clone hard drive problem - Acronis or MS

[os]

I use a Windows 7 box.
I run a cloned (1x2) hard drive configuration. There are 7 partitions,
including w7 system. Acronis copies on a daily/weekly schedule,
depending.
Once a month I clone disk-to-disk (because can't figure out how to
copy a bootable c to i) & start again with partition copies.
I like a c-i, d-j, e-k, f-l, g-m, h-n, mapping for this cloned config
to help me with my standard disk maintenance. Easy to extrapolate. But
the Acronis disk/cloning partition mapping of the second drive makes
it more complex than it need be. I get
c-n, d-j, ... g-m, h-o.
Do I rename sensibly after clone, each month, or am I overlooking?
Acronis or MS?
thanks in advance

 

[Rod Speed]

I use a Windows 7 box.
I run a cloned (1x2) hard drive configuration. There are 7 partitions,
including w7 system. Acronis copies on a daily/weekly schedule,
depending.
Once a month I clone disk-to-disk (because can't figure out how to
copy a bootable c to i) & start again with partition copies.
I like a c-i, d-j, e-k, f-l, g-m, h-n, mapping for this cloned config
to help me with my standard disk maintenance. Easy to extrapolate. But
the Acronis disk/cloning partition mapping of the second drive makes
it more complex than it need be. I get
c-n, d-j, ... g-m, h-o.
Do I rename sensibly after clone, each month, or am I overlooking?

Very likely you are overlooking.

Why arent you cloning the entire physical drive rather than individual
partitions ?

Acronis or MS?

The built in MS imager doesn't allow you to have
more than one image on the one destination drive.

That means that you cant have a series of images to
choose from if you want to restore to an earlier image.

In some situations when I am installing a new system
from scratch, particularly with system that I am not
completely fluent with because its new for me, I can
do images at various stages of the install so I can step
back to an earlier image when I realise that there was
some downside in the way I installed some of the stuff,
particularly with the apps installed after the OS was installed.

And it was also handy when deciding if there were no
downsides that mattered with the 64 bit version of Win7
and when I was checking that's some of the quirks I could
see weren't in fact due to using the 64 bit version rather
than the 32 bit version etc.

 

[miso]

http://partedmagic.com/doku.php

I just use the ghost for linux part of the disk.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/

The real key to these programs is to know the names of your disks.
Confusing the source and destination could be ugly. You need to know
what the drives and partitions look like from a linux point of view, not
the windows drive letters. It isn't that complicated, but you do need to
focus on the problem.

I just clone the whole drive, not a partition at a time.

I've also used Partition Commander. I've found that to be the best of
the windows "oriented" programs, though technically it is linux too.

In fact, you can take most live linux disks and do a dd if you know what
you are doing.
http://www.ghacks.net/2009/01/17/dd-the-ultimate-disk-cloning-tool/

If you need to clone over a network, I'd suggest using parted magic. If
the drives are all on the same machine, you can use the other hacks,
even dd if you are careful.