Acronis True Image Western Digital edition

I bought and installed a new WD 1TB HD as the secondary HD in my desktop computer. With the purchase of the HD I got a free download of Acronis True Image software (WD Edition). Using the Acronis software I successfully cloned my C drive (original HD in computer) to the new HD.

I have been trying - unsuccessfully so far - to clone my C drive to an external HD - a Western Digital Passport 500 GB -using the Acronis software. My goal is to have a drive that I can store offsite and use to boot my computer in the event both HD’s in my desktop computer fail.

I have tried doing this using the “Clone Disk” feature in the Acronis software. I have tried doing it both automatically and manually. Every time I have tried I have checked the contents of my WD Passport HD. It is completely empty.

As a note, every time I have tried it after the required reboot that occurs during the process, the operation status window appears. After a very short time the computer shuts down and reboots. Also, the Tasks Management window shows that every one of my attempts has been successful.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Hi, Acronis doesn’t work that well when cloning from an internal to external hard drive.

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Alucardx23 wrote:

Hi, Acronis doesn’t work that well when cloning from an internal to external hard drive.

In fact Acronis True Image works exceptionally well at making a full image of the internal drive to an external HD. Now, I use the full retail version of Acronis True Image, not the reduced WD edition, so I can’t say what the differences are.

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Alucardx23 wrote:

Hi, Acronis doesn’t work that well when cloning from an internal to external hard drive.

In fact Acronis True Image works exceptionally well at making a full image of the internal drive to an external HD. Now, I use the full retail version of Acronis True Image, not the reduced WD edition, so I can’t say what the differences are.

But, you can’t actually “Clone Disk” from internal to external. That’s a Windows issue, because Windows won’t allow a bootable external HD. Besides, why would you want to Clone to an external HD? That makes no sense, because you couldn’t boot from it and you would use that entire external HD for just a single backup image. It would be better to make full disk backup images of the internal drive to the external, and the external could hold many such images.

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I hate to be stubborn, but a friend is using Acronis True Image Home 2010 to clone his C drive (a WD SATA black) to an external drive (a WD 500 GB MyBook running on USB 2.0). He has done this (for the exact reason I tried to do it) to create a back-up bootable drive.

Could the problem I am having be caused by the fact that I am using an older version of Acronis.

Thanks.

The WD version is based on Acronis TI 2009. Try making an image.  There mixed feelings on which is best see post 11 by Grover http://forum.acronis.com/forum/3355 I use TI 2010 and always make my image by booting from CD. I’ve used an image a few times when I’ve had problems. I also partition the drive with System on one and data on the other. Then you can restore the OS without bothering the data partition.

Joe

There is no reason to Clone in this case. Make a full disk Backup. It’s better, safer, and allows you to save many full backup images from many dates to a single drive.

Bruce_Sherman wrote:

I hate to be stubborn, but a friend is using Acronis True Image Home 2010 to clone his C drive (a WD SATA black) to an external drive (a WD 500 GB MyBook running on USB 2.0). He has done this (for the exact reason I tried to do it) to create a back-up bootable drive.

He will not be able to boot from that drive, so the Clone is rather worthless. Windows won’t allow normal boot from an external USB HD. He’d be better off making full disk backup images.