Greetings all, a happy Western Digital owner here. (Two RE3 WD2502ABYS in a RAID 1 array in a Vista machine and ONE WD2500KS in an non RAID XP Pro machine along with a ( ssshhh, seagate ST3250410AS).) … which will lead me to my question eventually.
I’ve been reading and searching and experimenting for YEARS trying to implement the simplest, most robust method to CLONE MY DRIVES. I hope I’m using the right term there. I back up my data like a person that has lost it. :dizzy_face: BUT I’ve never been able to make a bootable copy of a system I’ve spent months tweaking. I’ve read all of the reviews about Norton Ghost and Acronis TI and there are an equal number of people posting about complete clone FAILURES as well as the DESTRUCTION of the system disk they were tying to protect, as there are people posting about what a simple and successful operation they had. That causes me some serious concern. Evidently, I’m directly related to ‘Murphy’ because anytime I need something to NOT go wrong, it usually does. :cry: (Hence the experiment with RAID 1 … which DID NOT protect me from losing a system I’d spent months tweaking.)
During the course of my reading I stumbled on a review that suggested that the most reliable method this guy had ever used to clone drives was by using the SOFTWARE PROVIDED BY YOUR DRIVE MANUFACTURER! Which is how I ended up here tonight. (Happy New Year.) I skimmed through the Acronis TrueImage WD Edition User’s Guide before I logged in here but I couldn’t find anything in the manual (of course!) about the possibility of using this utility to clone FROM the WD drive TO a seagate? Which is leads me to my questions.
1.Any of you out there use this Acronis software supplied by WD to clone a bootable drive with success?
2. Any of you ever use this software to clone a WD drive to a NON WD drive of the same size, speed, spec, etc. with any success?
3. Any tips, tricks, suggestions, similar situations?
These drives were paired in a RAID 1 array together with NO issues and they have both performed flawlessly. (So far). I lost the array by trying to replace the motherboard in the system BUT I was able to salvage ALL of the other hardware undamaged, drives included.
When I rebuilt the system this time, I did NOT set up a RAID array. I simply loaded up on the WD2500KS and installed the (other) drive after I had the OS updated and stabilized. I formatted the (other) drive, they’re both showing “Online” and “Healthy” in Disk Management … waiting for someone to tell me, “It’ll work, I did it.”
Any constructive thoughts and/or suggestions would be appreciated.
