Problems with Acronis--solved!

I mentioned this in the software forum, and several guys were very helpful.  But alas, my problem has not yet been solved.  I contacted Acronis and they've been trying to help me get it to work.  Here's the latest email.  I've tried all this before, though, and usually get hung up when I try to burn the disk, as it just won't burn. 

I have one HD now and have installed two new, bigger ones.  I simply wanted to clone my present HD onto the two new ones and use THEM as the main drive and backup drive.  (My present one is almost full.)  I successfully cloned the first one following the fairly simple directions.  But cloning the second one has proved impossible, as I get the error message that the disk I'm trying to clone to is smaller than the source disk (which it's not.)  Someone thought maybe it's because one is listed as the secondary master and one as the secondary slave.   I haven't yet gotten down on my knees and found my flashlight and glasses to try see if I could change what he recommended.

The bottom line:  these directions he gives sound rather convoluted for what should be a rather straight-forward process.  If one of you good fellows can figure out what he's talking about, I'd be much obliged.  If not, I may just look for another cloning program. 


******

As you have mentioned that you are not able to clone the drive, I request you to please follow the steps in the link mentioned below to perform the cloning operation:
1)Please download the ISO of Acronis True Image Home 2010 from the link mentioned below:

http://download.acronis.com/sl/ppzmrolicbpyvxqvzhjp/support/ISO/isolinux/TrueImage_7046_multiparam_Standard_english_il.iso

Please note that the above mentioned link will remain valid only for 14 days and can be downloaded for a maximum of 5 times.

After downloading the ISO please burn it to a CD/DVD which will create an Acronis Bootable Media. Please follow the steps in the link mentioned below to burn the ISO to a CD/DVD:

http://kb.acronis.com/content/1810


2) Boot the computer with the Acronis Bootable Media.

3)Once you have booted  the computer with the Acronis Bootable Media please select Tools & Utilities -> Clone disk in the main program menu.

4)Select the source disk as the disk which has to be cloned from the list of disk available-> click Next.

5)Select the destination disk as the disk on which you want to clone(New hard disk) -> Click Next.
Please note that the previously selected source becomes grayed-out and disabled for selection.

6)Once you have selected the partition on which you want to clone you will get a prompt warning that the data in the selected disk will be deleted.

7) Please select the cloning method as :
As is-if you want to keep the size of the partition on the destination disk same as it is on the source disk.
Proportional – the new disk space will be proportionally distributed among cloned partitions
Manual – you will specify the new size and other parameters yourself

Click Next ->Click Next.
8)Please click on Finish.

After the disk cloning is finished please detach one of the disk which has been cloned as in case we clone a disk with system partition the computer will not be able to boot to the operating system.

If the destination disk is unformatted then please follow the steps mentioned below:
1)Boot the computer with the Acronis Bootable Media.

2)select Tools & Utilities ? Add New Disk in the main program menu.

3)To create a partition, click Create new partition on the toolbar and set the new partition location and size. You can do this both by entering values in the Free space before, Partition size, Free space after fields, and by dragging partition borders or the partition itself.

4)Click the Accept button and you will be taken back to the Partition Creation screen. Check the resulting partition's settings if it is correct and click on Accept else start creating another partition by clicking Create new partition again. You can also edit the new partition's settings by clicking Edit on the toolbar or delete it by clicking Delete.

5)Click Next and Click Proceed.

6)After creating the partition please perform the cloning operation as mentioned in the steps 2 to 8 where I have mentioned how to perform the cloning operation.

Please refer to the section-20.3 /page-163 to 168 for cloning steps and refer to the section-21/page-169-171 in the User Guide of Acronis True Image Home 2010. Please refer to the link mentioned below to access the User Guide of Acronis True Image Home 2010:

http://download.acronis.com/pdf/TrueImage2010_UserGuide.en.pdf


Please let me know if you have any other questions. I will be glad to assist you. I look forward to your response.

Bishwajit Choudhary

Tried that too.

True.  I could do that.  But it's highly recommended by several on this forum.  So I'm sure it's basically a good program.  Just not for me.

Hmm, like that's never happened before!  lol

Janet,

Let me start by saying I can't help you.

But...I did want to add, I had a booger of a time with Acronis. Never did get it work right. When I first tried to use it, from then on it wanted to try and boot from my DVD drive. I had to go into the BIOS to fix this. But ever since, when my computer boots up for just a brief moment I get a "MBR Error 3" which I'm guessing means Master Boot Record. After that passes everything works pretty good...well, at least as 8.5.3 can on my machine.

I wish someone would come to Texas and make Acronis work right. Any takers...?

I'm feelin' ya'...

Earl

Janet


NoKey, my son's looked into that possibility.  He thinks that since my C: drive is partitioned, that MIGHT be causing the problem, although it doesn't seem like it should.  And I'm not going to reformat that thing since it would take me weeks to reinstall everything.  Well, at least I'd rather not! 

Disk Director Suite, huh?  Not quite sure if I want to buy anything else from them, but I'll check into it.

Earl, it's sorta nice to know I'm not the only one.  On the one HD that it DID clone, the main files are about 4 files deep, so I'm not sure that one will even work to boot from.  I'm just hoping that I don't have to start with a fresh install of everything to get this to work.... (on a new drive)

Janet,

If the target is partitioned, that kind of would be it...That's why the message is that the target is smaller than the source.

Remember if you ask to reformat, and you reformat the partition, there is no partition gain.

The partitions have to be deleted first. Otherwise the same situation remains.

Good luck.

NoKey, I checked last night and the original disk is partitioned, but the two new ones aren't, so that really doesn't make any sense.  :(

You read all that thread, Kalle?  Thank you.  Yeah, I know it should work.  These types of things are rather par for the course for me.  Unfortunately, my son's getting tired of fixing things for me.  He said yesterday, 'Quit trying to be so young, mom!'  (i.e., getting new software, etc.)  lol

Wow, David, you read through all that?  :-)

Thanks for those instructions.  Those are the same ones they sent me (at least I've seen them before, but when I get to 'you have files waiting to be burned to CD' it just won't do it.  There are no choices to click.  I followed all those instructions and it seems to work, but then there's nothing on the CD.

Why would there be problems with my OS?  Especially when it cloned the first one just fine.

And another question...everything on my HD probably took 24 hours altogether to install.  Could it really only take 1 1/2 hours to clone all that...and everything really works?  That's mind-boggling to me. (but that's what happened.) 

My son (a very good computer guy) recommended Acronis backup software.  That's what it is, right?  I tried the trial download and I fought that till I had to remove every bit of it off of my drive.  If my son recommended it I know it's good but it didn't work for me. 

it does its thing

OK so is this under Windows 7? Or have you tried the other applications?

You mean the disk drive runs, the little light comes on, and when you look at the surface of the disk under tangential lighting there is evidence of change to the disk surface near the hub? When you click on your CD burner in Computer does it say disk not present or does it list file(s) after the burn? Or is the disk just not being written to at all? What is the full name, and the size of the iso file?

Realize that this may well be a disk written in a format that Windows cannot read. Many boot disks are Linux based. If there really is something written to the CD (look at the disk itself compared to a blank disk) then it may be bootable even though Windows thinks there is nothing there. Try setting your bios to boot from CD drive as first device, put the disk in the drive and restart the computer.

BTW what is your OS and what version of Acronis are you using?

David...yes, under Windows 7.  Other applications?

OK, I just looked at one of the disks.  It does indeed look like it's been burned.  I can open it up and it says it's there (TrueImage_7046_multiparam_standard_english_il).  It's 36.3 MB.  So maybe it's there after all, although it's under a heading that says 'Files Ready to be Written to the CD.'

My OS is Win7, isn't it?

Acronis True Image Home

I'm not confident enough to touch my bios so I think I'll leave that to an expert.  But maybe we'll get to the bottom of this after all. Thank you. 

Eric...I'm just following the instructions for burning a disk.  What should I be doing?

OK thanks.  I think that's what I did.  And that file I mentioned is on the disk.  Perhaps I just need to follow thru with what he said to do.  Maybe it's all right after all.  I'm not positive how I go about using this disk though, since when I click on that file, it just says to burn disk image. 

I guess I'm looking for some sort of program to come up (like the original Acronis disk I bought) so I can tell it to clone.  I'm obviously missing something though. 

So now what?

No, it doesn't look like I do.

Well, in my case, they're not far off.

But I've always thought those yay-hoos could explain things a little better, too, like you guys do here. 

Anyway, I'll look into that.  Thanks.

So it sounds like you may not be getting the iso file properly expanded by Windows 7. If you just copy the same file that you downloaded to the CD, the CD will not be bootable, and will not contain Acronis. The iso file (which you do not know is an iso because the extension is hidden) is an image of a CD just like the image file you write with Acronis is an image of a hard drive or a zip file is an image of a group of files. Neither one is readable until you "expand" them with appropriate software. Check the file properties (right click on the file icon choose properties) of both the file you downloaded and the file on the CD. If they are the same, you have probably just copied the iso file--not good.

I would try using another program to see if you can avoid whatever is going wrong with Windows.

Go here and download isorecorder. Follow the instructions here to install it to your computer. Double click the downloaded file and it should install. You may have the usual problems with UAC. Then follow the instructions here to use it to write the file you got from acronis to write a boot CD.