Best way to clone?

I've still got my OS on an IDE drive and my new MB only has one IDE slot. I've got two opticals on IDE as well so I'm screwed (plus my case has opticals and HDs in totally separate areas, cables won't reach)! I need to clone my IDE drive to a SATA. IDE is partitioned as two drives right now.

I've got Acronis (not sure which version) which I've never used before. Can this do cloning or just backups? I'm a "ghosting" newbie. Tried it about 4-yrs ago when Ghost was still DOS based and couldn't get it to run with SCSI opticals, so I gave up.

What's the best technique? Keep the new SATA drive as an external, or install it into windows prior to running Acronis? Someone help a total cloning newb?

I use Acronis True Image version 10 (the latest). Under the "Operations" tab (top left corner), you have options to "add a new disc" and "clone disc". If your version doesn't, every HDD manfg. offers tools to do a cloning job.

Good Luck!

I've used Acronis True Image (9 and 10) a lot at home to backup/restore machines, and even completely change hardware while keeping the harddrives (with RAID too) using the 'Universal Restore' add-on.

Highly recommend Acronis

What motherboard is it? I ask this because Acronis True Image Home isn't compatible with certain chipsets due to the linux emulation.

I learned this the hard way. So I had to switch to Ghost 12. Has been perfectly fine for me till now.



You can clone the disk via the program, but I think it's better to make an image of it to have a backup copy just incase.


* Before starting it's a good idea to make sure to remove the paging file, hibernation file, all temporary file (ie and etc) to reduce the image size *

What you do is first create an image of the OS drive you want to clone. Once it's done, make sure you verify (usually during the process, there should be an option to verify after backup).
If the whole backup image isn't too big, you can burn it to a few dvds instead.
Either make a bootable rescue media via acronis or ghost. (you can boot off the actual application dvd also)

If you choose to backup to dvds

1 - Turn off pc, then install the SATA drive. Reboot to CD/dvd
2 - Once the recovery software loads, insert the media then browse to and select it.
3 - It'll recover your drive to your new sata one.

On the other hand - if the image is large, you can back it up to your hard drive.

1 - Since applications such as Ghost doesn't recommend backing up to the same drive, you can create the image to the SATA drive.
2 - Then copy it to the IDE.
3 - Reboot pc, and let it boot to CD/dvd
4 - Browse to the ide drive and select the image
5 - Once recovery is done, upon reboot- make sure the BIOS is correctly set to boot from the new SATA drive


P.s. Creating the image on dvds are a hassle when recovering, especially in Norton Ghost. They make you insert and reinsert the first and last media a few times. >_>

so ive been looking to ghost after i wipe my drive in the next few weeks, was wondering with ghost can you put it on the same drive as long as it is on a separate partation?

Well technically you can back up to even the same volume, but it's highly not recommended due to obvious reasons.

And yes, you can have a seperate partition for your backup images.

good, means the plans i have layed out will still fit

Thanks all, used Acronis and it went smooth. No formatting, etc., and Acronis automatically partitioned and enlarged each to fit the bigger HD.

Thanks all, used Acronis and it went smooth.

Click to expand...

I just love it when a plan comes together!