I have a laptop that is getting the SMART message on bootup declaring
an immediate failure is coming up and back up the drive.
I have Acronis 8.0 and would like to make an image of the drive, then
replace it with a new laptop drive.

The laptop has a read write CD rom installed and the laptop seems to
work OK once it is booted up. I don't know how long this will
continue to work and need a backup plan.

Is this possible? and what procedure should I follow?

TIA

With a laptop you need to have an external drive. You can use the
replacement drive but it would have to be temporarily installed in an
external enclosure. Here's what I would do.

If you are using the replacement drive in an external enclosure.

1) Install the new drive in an external enclosure, USB or Firewire if your
laptop has it.
2) Boot from the TI recovery CD.
3) Clone the old drive to the new drive adjusting partition sizes as needed.
If the laptop drive has a factory partition for diagnostics or system
recovery do not change the size of this partition.
4) Install the new drive in the laptop.

If you are using an existing external drive that is not going to be
installed in the laptop.

1) Boot from the TI recovery CD and image the complete laptop drive
including all partitions to the external drive.
2) Install the new drive in the laptop.
3) Boot from the TI recovery CD and restore the image from the external
drive to the new drive adjusting the partition sizes the same as above.

--
Kerry Brown
Microsoft MVP - Shell/User
http://www.vistahelp.ca


<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have a laptop that is getting the SMART message on bootup declaring
> an immediate failure is coming up and back up the drive.
> I have Acronis 8.0 and would like to make an image of the drive, then
> replace it with a new laptop drive.
>
> The laptop has a read write CD rom installed and the laptop seems to
> work OK once it is booted up. I don't know how long this will
> continue to work and need a backup plan.
>
> Is this possible? and what procedure should I follow?
>
> TIA
>

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:

> I have a laptop that is getting the SMART message on bootup declaring
> an immediate failure is coming up and back up the drive.
> I have Acronis 8.0 and would like to make an image of the drive, then
> replace it with a new laptop drive.
>
> The laptop has a read write CD rom installed and the laptop seems to
> work OK once it is booted up. I don't know how long this will
> continue to work and need a backup plan.
>
> Is this possible? and what procedure should I follow?
>
> TIA
>

First, don't even worry about making a backup of the entire
drive. Most importantly, always do a backup for essential data,
text, information, picture, etc., files, and on a routine (e.g.,
daily) basis. Much of this is potentially irreplaceable after a
drive crash whilst system files and applications can always be
re-installed. Always make sure that the backup is recoverable
and this means using 2 different methods and/or media. One method
is to copy files singly without compressing or condensing them
while the second is to ZIP them together.

Once the important stuff has been backed up, then make the
drive image. Acronis TrueImage is fine. The current version is,
I believe, TrueImage 10.