Disc Cloning

[Guest]

Hi

I have two internal HD's on my PC. On my old machine (XP), I used to clone
using Ghost (running from DOS), but it doesn't seem to work on my new PC. I
have downloaded a trial version of Acronis True Image, but in the disc
cloning feature it says I will need to remove the old disc once cloned. I
don't want to do this - I want to have two identical discs so I can boot up
from either in the event of failure.

Does anyone know what I should do? Do I need to hide the partitions
afterwards? If so, how?

Thanks very much

 

[ThePro]

Hi,

What you want is disk mirroring. It is available natively in some editions
of Vista.

Right-click Computer | Manage | Disk management. You will need to upgrade
both drives to "Dynamic Disks" before you ca mirror them.

ThePro

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hi

I have two internal HD's on my PC. On my old machine (XP), I used to clone
using Ghost (running from DOS), but it doesn't seem to work on my new PC. I
have downloaded a trial version of Acronis True Image, but in the disc
cloning feature it says I will need to remove the old disc once cloned. I
don't want to do this - I want to have two identical discs so I can boot up
from either in the event of failure.

If I were you, I would rethink your backup strategy. I don't recommend
backup to a second non-removable hard drive because it leaves you
susceptible to simultaneous loss of the original and backup
to many of the most common dangers: severe power glitches, nearby
lightning strikes, virus attacks, even theft of the computer.

I would remove that second drive from the computer and mount it in an
external USB enclosure. Then do your cloning to that. If the original
drive fails, you can either replace it and copy the cloned drive to
the new one, or mount the cloned drive in place of the failed one.

 

[dennis@home]

If I were you, I would rethink your backup strategy. I don't recommend
backup to a second non-removable hard drive because it leaves you
susceptible to simultaneous loss of the original and backup
to many of the most common dangers: severe power glitches, nearby
lightning strikes, virus attacks, even theft of the computer.

I would remove that second drive from the computer and mount it in an
external USB enclosure. Then do your cloning to that. If the original
drive fails, you can either replace it and copy the cloned drive to
the new one, or mount the cloned drive in place of the failed one.

Also one clone is not a backup strategy.
Murphy says that the system will fail while you are creating your clone and
you will lose both.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Also one clone is not a backup strategy.
Murphy says that the system will fail while you are creating your clone and
you will lose both.

True. It's best to have at least two such external drives, and
alternate their use. However, I wanted to focus on what I considered
the main thing wrong with his plan, and not introduce other points.