Seagate(Acronis) cloning not working right.

[Jake]

I have used this application many times but this time for some reason isn't
working right. I am trying to clone my Disk 1...........IDE(0) Primary
Master which is my C: drive and is a Seagate Model ST3250624 3.AA to Disc
2................IDE(0) Primary Slave Seagate Model ST3250620 3.AA Show as
dive F:

I click NEXT after I select the Master and NEXT after I select Primary
slave. I then must click on O Delete partition on the destination hard disc
for the NEXT box to be clickable so I click NEXT.

Now I see Seagate 250 G(C 232.9 GB NTFS in both Source and Destination
windows.

Does anyone have any ideas on a solution?

Maxblast 4 does not have a "clone" feature only "Drive-to-Drive Copy". If I
am only going to copy the contents of drive C to drive F then why do I even
need a cloning application and if I uses the MaxBlast function will my end
results be the same?

Thanks for any replies.

J.

 

[sgopus]

I recently ran into a similar situation with a USB external drive, I solved
it by deleting the partitions outside of ACRONIS and than again specifying
delete partitions while inside ACRONIS , the clone worked fine then, not sure
why this happened, except for maybe the system had locked the drive somehow,
as it told me the drive was busy, and or some application had it and wouldn't
turn lose.

 

[Jake]

I recently ran into a similar situation with a USB external drive, I
solved it by deleting the partitions outside of ACRONIS and than
again specifying delete partitions while inside ACRONIS , the clone
worked fine then, not sure why this happened, except for maybe the
system had locked the drive somehow, as it told me the drive was
busy, and or some application had it and wouldn't turn lose.

I tried formatting the drive to make sure it was easy to identify as they
are both virtually identical drives but in the end the only true way was by
the Model number. I guess I will have to try using a different type of drive
entirely.

 

[sgopus]

I really don't see a problem, both the drives are the same size, so should be
reported as it has been, so what is the problem?

you just can't tell which is which on the menu?
if you chose carefully which is origin and destination, things should be fine.

 

[Jake]

I really don't see a problem, both the drives are the same size, so
should be reported as it has been, so what is the problem?

you just can't tell which is which on the menu?
if you chose carefully which is origin and destination, things should
be fine.

The software is selecting C: for both the source and destination even though
I follow the procedure and click on C: as source and F: as destination. I am
wondering if I have to change a hardware configuration such as a cable or a
connector. I am sure it is not a SW problem as I have used this application
many times.

J.

 

[sgopus]

This does seem odd, if you selected different hd's for origin and
destination, it shouldn't show only drive C for both when verifying before
executing the image.

 

[Jake]

This does seem odd, if you selected different hd's for origin and
destination, it shouldn't show only drive C for both when verifying
before executing the image.

I gave up. I tried MaxBlast and the Copy feature but that was going to take
a week or more. I went out for a few hours and it was on file 5 of over
several thousand when I got back.. There must be something wrong somewhere
but I decided to do it later. Maybe I will take the drive out and place it
in another System as drive D and clone it to an empty drive that way.

 

[Jake]

Here's a thought: Ask in group that has something to do with the
software you are ahaving problems with. This has nothing to do with
the OS.

Ask elsewhere

As I said I am sure it is not the SW. I have used it many times on other
systems. I thought it might be a hardware issue as in cable configuration or
a bad HDD. Maybe you should do less thinking unless you can parse a little
better.

 

[sgopus]

With the slow speed of transfer, I would suspect a hardware fault of some
kind, see if the drive(s) by some chance are in PIO mode. if ATI is not
showing the destination on the verify screen, then it's not communicating
with it properly (it doesn't see it) do you also see a slow data transfer
rate when doing a regular file copy, from c to D? I would get some diagnostic
software for the drives and test them out. since both are seagate, I would go
to their website and see if they have diagnostic software for the drives, ie
data transfer rate testing read/write etc.

 

[Jake]

With the slow speed of transfer, I would suspect a hardware fault of
some kind, see if the drive(s) by some chance are in PIO mode. if ATI
is not showing the destination on the verify screen, then it's not
communicating with it properly (it doesn't see it) do you also see a
slow data transfer rate when doing a regular file copy, from c to D?
I would get some diagnostic software for the drives and test them
out. since both are seagate, I would go to their website and see if
they have diagnostic software for the drives, ie data transfer rate
testing read/write etc.

Everything looks good in Disk Manager but the destination drive shows as
128 Gig in the cloning SW when I know it is 250G File transfer is
incredibly slow from within Windows. Sometimes I get an error, I forget what
it says, It's been a long day. A write error that says I may have lost
data.......Tomorrow I will check all the cables and make sure they are
connected correctly. I am not using new drives but I have never gotten any
errors when installed in other systems. I will find some diagnostic Sw like
you suggest.

Thanks.

Jake.

 

[sgopus]

Ah, that makes it even more leaning towards a hardware fault, it could be a
conflict between each drive, check your jumpers ensure they are set correctly
on each hd.
to me it sounds as if one or more of the drives are getting ready to die.

Are you certain your hd cable is an 80 connector and not damaged in some way?
Get some rest, really stupid mistakes have been made while tired.

 

[Peter Foldes]

Jake

Just ignore him. He seems to be mentally deficient since he does not understand what this newsgroup is for.

 

[Anna]

(Jake later adds...)

The software is selecting C: for both the source and destination even
though I follow the procedure and click on C: as source and F: as
destination. I am wondering if I have to change a hardware configuration
such as a cable or a connector. I am sure it is not a SW problem as I have
used this application many times.

I gave up. I tried MaxBlast and the Copy feature but that was going to
take a week or more. I went out for a few hours and it was on file 5 of
over several thousand when I got back.. There must be something wrong
somewhere but I decided to do it later. Maybe I will take the drive out
and place it in another System as drive D and clone it to an empty drive
that way.
J.

Everything looks good in Disk Manager but the destination drive shows as
128 Gig in the cloning SW when I know it is 250G File transfer is
incredibly slow from within Windows. Sometimes I get an error, I forget
what it says, It's been a long day. A write error that says I may have
lost data.......Tomorrow I will check all the cables and make sure they
are connected correctly. I am not using new drives but I have never gotten
any errors when installed in other systems. I will find some diagnostic Sw
like you suggest.

Thanks.

Jake.

Jake:
Let me say at the outset that while I've worked with Seagate's DiscWizard
software in the past I haven't done so to any extent in the recent past.
It's not a particular piece of software that we've been fond of as a
disk-to-disk cloning program. Frankly we experienced too many anomalies &
problems of one sort or another with the program and we rarely use it
nowadays except when a user doesn't have a third-party commercial
disk-cloning program but needs the disk cloning capability with his or her
Maxtor or Seagate HDD. On the other hand I'm aware of users who have found
the program to their liking and use it for one-time disk cloning as in your
situation.

Anyway here's some info on using the Seagate DiscWizard program that I
prepared about two years ago in response to a request by members of a local
computer club in our area who were interested in a number of disk-cloning
programs. As I'm sure you know the DiscWizard program is a derivative of an
earlier version of the Acronis True Image program so it has disk-imaging as
well as disk-cloning capability. However our group was, at the time,
exclusively interested in the program's disk-to-disk cloning capability so
the following was oriented only toward that capability. Since you're
obviously familiar with the program I don't know if any of this info will be
of any value to you, but for what it's worth here it is...

1. Presumably the HDD to be cloned, i.e., the "source" disk, will be
connected as Primary Master and the recipient of the clone, the
"destination" HDD will be connected either as Primary Slave or on the
secondary IDE channel as Master or Slave.

2. At the opening screen click on Disk Utilities and then Clone Disk. Click
Next.

3. On the Clone Mode screen select the Automatic option and click Next.

4. On the next screen, Source Hard Disc, all the connected HDDs should be
listed. Select (highlight) the HDD you want to clone and click Next.

5. On the Destination Hard Disc screen, select (highlight) the "destination"
drive, the HDD that will be the recipient of the clone and click Next.

6. On the next screen select the option to delete partitions on the
destination hard disc and click Next.

7. The next screen will indicate the source and destination drives. Make
absolutely certain they're correctly listed. If so, click Next.

8. Click Proceed and then Reboot.

The system will reboot and (hopefully!) the disk-cloning operation will take
place. (This is one area where we've run into difficulty with this software
in that a message would *immediately* appear indicating the disk-cloning
operation was successful. Obviously it wasn't since no disk-cloning program
that we're aware of could possibly complete the operation in a few seconds.
This happened a number of times to us while using this software with various
HDDs and with enough frequency that we stopped using it.)

But assuming the disk-cloning operation is successful, you press any key to
shut down the computer. Reconnect the newly-cloned HDD as Primary Master and
disconnect the source HDD from the system. The initial boot immediately
following the disk-cloning operation should be made with *only* the
destination HDD, i.e., the newly-cloned HDD, connected. Hopefully the boot
will proceed without incident and the drive will be a true clone of the
source drive. The important point is *not* to immediately boot the system
with *both* drives connected.

It goes without saying that the HDDs involved are non-defective and properly
connected & jumpered.

If you suspect something is awry in this area you might want to check out
the disks with Seagate's HDD diagnostic software.

I'm unclear about your reference to the system detecting only 128 GB of disk
space re your 250 GB HDD. Sounds like the large-capacity disk space
"barrier" is an issue here but I can't understand why it would be. I'm
reasonably certain you're working with a motherboard that has large-capacity
HDD capability and presumably your XP OS contains at least one of the
Service Packs.

Anyway, as I said I don't know if any of the preceding will be of any help
to you but there it is just in case you want to give it another try.
Anna

 

[Jake]

(Jake later adds...)





Jake:
Let me say at the outset that while I've worked with Seagate's
DiscWizard software in the past I haven't done so to any extent in
the recent past. It's not a particular piece of software that we've
been fond of as a disk-to-disk cloning program. Frankly we
experienced too many anomalies & problems of one sort or another with
the program and we rarely use it nowadays except when a user doesn't
have a third-party commercial disk-cloning program but needs the disk
cloning capability with his or her Maxtor or Seagate HDD. On the
other hand I'm aware of users who have found the program to their
liking and use it for one-time disk cloning as in your situation.

Anyway here's some info on using the Seagate DiscWizard program that I
prepared about two years ago in response to a request by members of a
local computer club in our area who were interested in a number of
disk-cloning programs. As I'm sure you know the DiscWizard program is
a derivative of an earlier version of the Acronis True Image program
so it has disk-imaging as well as disk-cloning capability. However
our group was, at the time, exclusively interested in the program's
disk-to-disk cloning capability so the following was oriented only
toward that capability. Since you're obviously familiar with the
program I don't know if any of this info will be of any value to you,
but for what it's worth here it is...
1. Presumably the HDD to be cloned, i.e., the "source" disk, will be
connected as Primary Master and the recipient of the clone, the
"destination" HDD will be connected either as Primary Slave or on the
secondary IDE channel as Master or Slave.

2. At the opening screen click on Disk Utilities and then Clone Disk.
Click Next.

3. On the Clone Mode screen select the Automatic option and click
Next.
4. On the next screen, Source Hard Disc, all the connected HDDs
should be listed. Select (highlight) the HDD you want to clone and
click Next.
5. On the Destination Hard Disc screen, select (highlight) the
"destination" drive, the HDD that will be the recipient of the clone
and click Next.
6. On the next screen select the option to delete partitions on the
destination hard disc and click Next.

7. The next screen will indicate the source and destination drives.
Make absolutely certain they're correctly listed. If so, click Next.

8. Click Proceed and then Reboot.

The system will reboot and (hopefully!) the disk-cloning operation
will take place. (This is one area where we've run into difficulty
with this software in that a message would *immediately* appear
indicating the disk-cloning operation was successful. Obviously it
wasn't since no disk-cloning program that we're aware of could
possibly complete the operation in a few seconds. This happened a
number of times to us while using this software with various HDDs and
with enough frequency that we stopped using it.)
But assuming the disk-cloning operation is successful, you press any
key to shut down the computer. Reconnect the newly-cloned HDD as
Primary Master and disconnect the source HDD from the system. The
initial boot immediately following the disk-cloning operation should
be made with *only* the destination HDD, i.e., the newly-cloned HDD,
connected. Hopefully the boot will proceed without incident and the
drive will be a true clone of the source drive. The important point
is *not* to immediately boot the system with *both* drives connected.

It goes without saying that the HDDs involved are non-defective and
properly connected & jumpered.

If you suspect something is awry in this area you might want to check
out the disks with Seagate's HDD diagnostic software.

I'm unclear about your reference to the system detecting only 128 GB
of disk space re your 250 GB HDD. Sounds like the large-capacity disk
space "barrier" is an issue here but I can't understand why it would
be. I'm reasonably certain you're working with a motherboard that has
large-capacity HDD capability and presumably your XP OS contains at
least one of the Service Packs.

Anyway, as I said I don't know if any of the preceding will be of any
help to you but there it is just in case you want to give it another
try. Anna

Hello Anna and thanks for you reply.

I read carefully the procedure above and I it all sounds so familiar and
has worked many times before with no problems. I successfully cloned drive
C: of another System just a few days ago with no strange occurrences. I have
also successfully backed up the System in question a number of times
although not so recently. I just now set it up to clone from the primary
master (Seagate 250 Gig) to a Maxtor 250 Gig primary slave. Everything looks
right in Computer Manager with Disk 0 as drive C: and Disk 1 as drive E:.
Both healthy drives although not tested. The destination drive is now a
different drive formatted. All seems fine so far.

Disc Clone application is now showing everything correctly until I get to
the screen "Hard Disc Drives Structure". Here is shows the source drive as
having 232.9 GB NTFS C: and destination disc as 233.8 GB (Maxtor shows
slightly different size) but it also shows as C:

I ignore this and click next where I see a screen that looks normal. It
reports Operation 1 of 3. Clearing disc: 2 Operation 2 of 3(reboot
required) Copying partition Hard disc: 1->2 and shows 232.9 GB -> 233.8 GB.

So all in all everything looks right except where they both source and
destination show drive C:

I click next where the System will reboot and like you describe it takes a
few seconds and nothing has changed.

The System is WinXP Pro SP3 with all the recent windows updates done
yesterday.

The only thing I haven't tried yet is to place drive C: into another
computer and try cloning it that way. I just thought I would give it one
more try. I replaced all the cables and tried everything I know. I guess I
will have to look into another application to do what I want.

Regards.

Jake.

 

[Jake]

Ah, that makes it even more leaning towards a hardware fault, it
could be a conflict between each drive, check your jumpers ensure
they are set correctly on each hd.
to me it sounds as if one or more of the drives are getting ready to
die.

Are you certain your hd cable is an 80 connector and not damaged in
some way? Get some rest, really stupid mistakes have been made while
tired.

As I just posed to Anna I am not quite sure what I will do next other than
what I indicated to her. Actually as I type this I am thinking I can run a
test of sorts by placing an older backup of this System in and see if I get
the same results. Perhaps the problem is in the source drive.

 

[Jake]

Jake

Just ignore him. He seems to be mentally deficient since he does not
understand what this newsgroup is for.

 

[sgopus]

I wouldn't think so, as ATI sees the source and reports it, it doesn't see
the destination properly.