Restoring a HDD image with Acronis True Image

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feo

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Situation:

I currently have 2 HDDs in my system, a 160GB Seagate with Windows XP and all my apps/documents/software on it and I also have a 500GB Seagate which I keep video files on exclusively.

The drive with the OS on it is a Basic disk while the 500GB is Dynamic.

I made a full image of my OS HDD with Acronis and saved the image file (.tib) on the 500GB drive which I intended to restore to a brand new 500GB Samsung HDD (thanks PostmanPot, highly recommend him).

So I made an Acronis boot disk and booted from it and it can't see the 500GB drive which has the image on it.

Googling a bit, I found out that I need to store the image on a Basic disk rather than a Dynamic one.

Question: is there any way of converting the 500GB Dynamic disk to a Basic one WITHOUT having to back up all the movies on it? (reason is I have NOWHERE to back it up to, there's about 200GBs of movies and the image file is 100GB)
 
Feo use acronis in windows to do this.

Why are you making a boot disk? Why don't you clone the hdd within windows, acronis will ask you to reboot and will clone onto the 500 gb hdd. What version are using because i know 10 has a sata problem when booting from a disk.
 
killadoob said:
Feo use acronis in windows to do this.

Why are you making a boot disk? Why don't you clone the hdd within windows, acronis will ask you to reboot and will clone onto the 500 gb hdd. What version are using because i know 10 has a sata problem when booting from a disk.
Click to expand...

I'm using 11.

Can you maybe explain a bit more in detail what to do? I'm kinda n00b when it comes to this stuff. Actually I'm really tired and not in the mood to Google.
 
Assuming 11 is the same as 10 and from what i remember it is, you need to go to pick a tool, manage hdd's, clone disk, then follow instructions.

It will reboot your pc and clone your current hdd onto the new one you selected. what i do is when it finished cloning i unplug the source drive to ensure there is no booting problems and plug it back in once the cloned drive has booted into windows.
 
killadoob said:
Assuming 11 is the same as 10 and from what i remember it is, you need to go to pick a tool, manage hdd's, clone disk, then follow instructions.

It will reboot your pc and clone your current hdd onto the new one you selected. what i do is when it finished cloning i unplug the source drive to ensure there is no booting problems and plug it back in once the cloned drive has booted into windows.
Click to expand...
Eish, why didn't I think of that? :D

So basically it will clone my old HDD (including OS) on the fresh new one. But when I disconnect my old drive after cloning, I won't have any issues with the new one becoming the C: drive, right?
 
Feo why i disconnect the old drive is because sometimes if you boot with both it will damage the boot sector of your new drive, so i unplug the old one and let the new one load windows and then plug the old back in, basically so there is no issue with booting.

Then you just in your bios which one you want to boot from.

Also i never use the boot disk to image drives because i find it a mission i always use windows to restore stuff on drives.
 
Should be as simple as disconnecting the old 500GB, and plugging in your new one. Then use Acronis to clone from the 160 onto the new 500GB, and make sure you let it expand the partition, or it's going to only clone the 160GB and the other space will go unrecognised to Windows.

After the clone is done, start up with the new 500GB and make sure all is working well. If so, reconnect the old 500GB, as well as the 160GB. You can format the 160GB now and use it as a data drive.
 
Asha'man X said:
Should be as simple as disconnecting the old 500GB, and plugging in your new one. Then use Acronis to clone from the 160 onto the new 500GB, and make sure you let it expand the partition, or it's going to only clone the 160GB and the other space will go unrecognised to Windows.

After the clone is done, start up with the new 500GB and make sure all is working well. If so, reconnect the old 500GB, as well as the 160GB. You can format the 160GB now and use it as a data drive.
Click to expand...
That is exactly what I did this morning and everything is working fine.

Well almost everything. I notice that the new 500GB Samsung drive makes a click noise every 5-10 seconds or so. I'll monitor it throughout the day to see if it goes away or not.

Next up, partition this baby and dual boot Windows 7. :D

Thanks for all the replies so far.

One more question though, is GParted Live CD the easiest way to set up partitions on this new 500GB drive to make way for Windows 7.
 
feo said:
That is exactly what I did this morning and everything is working fine.

Well almost everything. I notice that the new 500GB Samsung drive makes a click noise every 5-10 seconds or so. I'll monitor it throughout the day to see if it goes away or not.

Next up, partition this baby and dual boot Windows 7. :D

Thanks for all the replies so far.

One more question though, is GParted Live CD the easiest way to set up partitions on this new 500GB drive to make way for Windows 7.
Click to expand...

Glad to hear you're sorted, but do keep me posted on that clicking sound.
 
feo said:
Sorry to tell you this PostmanPot but the hard drive is definitely clicking.

I was VERY careful when installing it and made sure not to bump it around.

It's making a soft "thud" sound every 5 seconds or so.

Should I just monitor it over the weekend to see if it goes away? If it persists, can I do a swapout here in PTA or do I send it back to you?
Click to expand...

Let's take this to PM. :)
 
feo said:
That is exactly what I did this morning and everything is working fine.

Well almost everything. I notice that the new 500GB Samsung drive makes a click noise every 5-10 seconds or so. I'll monitor it throughout the day to see if it goes away or not.

Next up, partition this baby and dual boot Windows 7. :D

Thanks for all the replies so far.

One more question though, is GParted Live CD the easiest way to set up partitions on this new 500GB drive to make way for Windows 7.
Click to expand...

Hello!
I usually use Acronis Disk Director to make and manage my partitions.
Try it.
Don't know if GParted is so good...
 
caramba said:
Hello!
I usually use Acronis Disk Director to make and manage my partitions.
Try it.
Don't know if GParted is so good...
Click to expand...
I used GParted and it was pretty good.

It has a Linux feel to it (which I hate) but the process to partition is pretty easy. It shows graphically how big the the partition will be relative to the entire drive.

All in all, it got the job done.
 
feo said:
Why is that killa? lifehacker release a tutorial on how to do exactly that when the beta was released.
Click to expand...

No reason but i never have dual OS's on the same drive, guess it could have something to do with the drive failing or whateva but i never install more than 1 OS per hdd.
 
killadoob said:
No reason but i never have dual OS's on the same drive, guess it could have something to do with the drive failing or whateva but i never install more than 1 OS per hdd.
Click to expand...

There's nothing wrong with using two partitions on the same drive for two os's. The only reason you would avoid is if you are trying to install an older version of windows after installing the new one because that could mess up the boot menu and cause the latest os to not boot.

As long as you install oldest os first and the the new os you will have no problems with using different partitions on the same drive. I use it like that for my vista x 64 and win 7 x64 system. I have one h/d with two partitions for the two os's and the another another drive in two partitions with 1 for games and the other for my video/audio files.
 
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