Ghost Image vs Cloning an HDD

[BobH]

Can someone please explain the difference in these two processes? I've read wiki and several web sites, but find it confusing still.

There are (at least) two reasons for my interest.

First, darling daughter brought her old Dell Inspiron E1505 to us. It runs Windows XP Media Center Edition but there is no CD to reinstall the OS. I have requested a replacement via the Dell web site but have no confirmation that my request was processed. I want to replace the installed hard drive with a larger one, and I don't want to have to spend to pay for another WinXP MCE license (and I want to retain the Media Center functions). From what I've read, I can make either an image or a clone (I'm not sure which is appropriate or why) of the existing drive. I plan to use a WD Passport to create the image/clone then image/clone it back to a newly installed 320 GB hard drive. Having never done this before, I'm a bit fearful of doing something that will make the existing hard drive dysfunctional or failing to meet the goal of dramatically increasing the disk space. The hardware is not Windows 7 compliant; so an upgrade is not feasible.

Second, from what I've read, imaging an HDD is a good way run routine backups. Again, from what I've read, the Acronis Home edition product performs these functions and has an excellent user interface - one that protects the user from his own ignorance and the damage that can result therefrom.

Am I barking up the wrong tree? Is this the right approach? Any comments on the Acronis Home edition software? I'm aware that freeware apps exist but from the reviews I've read I'm fearful that I lack the experience to use them safely. Besides, Acronis is inexpensive enough if one shops carefully. Any other apps I should consider?

TIA

[Carol W.]

FWIW, I've been using Acronis TI to routinely create a backup (i.e. an image) of my two hard drives for several years. A few (counting on the fingers of one hand) times, I've had to restore my C: partition (damage caused by sloppy software installs/uninstalls and other non-user related issues ). Acronis has been there for me each and every time, restoring my C: partition flawlessly.

Acronis can also be used to selectively backup/restore files and folders - another life saving feature!

[BobH]

FWIW, I've been using Acronis TI to routinely create a backup (i.e. an image) of my two hard drives for several years. A few (counting on the fingers of one hand) times, I've had to restore my C: partition (damage caused by sloppy software installs/uninstalls and other non-user related issues ). Acronis has been there for me each and every time, restoring my C: partition flawlessly.

Acronis can also be used to selectively backup/restore files and folders - another life saving feature!

Thanks for the input, Carol. That helps reinforce my decision on Acronis.

[StuartR]

A clone creates an identical copy of a disk, that could be used to replace the original disk. This could be created on a larger disk so that you have more free space.

An image contains all the information that was on the original disk, but it cannot be used directly, it must be restored to a disk before you can use it. An image takes up less room than a clone because it doesn't have to copy unused space on the disk. An image can be restored to the same disk (to recover from a software problem) or to a different disk (to recover from a hardware problem), or can be used to recover individual files. You may be able to restore the image to a larger disk, increasing the amount of free space.

If all you want to do is create a copy of your system on a bigger disk then a clone will be sufficient. If you want to create regular backups, or you want to be able to recover data at a later date, then create an image.

[BobL]

An image contains all the information that was on the original disk, but it cannot be used directly, it must be restored to a disk before you can use it.

Hi StuartR, just an addition here (I won't go into the this software is better than that software) on images - images can be 'mounted' or 'browsed' and individual files can then be dragged to or copied to another drive (restoring single or groups of files rather than the whole drive) - IMHO this alone makes images a far superior and versatile product than cloning.

[StuartR]

...images can be 'mounted' or 'browsed' and individual files can then be dragged to or copied to another drive...

I agree, this is what I meant by "or can be used to recover individual files"

[BobH]

Thank you, gentlemen!

I used Acronis to clone the HDD in the laptop to a WD Passport portable drive. Beforehand, I formatted the Passport and created an NTSF file system and checked with Windows Explorer that the drive was empy. The Passport connects via a USB port. I checked again after the cloning process and found that the Passport has 2 partitions just as the original drive has. I then removed the original drive and installed a brand new WD Scorpio drive in the laptop. I changed the boot sequence to hit the USB drives first; however I get an error when I power up. The error is: [XLDR] ATA error.

I don't know whether the WD Scorpio drive has been formatted as I have no way of connecting it to view its attributes. Am I wrong to expect that the OS will boot from the USB Passport drive that contains the clone?

Again, thank you for the guidance.

[PaulB]

Bob, I'm not familiar with using Acronis, but I use a similar product (ShadowProtect). In order to restore an image backup I would need to boot from the ShadowProtect recovery CD/DVD that is downloaded from the vendor as part of the ShadowProtect package. You may want to check the Acronis documentation to determine exactly how a restore is done.

[StuartR]

Some computers will boot from a USB disk, other's won't.

The best thing to do in your circumstance is to boot from your Acronis disk, make an image backup to the USB disk, then swap your hard drive and restore the image to the new hard drive.

[viking33]

Thank you, gentlemen!

I used Acronis to clone the HDD in the laptop to a WD Passport portable drive. Beforehand, I formatted the Passport and created an NTSF file system and checked with Windows Explorer that the drive was empy. The Passport connects via a USB port. I checked again after the cloning process and found that the Passport has 2 partitions just as the original drive has. I then removed the original drive and installed a brand new WD Scorpio drive in the laptop. I changed the boot sequence to hit the USB drives first; however I get an error when I power up. The error is: [XLDR] ATA error.

I don't know whether the WD Scorpio drive has been formatted as I have no way of connecting it to view its attributes. Am I wrong to expect that the OS will boot from the USB Passport drive that contains the clone?

Bob,
What version of Acronis are you using? Some of the older versions will not allow restoring to a different drive than the original. This has been corrected in later versions, 2009\2010 I believe.

[BobH]

Thanks, guys!

I just purchased the latest edition of Acronis TI Home Edition.

From googling, I discovered that I might have skipped a step in doing this clone. Seems I need to run Microsoft's sysprep.exe to prepare the SID and other variables for the clone process. This will modify the installed OS (as I understand it) which troubles me because it might make the installed OS unusable.

What confuses and confounds me is that I can't find a simple direct statement that says that I either can or cannot boot from the newly cloned intermediate drive. By this I mean that I must have the original laptop hard drive in the machine and clone it to a USB hard drive (WD Passport) because I cannot connect the new and larger laptop drive (WD Scorpio) directly to the system. After cloning the original Hitachi drive to the Passport, I must be able to boot from the Passport because I will have removed the Hitachi and replaced it with the Scorpio which has no OS. I must be able to run from the Passport in order to boot and in order to execute Acronis to clone the Passport to the Scorpio. Nowhere can I find a statement that details how to accomplish this that also addresses the issue of the intermediate boot step from the external hard drive. Looking at the boot sequence options in the BIOS, the option to boot from a USB connected HDD IS available.

If I am approaching this wrong, I would appreciate someone showing me the error(s) of my ways. As I said in another post, this is the only path available to me that will preserve the WinXP MCE because I am without the reinstall CD and my request to Dell for replacement is in limbo.

[StuartR]

...If I am approaching this wrong, I would appreciate someone showing me the error(s) of my ways...

You don't need to boot the USB disk that has your backup image. You can use Acronis to create a bootable CD. Then boot the Acronis CD and restore the image.

[BobH]

...If I am approaching this wrong, I would appreciate someone showing me the error(s) of my ways...

You don't need to boot the USB disk that has your backup image. You can use Acronis to create a bootable CD. Then boot the Acronis CD and restore the image.

Hi Stuart!

I tried to boot from the Acronis CD but it didn't recognize the USB external hard drive. Acronis support told me to burn a bootable rescue disk. I did so with both a USB flash drive and later with a DVD. Both will load the Acronis software.

I continue to have problems with this recovery despite near a dozen attempts to date, including going back to ground zero and reformatting the ultimate target drive and reformatting the intermediate external hard drive. After completing the recovery (successfully according to the Acronis software), I still am unable to boot from the new, larger internal HDD. The error "[XLDR] ATA error" persists.

After reading many online articles about this error, I still know very little about it. It appears that this message is associate with boot errors - many different kinds of boot errors. I can find almost nothing about the error and recovery for core duo processors running WinXP. Most, if not all, of the information about WinXP recovery from this error refers to X86 processor based machines. There are utilities available in WinXP Recovery Console to repair the boot sector (FIXBOOT) and to repair the master boot record (FIXMBR) but they work only on X86 machines. I am yet to find a similar utility for core duo machines.

I have read information that I do not quite understand concerning the master boot record (MBR). As I get the gist of it, the BIOS bootstrap points to the MBR which resides on Sector 0 Track 0. The MBR started life as a 512 byte record containing switches, pointers, and the like. This is where an OS learns about the system and learns where the File Allocation Table is to be found. This and other information in the MBR that tell he bootstrap process where to find the OS based on variables set by the BIOS. I have read that the MBR contains information defining components specific to the machine on which it was first created and written AND that the sequence of the information about system components can be crucial. (This implies to me that the boot process assumes some relationship between the information it seeks and the location of the components to be acted upon. Obviously, in moving the MBR to a different disk drive in the same machine with the same BIOS, only the information about the disk drive can be different.

I have come to suspect from comments read on various forums that Dell use some proprietary schemes for their Dell-installed drives. Another curse upon Dell if they do. No one, however, seemed to offer information intelligible to me on how to crack the Dell scheme. Perhaps it is impossible, but if that were the case, one could never recover without reinstalling the OS, all software and data. Methinks that overly onerous for the world at large. Further, methinks that the process of imaging whole volumes was invented to avoid the problem of reinstalling everything; yet here I sit in the maelstrom of the conundrum created by Dell that says, "You can only go there if you've been there before, but you can only go there once!"

I found and downloaded a command line utility called MBRWiz that touts itself as the medicine for MBR repair problems. Because I'm trying to create a workable MBR on a virgin hard drive and especially because I will have the original, unaltered hard drive to fall back on, I'm less fearful of the tools. However, WOT told me that the site was not trustworthy and twice my browser was hijacked from their site, disabling the previous url history making the BACK button useless. I feel as if I am descending the last flight of stairs into Dr. Frankenstein's dungeon without lights. The only situation I would find more frightful would be hearing Charon's greeting while boarding the ferry across the Styx.

[StuartR]

I don't know if this will work for you. I had a PC that wouldn't recognise a disk when booted from the Acronis CD. I logged on to the Acronis web site and downloaded an ISO of a different bootable CD that worked perfectly.

See Difference between Acronis Bootable Media Generated in Product and the One Downloaded from the Website for more info.

[z-aksis]

Do not despair as there IS light at the end of the tunnel! I was in the same boat and really had to figure this out for my customer this week. The only caveat I have to warn of with this fix is the fact that you will lose the dell Diagnostic partition and restore functionality.

With that in the air here we go: First go ahead and copy the old drive to the new one with Ghost or Acronis. When the drive is copied, use a partition manager to remove all but the Windows XP partition. After removing the excess partitions, use your partition manager to expand the XP partition to your desired size. Almost there.... next I used a program called MBRwork which has an option to "Write a standard MBR" to the hard disk. You should now be able to boot your XP partition!

I did use Hiren's boot cd 10.2 for my partition management as well as the MBRwork program it contains to complete this task. I hope this helps someone get a little closer to that celebratory beer... cheers!

[HansV]

Welcome to Eileen's Lounge!

Thanks for your encouraging words.

A note for others reading this thread: MBRWork is a free MS-DOS utility, available from TeraByte Unlimited. Description:

MBRWork is a utility to perform some common and uncommon tasks to the MBR/EMBR sectors of a hard drive. It should only be used by power users who understand how computers work. The readme.txt file in the ZIP contains a list of the tasks available.

(Italics are mine)