and just below the cover)?
No, don't try to connect it "hot."

3. Is Chuck's method of cloning to an internal drive in an external case for some reason preferable to Jonathan's method?
No, just sometimes more convenient.

4. The new drive is 2TB--double the size of my current internal. Is there a way to parition the new drive and then periodically re-clone to alternate paritions?
Probably, but I would use two different drives and alternate. If all goes sour, you still have something to install so that you can use the computer.

5. Chuck, according to the site for the software that you used, the cloned drive will even boot to different hardware, but Jonathan says that, although that may be true for some of the hardware such as the disc drives, if it is the motherboard that dies, then it will need to be replaced with an identical motherboard or the clone will not work. Can you or any other member shed light on this??
I agree with Jonathan. Even if it says it will boot from different hardware, it may not. Search for reviews of the software online to verify this.

[George Tyndall]

2. If Jonathan is not available (and he isn't at the present time), can you make suggestions what to do if Windows can't boot when both drives are powered when I re-boot for the purpose making a new clone?
If the boot drive order is correct, you won't have a problem.]

Thanks for the detailed reply.

Sad to say, it appears that something is rotten in the state of Denmark, specifically, it took Acronis TIH2011 only an hour to allegedly clone my C drive, which contans 330GB of data. That seem quite short.

Question: Is it ok to leave both the source and target drives powered and try to re-boot by changing the boot order? If yes, please remind me how to do that at startup.

[George Tyndall]

Question: Is it ok to leave both the source and target drives powered and try to re-boot by changing the boot order? If yes, please remind me how to do that at startup.

I recalled how to change the boot order, however, I could not boot from the cloned disk, in othe words, my experience with Acronis TIH2011appears to be the same as Chuck's was with 2012: failed to clone. I do note, however, that the Acronis instruction is: "8.When the cloning completes, shut down the system and remove one of the hard drives."

Does #8 mean that the only way to test is that I must shut down and plug the data cable from the source drive into the target drive to test for success?

Here is an image of my Disc Management window. Doesn't it confirm that the attempted clone with Acronis was a failure?

Disk Management.JPG

P.S. Chuck, I just noted that, while the Free version of the software that you used successfully allows for booting from a Linux-based disc, the Paid ($39,00) version does not.

http://www.todo-backup.com/products/home/comparison.htm

On the other hand, the paid version does allow one to take a snapshot of his C drive before installing new software--and that $39 is less than the $59.95 that I paid for Rollback-RX after Windows System Restore failed to work for me.

[Peru]

Did you try booting with just the cloned drive connected?

[Chuck Engels]

After cloning I have always removed the old drive and installed the cloned drive in its place.
Doesn't matter what software I have used, I always do it that way. If the old drive died that is the process you would go through to get up and running again, consider it a dry run

Then I keep the old drive as a backup and run off of the cloned drive until I clone again.

[George Tyndall]

After cloning I have always removed the old drive and installed the cloned drive in its place.
Doesn't matter what software I have used, I always do it that way. If the old drive died that is the process you would go through to get up and running again, consider it a dry run

Then I keep the old drive as a backup and run off of the cloned drive until I clone again.

And when you are ready to clone again, you will clone to the backup drive? Or, do you periodically purchase new drives to clone to?

[Barb O]

George,
FYI
Are you aware that the Photoshop Elements 7 Organizer expects that on a system which has multiple disk drives , eack disk drive will have a unique serial number. People who have cloned a drive and then used both drives have experienced problems.

I am not sure, but I thought this might apply if you have both of your internal drives connected.