Question about Acronis True Image Home

Hey...

I'm thinking of upgrading my HDD to a larger one but I don't want to re-install everything on my computer. So I was thinking of making a complete image of my entire Windows installation plus every file I have, it's around 50-60 GB...

But I do have some wuestions about it...

1. Can I install the image from an external HDD via USB as I don't want to burn 10+ DVD's with the image (higher risk of failure) ?

2. Do I need to create a "Bootable Rescue Media" AND ALSO create a complete image of my HDD ?

3. Other things I need to know ?

Regards,
Jakob Laursen

 

yes. there are several ways to accomplish this, here are a couple...

route #1:

1) make the image on an external drive
2) create a "bootable rescue media disk" with acronis
3) boot computer with your bootable rescue medai disk (i assume you know how to do this), with new hard drive installed, usb drive with image attached
4) copy image onto the new hard drive from the usb drive

if you have the space, it would be a good idea NOT to delete your hard drive before everything is up and running and working well.


route #2

NOTE, however, that there is no reason you can't install the image from your current drive (which will make things much easier, avoiding all these 'boot' issues).

if you have space, just save the image of your current drive onto your current drive (this isn't wise as a backup, but fine for copying in this situation), then copy the image over to the new drive via usb. (you have to be able to stick your new drive in an enclosure to accomplish this...)

next, install the new drive and you're good to go. also, before installing the new drive, you could even check to see that the new drive is working correctly before installing it by changing the bios to boot from usb device.

word.

 

The easiest way is to get an external 2.5" USB enclosure and use Acronis TI to clone the existing HDD directly onto the new one. then swap the HDDs and boot up.

John

 

agreed, though a usb clone can be slow....I've got a desktop that i carry around with 6 sata ports and 2 ide controllers with a couple of 3.5 to 2.5 adapters. That way, no matter what I come across that I need to clone, I can very quickly do it.

 

I will probably do it the other way around... Installing the image onto a new HDD mounted in an external 2.5" enclosure and then swap the HDD's.

But if I decide to install it via an external USB HDD, will then need the external HDD to be formatted or can I just put the image file on to the HDD among the other files I have backed up ?

 

it will be easiest to use the 'clone disk' option. this will make a copy of your current hard drive onto the external (presumably empty, had better be, because it will surely erase as it goes!) HDD. if the external drive needs to be formatted, this can be taken care of by acronis, so no need to do it before cloning.

again, the drive/partition you clone to should be empty.

word.

 

Exactly, that's how I did it. The old HDD can be used for back up.


Warning for those with a Dell, the HPA used with Media Direct 2 with "resize" your new bigger HD to the same as the old. Other steps need to be taken.

 

There is no formatting during cloning...a cloning is a bit by bit copy of one drive to another, including formatting and partition info.

As noted, that means when you clone a 80 gb drive to a 160gb drive, you end up with and 80gb partition on the new drive....you simply need to expand the partition to gain full use of the drive if you wish (or create a second partition if that is your desire).

In vista, you can expand the partition in disk management. IN xp you need a third party partition resizer

 

Precisely! I've done it that way with Acronis three times and never had a lick of trouble afterward. The only thing I'd add that I've done (largely 'cause I didn't know if I had to or not, but it seemed like a prudent idea at the time - I welcome any posts that tell me this step is unnecessary) is to remove the assigned drive letter from the cloned image after you've finished cloning and just before you swap the drives out. I did that because, when the existing drive is cloned, it already has an assignment as the C:\ drive, and so the drive to which the hdd is cloned is, obviously enough, assigned a different drive letter. When the drive with no drive letter assigned is swapped into the computer and the system is powered on, the computer automatically (at least in my case, using both XP-Home and XP-MCE) assigns the C:\ drive letter to the partition on which the OS has been cloned.