Re: How to clone a hard drive?
I know when I bought the OCZ vertex I used Acronis TI (can't remember which version but, not really old) and the alignment was wrong when I checked it with AS-SSD.
I can't remember the whole technical reasons just something about the way it aligns a HDD is different to the alignment of SSD's.
the Latest version of Acronis may well be fixed to deal with SSD's.
Re: How to clone a hard drive?
From reading about, it looks like Acronis TI 2011 = no alignment (that's pretty much a given - too many places saying it doesn't) and that Acronis TI 2012 has alignment when used correctly.
Just found this: http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=311344
Quote:
Acronis True Image Home 2012 has been designed to be used with SSDs. You should not use an earlier version to clone an image to an SSD. Why? Because a very important parameter in setting up an SSD is sector alignment. See the following link:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...alignment.html
Earlier version of Acronis True Image did not properly align SSDs. Do not depend on the cloning software that comes with your SSD. It may not align your SSD properly. Use the commands in the attached link to determine if your SSD is properly aligned. Note that if you install WIN7 directly to the SSD, alignment should not be a problem. It occurs when you clone the operating system to the SSD.
Ron
Which seems to backup other places.
Re: How to clone a hard drive?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Harrybizzle
Apparently it only works for the hard drive your cloning is smaller then the destination drive. I am clonding a bigger hard drive (well 100gb of it) onto a smaller drive (256gb).
Ill continue reading the other posts & trying the suggestions..
edit; I am downloading a new Windows 7 .iso which ill try out tomorrow, I presume the option to format a second disc but not install windows 7 is brought up during setup?
Thanks for all the suggestions guys, when I have time to go through this tomorrow morning ill make a start on this! :)
Re: How to clone a hard drive?
I would disconnect the drive that holds the data if you are going to install Win 7 as a fresh copy to the new drive (SSD ?) then have it (HDD)plugged in as a slave in order to copy over the data you want.
Install to a SSD should be about 10mins from start to finish (it was for the laptop i have here)
Re: How to clone a hard drive?
You could try shrinking your Windows partition on your HDD then using windows nackup & restore to make an image of it. You could then use the windows 7 dvd you to restore the image onto the SSD.
Admittedly I chanced it with one of my disks and used driveimage xml, it's pretty quick. Fortunately the allignment showed as being OK in AS SSD.
Re: How to clone a hard drive?
Cloning a disk is a bit by bit copy of every bit on the source to the destination, starting at bit 1 of sector 1 and ending at the last bit of the last sector of the source (or destination if it smaller) unless you tell the cloning program otherwise.
This will replicate the source in its entirety, and as the partition table (and file tables) are just a pattern of bits at a specific location, they will be replicated too.
Formatting a hard drive is really just creating a file system structure on a disk, specific to the operating system - the MFT for NTFS, the FAT for a DOS system, an EXT3 (one of many) for a Linux system.
Cloning hard drives with similar characteristics is straightforward, but as Agent has said, cloning to an SSD, with a different 'geometry' may not be a good idea.
Incidentally, it is also possible to clone a disk to a file on another disk drive which, with appropriate software, can be mounted as a virtual drive on a system.