Cloning to new larger HDD, problems?

[Anna]

: : > Anna,
: > After cloning to the larger drive, what size partition is created on
the
: > larger drive?
: > Does the cloning create a partition to fill the whole drive?
: > --
: > Ronald Sommer

: Ronald:
: In effect, yes. Say, for example, the source disk is a
single-partitioned
: 40 GB HDD with 30 GB of data. And the destination disk (the recipient of
the
: clone) is a 160 HDD. After the disk cloning process the destination
drive
: will be single-partitioned containing, of course, 30 GB of data.
:
: Another example (using the Acronis program)...
: Source disk is a 80 GB HDD (actual approx. 74.5 GB) multi-partitioned...
: Partition 1 has 45.2 GB of data (61% of total disk space)
: Partition 2 has 29.3 GB of data (39% " " " " )
:
: Destination disk is a 160 GB HDD (actual approx 153.3 GB)
: After the disk-to-disk cloning operation...
: Partition 1 will contain the 45.2 GB of data in a partition of 93.1 GB
: (61% of total disk space)
: Partition 2 will contain the 29.3 GB of data in a partition of 60.2 GB
: (31% of total disk space)
:
: Note the same disk space proportions will be carried over from the
source
: to the destination disk.
:
: If one uses the Acronis disk imaging capability rather than the
: disk-to-disk cloning process, disk images of *individual* partitions can
be
: created.
: In the above example involving the multi-partitioned HDD - if the user
wanted
: to copy over to another HDD *only* the second partition of the source
HDD
: he/she would have to do so through the Acronis disk imaging process
: involving *only* the second partition. That specific partition could be
: later restored through the recovery process. Acronis does *not* have the
: capability of creating a clone of *individual* partitions in the same
way
: as its disk-to-disk cloning process. The program can only perform a
(entire)
: disk-to-disk cloning operation.
:
: The above refers specifically to the Acronis True Image 9 program. I
: haven't worked very much with the new ATI 10 version, but I don't
believe any
: major changes have been made here.
: Anna

Thanks for the information.
So if the original disk has a hidden recovery partition, the new disk will
have a recovery partition?
What happens if the original disk has unpartitioned space?

Ronald:
Yes to your first question.
Any "unallocated" disk space on the source disk will be (roughly) evenly
divided among the cloned partitions on the destination disk; no unallocated
disk space will be carried over to the destination disk as "unallocated".

Let's say, for example, an 80 GB source disk contains a single partition of
60 GB and the remaining 20 GB is "unallocated" disk space. After cloning the
contents of that disk to a 160 GB HDD, that disk will have a single
partition of 160 GB containing the data contents of the source disk's 60 GB
partition. In effect, the source disk's "unallocated" disk space will be
absorbed within the 160 GB partition.
Anna

 

[Timothy Daniels]

....have never done a clone to a new disk.
Do you know if doing this will trigger the WPA process?

It will not. The clone doesn't even know that it's a clone.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Jimmy Buffer]

It will not. The clone doesn't even know that it's a clone.

*TimDaniels*

Very true.

 

[R. McCarty]

Actually it can. There are two aspects to drives that factor into
Product Activation. The Volume Serial #, which should carry
forward to the new hard drive. However, the Hard Drive itself
will be a newly enumerated device to XP. If the system is near
the change limit - doing a clone operation could cause WPA to
fall over and require a re-activation.

 

[Ron Martell]

On Mon, 08 Jan 2007 15:12:01 -0800, Ron Martell

Ok, thanks for the info, this is going to be a nice learning
experience. I've restored a few systems back to their original drive
with the restore image process, but have never done a clone to a new
disk. Do you know if doing this will trigger the WPA process?

It might. The volume/serial number of the hard drive is one of the
10 items monitored by activation. If there have been previous
changes in some of the other monitored items then this additional
change may be enough to put you "over the top" and trigger a need to
reactivate.

See the article on WPA by the late Alex Nichol MVP at
http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm


Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."

 

[Timothy Daniels]

It might. The volume/serial number of the hard drive is one of the
10 items monitored by activation. If there have been previous
changes in some of the other monitored items then this additional
change may be enough to put you "over the top" and trigger a need to
reactivate.

Do you mean "previous" or "simultaneous" changes? IOW, are
the changes cumulative - does WPA include changes done a
year ago in gauging whether the limit has been reached with the
current change?

*TimDaniels*

 

[Lars-Erik Østerud]

It might. The volume/serial number of the hard drive is one of the
10 items monitored by activation. If there have been previous

You to clearify, if my system has:

- Same MB (1 yes)
- Same CPU (1 yes)
- Same CPU serial (1 yes)
- No SCSI controller (1 yes)
- On board NIC (3 yes)
- On board IDE (1 yes)

Then I can change everthing else as much as I want?

 

[Timothy Daniels]

However, the Hard Drive itself will be a newly enumerated
device to XP.

My BIOS reports hard drives by their model no., not by
any serial no. Does this mean an OS's partition may
undergo an unlimited no. of cloning steps without re-
activation as long as the all HDs are of the same model
no.?

*TimDaniels*

 

[R. McCarty]

Can't say for sure. All Disk drives store their unique identifier and other
information like Firmware revision internally. What I was trying to say
was that a Volume has a VSN ( Volume Serial # ) created when it is
formatted constructed from Date & Time information. This VSN ID is
a part ( or a vote holder ) of Product Activation. Images and Cloning do
preserve the VSN. However, If you clone to a new model hard drive
then to XP that device is new and since it's a vote holder it can increment
the changes. I think even if you replaced a drive with a identical model
XP will still detect the change, since a new instance of the device is
stored
in the enumeration table.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

If the old HD were removed, and the new HD with a same model no.
were put in its place, it sounds like XP wouldn't know the difference.
But since the most common scenario is the upgrading in HD capacity,
MS designed the WPA activation algorithm to be very lenient toward that.
I do recall once, though, that I changed 3 differently sized HDs and
changed the NIC, and I had to re-activate.

*TimDaniels*

 

[John John]

http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/ProductActivation.htm

John

 

[Ron Martell]

Do you mean "previous" or "simultaneous" changes? IOW, are
the changes cumulative - does WPA include changes done a
year ago in gauging whether the limit has been reached with the
current change?

Changes are cumulative. WPA creates and saves a control file at
activation that contains the data from the monitored items. Each time
the computer is booted up Windows generates a new set of data based on
the hardware actually found at bootup. This result is then compared
with the saved data from the last activation. If the number of
changes exceeds the allowable tolerance then a need to reactivate is
triggered.

So if you add RAM one week, change the video card the next week, and
the week after that clone the hard drive to a new one you will have 3
cumulative changes.

On the other hand, if you change the video card every week for 5 weeks
that still only counts as one item changed.

Hope this explains the situation.

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."