Acronis for copying Windows partition?

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Doe
  • Start date Start date
J

John Doe

What is the simplest version of Acronis for making a hidden copy of
the Windows partition to the same hard drive? Not talking about
cloning the whole drive or using another disk. Thanks.
 
John Doe said:
What is the simplest version of Acronis for making a hidden copy of
the Windows partition to the same hard drive? Not talking about
cloning the whole drive or using another disk. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Acronis `Home`.

What`s the point of having a hidden copy on the same drive ?.
If the drive goes phhtt, so does the copy.

Create an image to another drive/CD/USB device.
 
meerkat said:
Acronis `Home`.

What`s the point of having a hidden copy on the same drive ?.
Click to expand...

A hidden copy on the same drive is extremely valuable to me. Half
the problems posted to this group could be resolved with the help of
a hidden copy of Windows on the same hard drive.

There is no comparison between the usage I get from a hidden copy of
Windows on the same hard drive and any potential failure of that
drive.
If the drive goes phhtt, so does the copy.
Click to expand...

Any important files from the hard drive are kept safely copied to
removable media. If the hard drive ever fails, I will reinstall
Windows. Reinstalling Windows if the hard drive fails is no problem,
reinstalling windows every time something goes wrong and I don't
want to mess with it is a problem.
Create an image to another drive/CD/USB device.
Click to expand...

Have you ever made a copy of the Windows XP (or higher) partition to
the same hard drive and successfully restored it?
 
John Doe said:
A hidden copy on the same drive is extremely valuable to me. Half
the problems posted to this group could be resolved with the help of
a hidden copy of Windows on the same hard drive.

There is no comparison between the usage I get from a hidden copy of
Windows on the same hard drive and any potential failure of that
drive.


Any important files from the hard drive are kept safely copied to
removable media. If the hard drive ever fails, I will reinstall
Windows. Reinstalling Windows if the hard drive fails is no problem,
reinstalling windows every time something goes wrong and I don't
want to mess with it is a problem.


Have you ever made a copy of the Windows XP (or higher) partition to
the same hard drive and successfully restored it?
Click to expand...
I`ve never bothered J.
I keep 2 images on seperate drives (alternate weeks), plus I
use SyncBack Free to BU folders,
I also have 2 XPSP3 OS drives in the machine, so I can switch off,
change plugs over, and be up and running again in a few moments.

On the condition of course that I don`t blow a PSU or summat.

bw..
 
John Doe said:
A hidden copy on the same drive is extremely valuable to me. Half
the problems posted to this group could be resolved with the help of
a hidden copy of Windows on the same hard drive.

There is no comparison between the usage I get from a hidden copy of
Windows on the same hard drive and any potential failure of that
drive.


Any important files from the hard drive are kept safely copied to
removable media. If the hard drive ever fails, I will reinstall
Windows. Reinstalling Windows if the hard drive fails is no problem,
reinstalling windows every time something goes wrong and I don't
want to mess with it is a problem.


Have you ever made a copy of the Windows XP (or higher) partition to
the same hard drive and successfully restored it?
Click to expand...

I don't quite get cloning the Windows partition to the same hard drive. The
assumption is that the only problem that could arise is some software or
virus problem and not a hardware crash.

Once a month I copy an image of my hard drive to an external USB drive.
Each day I have Acronis do an incremental backup to the image

Every two months I connect a second hard drive that I have sitting dormant
in the computer and make a clone of my current running system. It takes
about 40 minutes to clone the 54 Gb of data on the current system. I then
disconnect the hard drive.

Of course I would be a lot safer to remove the drive and put it in a safety
deposit box off site, but then I'm only so careful.

Jan Alter
(e-mail address removed)
 
A hidden copy on the same drive is extremely valuable to me. Half
the problems posted to this group could be resolved with the help of
a hidden copy of Windows on the same hard drive.

There is no comparison between the usage I get from a hidden copy of
Windows on the same hard drive and any potential failure of that
drive.


Any important files from the hard drive are kept safely copied to >
removable media. If the hard drive ever fails, I will reinstall
Windows. Reinstalling Windows if the hard drive fails is no problem,
reinstalling windows every time something goes wrong and I don't
want to mess with it is a problem.
Have you ever made a copy of the Windows XP (or higher) partition to
the same hard drive and successfully restored it?
Click to expand...


John:
While I'm inclined to agree with meerkat that as a general proposition it's
better to store one's disk image on another HDD, preferably an external one
but also another internal HDD under certain conditions...

On the other hand if you have whatever you consider to be good & sufficient
reasons for storing the disk image on the same HDD so be it...

You can, of course, use the Acronis True Image program to do this. Please
understand the following comments apply to the ATI program versions 9 & 10.
I haven't worked with the latest version 11, but I suspect there are no
fundamental changes in this area.

Acronis has what the program calls a "Acronis Secure Zone". Basically it's a
hidden partition where the user can store the backup archive file and
incremental files.

So the user can create that Secure Zone on the same HDD he or she is backing
up. It's necessary to size the partition and the program does it very
simply.

One problem is that it uses a lot of disk space to store the backup archive
files. When I worked with it last (probably about a year or so ago) I could
get only 20% to 25% compression of the original backup file. And adding
subsequent incremental backup files will also use a lot of disk space.

The other - probably more important - problem is that what happens should
the HDD becomes defective mechanically or electronically? The "Secure Zone"
would be worthless in that situation.

On the other hand if the HDD is not defective, just not bootable because of
some system files corruption or such, you can access the recovery program
just by pressing the F11 key as the system boots (there's an onscreen
message) and access the backup archive files from the Secure Zone on the
HDD. Apparently they've built this boot capability into the MBR. After
deleting some system files from a couple of HDDs to create an unbootable
drive, I tried it on a couple of machines and it worked fine to recover the
system.

John, again - the above is based on my working with the older ATI programs
some time ago. I trust the info is accurate even with respect to the latest
version of ATI but I don't know that for a fact.
Anna
 
John
For whatever reason you wish to create an Image on the same HD in a separate
partition is fine with me.
I would just like to point out that using Acronis and Imaging to another
external or internal HD IF your Hard drive goes down and you need to install
a new one it will take aprox 1/2 hour to put that image onto that HD whereas
installing XP and restoring all of your backups would take hours.....days???
Of course keeping the image up to date is important...
peter
 
Jan Alter said:
I don't quite get cloning the Windows partition to the same hard
drive.
Click to expand...

Maybe I didn't explain that thoroughly and concisely in my reply to
meerkat. I've been making a hidden copy of the Windows partition to
the same hard drive ever since Windows 95. It's quickly/easily
gotten me out of more problems than I can count. It's also extremely
useful for doing an incremental installation of Windows. Extremely
useful. Having an easy/quick reinstallation is as valuable as having
spare components, for troubleshooting.

Because it's much quicker and the risk of hard drive failure doesn't
make up for the wasted time and effort using a different drive?

TO BE CLEAR. Every reader should understand that anything important
should always be copied to removable media.
The assumption is that the only problem that could arise is some
software or virus problem and not a hardware crash.
Click to expand...

You must mean a hard drive failure. My hard drive hasn't failed for
5-10 years. My system is treated roughly, and of course I mean
software since hardware takes care of itself when properly
installed. The number of software and driver problems dwarfs a
conceivable single hard drive crash, in my world. And then there are
non-hard drive hardware problems that an easily accessible copy of
the Windows installation can help deal with.
Once a month I copy an image of my hard drive to an external USB
drive. Each day I have Acronis do an incremental backup to the
image

Every two months I connect a second hard drive that I have sitting
dormant in the computer and make a clone of my current running
system.
Click to expand...

Well that's the idea, but I don't see a reason to put it on
removable media or a second hard drive, unless the disk management
software you're using makes that problematic. Making a hidden copy
on the same hard drive works for doing an incremental installation
of Windows and for troubleshooting software, driver, and even some
hardware problems.

Maybe you find that backing up data is easier that way. Maybe I work
with data more modularly.
Of course I would be a lot safer to remove the drive and put it in
a safety deposit box off site, but then I'm only so careful.
Click to expand...

All that just to avoid a reinstallation of Windows in the rare
instance of hard drive failure?

Data is something you don't want to lose. A good
reinstallation/configuration of Windows XP takes days as peter
guessed (less technical but a lot more involved than it used to be).
But IMO that is no reason to keep a Windows installation on another
hard drive unless maybe you are running a mission/time critical
business like a server or you're very adverse to re-installing
Windows. I'm a software enthusiast too, reinstalling Windows is not
a big deal here. Then again, I haven't tried Vista yet.

Apparently almost nobody is familiar with making a hidden copy of
the Windows partition on the same hard drive, or maybe Acronis just
doesn't do that very well. Judging by my extensive experience,
Windows XP made it more difficult to program than it was with prior
Windows versions.
 
John Doe said:
Flash drive?
Click to expand...

A 160 Gb external USB drive

I guess from my experience I've seen too many hardware failures to simply
trust the system and data to a single drive, in addition to the file
corruptions, viral and anti-social new software that gets placed on
computers, without even taking consideration to user errors.
 
JD> You must mean a hard drive failure. My hard drive hasn't
JD> failed for 5-10 years. My system is treated roughly, and of
JD> course I mean software since hardware takes care of itself
JD> when properly installed. The number of software and driver
JD> problems dwarfs a conceivable single hard drive crash, in my
JD> world. And then there are non-hard drive hardware problems
JD> that an easily accessible copy of the Windows installation can
JD> help deal with.

Very well-stated. Windows OSs are so flakey that their problems far
outnumber HDD failures or the like.

JD, perhaps you could post a short description of how you use your
hidden copy to repair Windows problems. I'm quite interested and
probably others.












 
I

Bob Fry said:
JD> You must mean a hard drive failure. My hard drive hasn't
JD> failed for 5-10 years. My system is treated roughly, and of
JD> course I mean software since hardware takes care of itself
JD> when properly installed. The number of software and driver
JD> problems dwarfs a conceivable single hard drive crash, in my
JD> world. And then there are non-hard drive hardware problems
JD> that an easily accessible copy of the Windows installation can
JD> help deal with.

Very well-stated. Windows OSs are so flakey that their problems far
outnumber HDD failures or the like.

JD, perhaps you could post a short description of how you use your
hidden copy to repair Windows problems. I'm quite interested and
probably others.
Click to expand...

I'm interested as well. I maintain a bit over 300 computers in my school and
see 3 to 5 hard drives die each year, but see twice as many OS's that need
to be re-imaged or reinstalled due to corruption. Most of the computers are
Apples, but there are about 36 Windows systems included in the number.
 
Very well-stated. Windows OSs are so flakey that their problems far
outnumber HDD failures or the like.
Click to expand...
Yet here I am with a 4 year old install of Windows whereas the hard
drive cycle issue I have with Ubuntu will kill the hard drive in a few
months.


--
Conor

As a Brit I'd like to thank the Americans for their help in the war
against terror because if they'd not funded the IRA for 30 years, we
wouldn't know how to deal with terrorists.
 
I'm interested as well. I maintain a bit over 300 computers in my school and
see 3 to 5 hard drives die each year, but see twice as many OS's that need
to be re-imaged or reinstalled due to corruption. Most of the computers are
Apples, but there are about 36 Windows systems included in the number.
Click to expand...
You should be sacked if you can't set up an OS properly.


--
Conor

As a Brit I'd like to thank the Americans for their help in the war
against terror because if they'd not funded the IRA for 30 years, we
wouldn't know how to deal with terrorists.
 
You should be sacked if you can't set up an OS properly.
Click to expand...
--

Just wondering why the confrontational comment is needed.

Jan Alter
(e-mail address removed)
or
(e-mail address removed)12.pa.us
 
John Doe said:
A hidden copy on the same drive is extremely valuable to me. Half
the problems posted to this group could be resolved with the help of
a hidden copy of Windows on the same hard drive.

There is no comparison between the usage I get from a hidden copy of
Windows on the same hard drive and any potential failure of that
drive.


Any important files from the hard drive are kept safely copied to
removable media. If the hard drive ever fails, I will reinstall
Windows. Reinstalling Windows if the hard drive fails is no problem,
reinstalling windows every time something goes wrong and I don't
want to mess with it is a problem.


Have you ever made a copy of the Windows XP (or higher) partition to
the same hard drive and successfully restored it?
Click to expand...


Though you can create a backup image on any partition other than the one you
are cloning...
considering the low price of HD's I'd still consider cloning your drive to a
completely seperate drive.

Though you mentioned that a clone on the same drive would be valuable for
solving "half the problems posted to this group"...
Murphy's law states that the problems you will have...wil the the *other*
half of course <G>
 
Jan Alter said:
A 160 Gb external USB drive

I guess from my experience I've seen too many hardware failures to
simply trust the system and data to a single drive, in addition to
the file corruptions, viral and anti-social new software that gets
placed on computers, without even taking consideration to user
errors.
Click to expand...

Those things do not corrupt a hidden copy of Windows on the same
drive. What you are really talking about is only a single condition
that is rare, as in catastrophic hard drive failure. With one
exception, I have never had a problem that corrupted my hidden copy
of Windows on the same drive. I have had countless software and
hardware problems that the copy has helped resolve.

And, as if I don't state this often enough, I always keep a copy of
data on a separate removable drive. I don't like having data tied to
the operating system. Even just copying the My Documents folder
saves a large percentage of personal data on most machines.

It's no big deal. It's just the difference between more quickly and
easily being able to restore the Windows partition versus protection
from catastrophic hard drive failure. Your method might be easier
for keeping a stranger's data intact, especially not knowing exactly
what bits and pieces need copying from various places on the system.
My method might prove easier for reinstalling Windows, because I
know where the data is that needs restoring after a new
installation. Here, as much as possible, I keep data backed up
separately from the operating system.
 
Conor said:
Yet here I am with a 4 year old install of Windows whereas the
hard drive cycle issue I have with Ubuntu will kill the hard drive
in a few months.
Click to expand...

Hard drive cycle issue? I can't even find the text "hard drive
cycle" in the archives.

Is that like it kills your hard drive every three months?

If it hurts when you do that, don't do that.
 
Bob Fry said:
Windows OSs are so flakey that their problems far outnumber HDD
failures or the like.
Click to expand...
JD, perhaps you could post a short description of how you use your
hidden copy to repair Windows problems. I'm quite interested and
probably others.
Click to expand...

The main difference versus making an image of the whole drive is
where the copy is kept. With either method, there is a trade-off
between being up to date and having a known good copy (just like a
data backup), given the fact you can make only so many copies. So,
for troubleshooting purposes, copying just the Windows partition to
the same drive is fundamentally the same as imaging the whole disk
to another disk. Between the methods, the trade-off is the
difference between protection from catastrophic hard drive failure
versus the ease/quickness of restoring the Windows partition from
the same hard drive.

This really applies to either method.
During an installation of Windows XP, copies of the Windows
partition are kept in case something goes wrong, for example making
a copy immediately before a problematic hardware driver
installation. If the driver installation doesn't go smoothly, the
Windows partition is simply restored and you try again. The same
before Windows Updates and such. During ordinary everyday use, a
copy can be made regularly and just before doing anything
potentially problematic like removing/installing hardware. Restoring
the Windows partition is so easy when it's kept on the same drive,
you can just start the process and take a break (after copying out
the most recent data files, then the data is restored after Windows
is replaced with a good copy).

If a disk image is kept, Jan Alter's (and anyone in a similar
situation) could have more to do with trying to get the most recent
data backed up before doing a restoration of the disk image. The
only physical difference between the two methods is probably just
having enough hard drive space to keep a copy on the same drive.

Of course data has to be safeguarded and should always be kept on a
separate disk. And that could be a problem if you don't know where
data files are located. In Windows XP, most of them are in My
Documents.

I have no idea how to copy an OS partition on a Apple/Mac system.

Searching eBay, there is a Partition Commander, but zero results for
Partition Manager and searching for PartitionMagic produces up to
the old version 8 only. Not much for manipulating partitions. Maybe
Partition Commander is worth a look.

Thanks.
 
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