Preparing to change hard drive question

 As an interim solution until I build a new computer I needed to replace my C drive. My old C was a 250gb which I have almost filled up and I'm replacing it with  1tb drive. I have Acronis 2013 which I had planned to use to make the switch. Since this isn't something I commonly do I wanted to ask about the safest and most effective way to use Acronis. Specifically-
 
Will I be required to upgrade to Acronis 2014?
The software asks if I want incremental or total backup. I have been choosing incremental, but I recently erased the backup drive and i only have one incremental backup on it now. Should I make a total backup instead?
The software asks if I want to make my back up bootable. I'm assuming that this means my computer would boot off off the backup drive instead of using my new drive. Is this correct?
 
If the above question is yes, then Acronis allows me to make a bootable CD. I'm guessing the procedure for copying to a new drive goes something like this: I make a bootable CD in Acronis and tell my bios to boot from CD first and ignore booting from any of my other drives. After I install the new drive, I boot my computer and it boots from the CD I made and hopefully asks me for my backup file or sees the file automatically since it will be hooked up by usb. If all goes well, the backup file is found and loaded on the new drive.....did I miss anything?
 

Not sure if I'm reading you correctly but it sounds like Starise wants to actually replace his C: system drive in which case you would want to CLONE the c: drive. It's been awhile since I last did this but I used the Acronis boot CD to do it. I don't have access to the material right now but, as I remember, that process was under a tools menu or somewhere different from the normal Acronis CD boot-up screen. Best to look up 'clone' drive in the Acronis manual.
 
I do know that I had to remove my existing C: drive and physically install the NEW C: drive in the same place as the old one. Then I put the original C: drive in another physical slot. From there I had to boot with the Acronis CD and go through the clone process.
 
Also, even though it was a clone there were a few vendors that had used the system drive to register some of my  software and I had to go back and re-auth those software packages. Wasn't a big deal at the time.
 
 
Mesh, if you just want to make an image of the C: system drive in order to restore to the same C: drive just as a backup that is pretty easy to do from the Acronis boot CD and if you have any specific questions I would be happy to try and help you out.
 
If you're wanting to clone another C: drive to put on the shelf I can't help with that as I've not had any luck with that one. Jim R. could provide more help there.
 
 
 

rtucker55
Not sure if I'm reading you correctly but it sounds like Starise wants to actually replace his C: system drive in which case you would want to CLONE the c: drive. It's been awhile since I last did this but I used the Acronis boot CD to do it. I don't have access to the material right now but, as I remember, that process was under a tools menu or somewhere different from the normal Acronis CD boot-up screen. Best to look up 'clone' drive in the Acronis manual.
 
I do know that I had to remove my existing C: drive and physically install the NEW C: drive in the same place as the old one. Then I put the original C: drive in another physical slot. From there I had to boot with the Acronis CD and go through the clone process.
 
Also, even though it was a clone there were a few vendors that had used the system drive to register some of my  software and I had to go back and re-auth those software packages. Wasn't a big deal at the time.
 
 
Mesh, if you just want to make an image of the C: system drive in order to restore to the same C: drive just as a backup that is pretty easy to do from the Acronis boot CD and if you have any specific questions I would be happy to try and help you out.
 
If you're wanting to clone another C: drive to put on the shelf I can't help with that as I've not had any luck with that one. Jim R. could provide more help there.
 
 
 

Thanks Rtucker55!!
I'll take a stab at it tonight and I truly appreciate the offer to help........which I'll probably need.....

I cloned my three internal drives with an external HDD dock which wasn't expensive and included the software for the task. Job done in an hour, and the dock is useful anyway, because I can use the old HDDs whenever i want, if necessary. And any other HDDs, of course.

When I did the clone it was on a laptop that has two internal drives, I did unplug the data drive just as a failsafe as the Acronus boot CD does not use the same drive letters but it does show the correct volume names. I did connect the New System drive to where the old one was prior to the clone process and connected the Old System drive to a usb port using a sata to usb adaptor.
 
I'm not sure if you can use an image from one drive to clone a physically New system drive but I don't think I was able to. At the time I wanted to be able to have another drive on the shelf in case of physical drive failure. I wish Jim R. could chime in here because he would be able to answer that question without question...
 
I do remember having to re-auth a few software packages and I do believe the Spectrasonics stuff was one vendor but it was painless.
 
Give the clone process a shot and if it doesn't work, or something fails, you can always do a clean install. Just in case I would also make a backup or copies of any important files from your existing drive before starting the process.
 
Kind regards,
Rick

Kalle- I had one of those external drive enclosures, I used the ribbon cable from it for something else and without that cable it's pretty much useless. Like you say they are inexpensive to buy. Maybe I can make it work that way if I buy another one and the usb doesn't work.
 
Thanks guys for your help...I'll determine if my computer will see my usb drive and experiment with my boot CD. If the computer doesn't see the usb drive image then it's go to plan B.If all goes as planned I should be able to do it without a lot of trouble. 
 
I have a few serious things to do on the computer, I probably should wait until after I do them.If something goes funky I'm in trouble.

I've done the overwrite or put in the new C drive lots of times with Acronis. I have Acronis True Image 2013..

Basic steps.

1. Back up to an external drive your whole C drive with Acronis. Might want to do that to two external drives just to be safe in case your one external drive hiccups.

2. Shut down replace your physical c drive.

3. boot from the Acronis CD that comes with Acronis

4. Restore drive from backup with Acronis

It's remarkably straightforward. Just a couple mouse clicks all told for the whole cycle there.

I made the change on my C drive yesterday with minimal problems. I wanted share what I came across in case anyone else is looking at doing the same thing.
 
First I tried restoring to my new drive installed in my old drive location and using my usb connected HDD as a backup with Acronis 2013 and an image on that drive. Before hand I made a backup disk in Acronis and had my computer boot off of it.....no banana....my computer never seen my boot disk. 
 
Plan B: I disconnected one of my data storage drives and connected my new HDD to that location. I then simply told Acronis  to make a clone of my C drive. After the clone was completed I exchanged places with it removing my old C drive,reconnecting my data drive and putting the clone where the old C drive had been. The computer booted up like nothing had ever happened and I felt like I had my old friend back...plus an extra TB of data. This has been my first experiences with a Seagate drive....I should probably make a copy right away as I've heard some scary things about Seagate drives.
 
Clones are  better IMO than images. Images need to be rebuilt from a compressed file while clones don't. To me it seems like a backup image is like the secondary parachute when the first one fails...I'm not totally confident of it. In my case the backup failed me because my computer wouldn't see the boot disk. In the event I couldn't make a clone, my only recourse would have been to remove the drive from the usb enclosure and attempt to hook it through SATA, and then hope that the image would be recognized.