Re: cloning to a new hard drive w/ Acronis True Image 9 - How?


"Mary Fowler Leek" <mleek@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:OXv9S5zPHHA.1240@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Anna and Patrick,

Thank you both so much for taking the time to describe the process. It
will not only help me, but who knows how many other readers, who will
print out and save these detailed instructions for future reference.

I'm not even certain if I have two internal hard drive bays. Terrible,
isn't it, but I'll have to open up and take a look. I do have a 250 gig
usb external drive that I could clone to, then switch out the old primary
hard drive with the new one, boot from my Acronis recovery cd and reverse
the cloning process from the just cloned usb drive, back to the newly
installed internal hard drive. Will this work if I don't have two sata
connections inside my box?

I've been in there in the past but I've forgotten the internal
configuration. Well, just took a quick look. There are two drive bays open
but the sata cable only has one connector. Is that correct. Should there
be another cable connector on the MB where another sata cable would
connect or do you use a sata cable with dual plugs on one end, like we
used to use with the IDE/EIDE drives? I guess I need to go get a flash
light and climb under the desk and see if I can spot what might be another
place to connect a second cable and drive to the MB. Getting too old for
all this digging around under the desk! :-)

My thanks once again for all the great detailed explanations.

Mary


(And Mary's later post...)
Patrick,

I'm not sure about the MB, whether it will support the larger drive? I don't
even know what to look for. The driver for the bios is dated 4/29/2005 and
it is an American Megatrends v 3.21.

Regarding backing up a larger drive; I hope I don't create that many new
keeper files! Ha But isn't it best to let the OS have lots of room to write
temp files, etc., when you're doing a lot of digital editing. My current
primary drive only has about 40 gigs free right now. I do use a 250gig
external backup drive. Actually, I use three backup drives but this is the
largest one.

Mary


Mary:
Taking your last post first...
There's no problem with your motherboard supporting large-capacity disks,
i.e., disks > 137 GB, so there should be no problem with that board
supporting even a 500 GB HDD. But if you have some qualms about that you
should contact the manufacturer of your motherboard for verification.

I'm not sure I understand your last paragraph. Are you referring to the
possibility of multi-partitioning your HDD? If so, that of course is up to
you depending upon how you prefer to organize your work. Frankly, I'm not a
strong advocate of partitioning one's day-to-day working HDD. I prefer to
organize my work through the use of folders representing major blocks or
elements of my data. What *is* important is that you establish & maintain a
comprehensive routine & systematic backup system of your work. And that is
what you're doing - or at least contemplating - through the use of the disk
cloning - disk imaging process.

As to your thoughts about cloning your present internal HDD to your USB
external HDD and then re:cloning the latter's contents back to your new
internal SATA HDD after the latter is installed...

You could do that of course. But is there some advantage to this? Would it
not be a more straightforward operation to simply clone the contents of your
present internal HDD to your new one? If you want to clone the contents of
your present internal HDD to the USBEHD for additional safety at *this*
point, there's certainly no harm in doing so. As a matter of fact I would
encourage you to do so.

As to your description of your present SATA cabling...

In your previous post in which you described your system you indicated you
had a single 160 GB SATA HDD. That is still the case, yes? If so, that SATA
HDD (like every SATA HDD) has only a single signal (data) cable attached to
it with the other end connected to one of the motherboard's SATA connectors.
SATA HDDs use a completely different data cable than the older PATA (IDE)
HDDs. So when you install your new SATA HDD (while the original SATA HDD is
still connected), the new HDD will be connected with its own SATA data
cable.

I trust all this is clear to you?
Anna


.

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