Need to Clone Laptop HDD

[John John (MVP)]

If you insist on using DOS then do a net search for Motto Hairu.

John

 

[Galen Somerville]

I think the issue is the word Clone. I do an image backup of just a
partition and have no issue. But clone, no, I have not done it this way.
Just one time I "cloned" the entire 2 partition drive.
But on the other side of the coin, can you create an image of one
partition, then just restore that image to a newly create partition of the
right size? Granted you have to do the partition manually.

I think the real clue is, the OP was using a "Trial" copy. It doesn't have
all the features of a purchased copy.

Galen

 

[Patrick Keenan]

My understanding is that Acronis will allow you to clone the entire hard
drive, but not just one partition.

TrueImage can absolutely do this.

-pk

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Will Home version 11 do that?

Yes, and the only difference between the paid and trial versions is the time
limitation.

-pk

 

[Daave]

TrueImage can absolutely do this.

I have ATI Home 9.0. Although it lets me resize the partitions during
the cloning of an entire hard drive, I'm pretty sure there's no way to
select just *one* of the partitions to clone (of course it's possible to
*image* a partition in ATI Home, but OP specifically asked about
cloning). Googling confirms this (even in Version 11). (And according to
OP, Acronis themselves confirmed this!) If you are able to point me to
information to the contrary, I certainly welcome it. I would imagine
more expensive versions of Acronis (Workstation or Enterprise) have this
capability. Or if I am wrong or if there is a tweak or hack to make this
work, I would certainly like to know about it.

To Galen, the key word is *not* trial. As Patrick pointed out, other
than the time limitation, there is no difference at all between the paid
and trial version.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have ATI Home 9.0.

May I make a suggestion to you and the others who are using the
abbreviation "ATI" to mean Acronis True Image?

Please do not use "ATI" for this purpose. The abbreviation "ATI" is a
well established one for the company that manufacturers such things as
video cards, etc. If you use it for something else, as you did here,
you run the severe risk of confusing the readers.

 

[Daave]

You are correct Daave. I contacted Acronis and they confirmed that
Acronis Home 11 will not clone a partition, only the complete drive.
Bummer, eh?

Not necessarily a bummer. It depends on your needs. Ordinarily, the
purpose of cloning is to wind up with a bootable copy of a hard drive.
Otherwise, you might as well make an image. And Acronis will certainly
allow you to make an image of a partition.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I think the real clue is, the OP was using a "Trial" copy. It doesn't have all
the features of a purchased copy.

Galen

A clone of a single partition can be made with True Image by
making an image file of a single partition and then "restoring" it to
another hard drive - but it involves 2 steps and the use of an
intermediary medium. Casper and Ghost, on the other hand, *can*
make single-partition clones. With Casper, there is a downloadable
trial version that it only limited in that the clone must be of the same
size as the original (the full version does not have that limitation).

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I think the real clue is, the OP was using a "Trial" copy. It doesn't have all
the features of a purchased copy.

Galen

The only limitation mentioned for the trial copy of True Image is
that it only works for 15 days.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Not necessarily a bummer. It depends on your needs. Ordinarily, the purpose of
cloning is to wind up with a bootable copy of a hard drive. Otherwise, you
might as well make an image. And Acronis will certainly allow you to make an
image of a partition.

I don't think my purposes are much different from other users
of cloning utilities, and my purpose is to make a bootable *partition*,
i.e. a bootable operating system. I keep several clones of my
Windows OSes on a single large backup hard drive, and to boot up
any one of the several clones, I merely have to either:
1) restart and reset the hard drive boot order in the BIOS and then
select the correct OS from the boot manager's menu, or
2) shutdown, toggle OFF the power to the primary hard drive, then
startup and select the correct OS from the boot manager's menu -
which will boot from the secondary (backup) hard drive.

There are other ways to do the equivalent, but the result is always
that a backup of a recently made clone of the entire partition can be
back up and running in one or two minutes. You can't do that with
image files - especially if they're compressed and stored on optical
media.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Kenneth]

A clone of a single partition can be made with True Image by
making an image file of a single partition and then "restoring" it to
another hard drive - but it involves 2 steps and the use of an
intermediary medium. Casper and Ghost, on the other hand, *can*
make single-partition clones. With Casper, there is a downloadable
trial version that it only limited in that the clone must be of the same
size as the original (the full version does not have that limitation).

*TimDaniels*

Howdy,

I am not up on the different flavors of TI products, but
True Image Echo will make a clone in a single pass.

All the best,

 

[Bill in Co.]

I don't think my purposes are much different from other users
of cloning utilities, and my purpose is to make a bootable *partition*,
i.e. a bootable operating system. I keep several clones of my
Windows OSes on a single large backup hard drive, and to boot up
any one of the several clones, I merely have to either:
1) restart and reset the hard drive boot order in the BIOS and then
select the correct OS from the boot manager's menu, or
2) shutdown, toggle OFF the power to the primary hard drive, then
startup and select the correct OS from the boot manager's menu -
which will boot from the secondary (backup) hard drive.

There are other ways to do the equivalent, but the result is always
that a backup of a recently made clone of the entire partition can be
back up and running in one or two minutes. You can't do that with
image files - especially if they're compressed and stored on optical
media.

*TimDaniels*

True enough. But OTOH, you can't make multiple backup images (for various
dates) to be stored and called upon, as desired (well, unless you want to
have a whole bunch of new partition drive letters created on the other
drive; and they are also not compressed in size, whatsoever).

So unless you intend to actually swap out and replace the drive (which can
be a PIA with some external HD enclosures), there seems to be little to be
gained by going the "cloning" route, vs imaging.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

...you can't make multiple backup images (for various dates) to be stored and
called upon, as desired (well, unless
you want to have a whole bunch of new partition drive letters
created on the other drive; and they are also not compressed
in size, whatsoever).

So unless you intend to actually swap out and replace the drive
(which can be a PIA with some external HD enclosures), there
seems to be little to be gained by going the "cloning" route,
vs imaging.

My OS partitions each take up 40GB. I can fit at least 8 of
them on a 320GB hard drive (I use Casper to clone them, and
Casper can clone a partition's data to a smaller partition if there
is room). Boot.ini can accomodate up to 10 entries, i.e. 10 OSes.
Each OS, WHEN IT IS RUNNING, calls its own partition the
"C:" drive. As long as there are no shortcuts in a partition which
reference other partitions, the renaming of drives is irrelevant.
So I just have to choose which partition to load from the boot
menu, and it loads and runs with no need at all to remove a
drive. As a matter of fact, I can have 3 hard drives in my PC
simulataneously, and I can choose to load a particular partition
from any one of them - such is the nature of ntldr and boot.ini.
To be e-x-p-l-i-c-i-t, there is no need to remove a hard drive
to cause booting from another hard drive. The BIOS or boot.ini
can take care of where the partition to load comes from - the
BIOS can control which hard drive's MBR gets control, and
the "active" flag on that hard drive controls which partition on
that hard drive will provide the boot.ini file, and boot.ini allows
selection of which hard drive and which partition on that hard
drive will be loaded. It's all very flexible, much more flexible
than most people realize. You just have to read the Microsoft
online documentation of XP to understand it. The only badly
documented feature of boot.ini is how "rdisk()" corresponds to
a partitcular hard drive, and that has been the subject of many
threads and much mythology.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Bill in Co.]

My OS partitions each take up 40GB. I can fit at least 8 of
them on a 320GB hard drive (I use Casper to clone them, and
Casper can clone a partition's data to a smaller partition if there
is room). Boot.ini can accomodate up to 10 entries, i.e. 10 OSes.
Each OS, WHEN IT IS RUNNING, calls its own partition the
"C:" drive. As long as there are no shortcuts in a partition which
reference other partitions, the renaming of drives is irrelevant.
So I just have to choose which partition to load from the boot
menu, and it loads and runs with no need at all to remove a drive.

Well, to me, this sounds like a bit of a PIA, but we have different goals,
evidently.

I just want (and have) ONE bootable drive (with a total of 4 primary
partitions, two created by Dell), and no boot menus to have to wade through,
and a separate backup drive to just store the backups.

Added to which, Dell is very finicky about the partitions on the system
drive, with its own Dell System Restore and Diagnostics hidden partitions
being present there.

So, I think we have different goals. My goal is to have a selection of a
some backups I can restore, and that's all. And, as time goes by, I delete
the images I'm not ever finding I need anymore. (These are all from some
different software installations that I may wish to completely end up
removing later, but without any latent hidden problems that can pop up
later)

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I just want (and have) ONE bootable drive (with a total of
4 primary partitions, two created by Dell), and no boot
menus to have to wade through, and a separate backup
drive to just store the backups.

Added to which, Dell is very finicky about the partitions
on the system drive, with its own Dell System Restore and
Diagnostics hidden partitions being present there.

That's fine if you don't need the backup running right *now*,
as in stock day-trading. And since you don't need the backup
right *now*, I think your method is quite practical.

But about the Dell partitions.... The System Restore
partition becomes obsolete after you've used the system
for a few days or weeks and you've installed a few apps
and acquired a few data files, because (as you know)
System Restore is equivalent to System Obliterate. As
for the Diagnostic Utilites, Dell also supplies them on a
CD, so you don't need them on a partition unless you do
frequent diagnostic checks while traveling. I have a Dell
laptop that came with Vista installed, and I deleted those
partitions plus the MediaDirect abortion, and now I use
the freed-up partitions for dual-booting Vista with Ubuntu.
It's like having a 2nd computer.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Bill in Co.]

(in part):

That's fine if you don't need the backup running right *now*,
as in stock day-trading. And since you don't need the backup
right *now*, I think your method is quite practical.

I think so, at least for my purposes.

But about the Dell partitions.... The System Restore
partition becomes obsolete after you've used the system
for a few days or weeks and you've installed a few apps
and acquired a few data files, because (as you know)

But I don't mind keeping it, just in case. And if I ever wanted to get rid
of or donate this computer, I could roll it back to that point.

But there have been times I've thought of dumping the DSR partition (and
maybe the diagnostics one too), but then again, doing so will mess up
booting up to windows, unless I reconfigure it (I think just the boot.ini
file needs to be modified slightly).

System Restore is equivalent to System Obliterate. As
for the Diagnostic Utilites, Dell also supplies them on a
CD, so you don't need them on a partition unless you do
frequent diagnostic checks while traveling.

True enough. I've hardly used it, anyway.