Hi Roger,
A clone is an exact duplicate of a storage volume (a full unpartitioned
hard drive or a single partition from a multiple partitioned drive). If you
clone a bootable volume onto another drive, that new partition clone will
also be bootable. So yes, you will be able to pull out the original drive,
replace it with the cloned drive and get right back to computing as though
nothing happened. You should also be able to enter the BIOS and set the
external as your primary boot device and get the same end result.
Assuming you use the same type of hard drive for both (SATA, PATA, SCSI,
RAID), the only sticking point is that you'll have to make sure that the
second drive is jumpered the same way as the original (Master/Slave/Cable
Select). This does not mean that you cannot clone a PATA drive onto a SATA
drive, but if you do something like that, you'll still have to go into the
BIOS of the system and make sure that the cloned drive is set up as the
primary boot volume, just like the original one was.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that volume letters are
assigned by Windows in such a way that you might run into trouble if you
were to attempt to run both drives at the same time. Allow me to explain.
Let's assume that we have two drives sporting 3 partitions each. Drive0
has partitions 1, 2 & 3, while Drive1 has 4, 5 & 6. Either drive would show
up under Windows using drive letters C, D & E if it was installed by itself,
but what happens if they are both installed in the same system? Well, that
depends. I strongly suggest that you strap yourself in for the following
ride.
First of all, there are different types of partitions that can be
created. The very first on a given harddrive will normally be a Primary
partition. Up to 4 Primary partitions can exist on any given harddrive (or
RAID array, but that's beyond the scope of this writing), but none are
necessary if the drive will not be used for an OS. If chosen, the person
can then create an Extended partition which isn't an actual volume. An
Extended partition is more of a container that is designed to store Logical
drives. Once each partition is formatted, Primary and Logical drives will
assume drive letters starting with the letter C and ascending up the
alphabet in the same order in which they appear on the drive itself. These
letter assignments can later be changed by the partitioning software, if
desired.
A bootable drive must have at least one Primary partition set as
"Active" (also called the 'System' partition). This Active partition will
hold the boot info for all of the operating systems installed on ANY of its
partitions. During boot, all BIOS' will look for this Active partition when
trying to hand off control of the hardware to the OS. If no Active
partition is found, bootup will fail. Convention has convinced nearly
everyone that the very first partition on a bootable drive should be the
Active one, but that is not a strict rule. If there are 3 Primary
partitions, any of them can be set to serve "Active Duty".
Now, here comes the fun part. In a normal setup where there is a single
harddrive with 3 partitions, it will have an Active Primary partition
holding the operating system followed by an Extended partition that contains
two Logical drives. That translates into 3 drive letters of C, D & E. If
the entire physical drive were cloned, you would have a second drive with
those same characteristics (and they would also want the letters C, D & E).
If you choose to install both onto the same system at the same time, the
letters will get somewhat jumbled. Here's why.
When it comes to drive letter assignments, all Primary partitions will
push their way to the front of the line. However, the first physical drive
in the chain (drive0) gets first dibs. This would be followed by any
Primary partitions on drive1, then drive2, etc.. Once all of the Primary
volumes have their assigned letters, the Logical drives get their shot.
Understanding all of these definitions and subsequent rules becomes the key
to planning your partitioning if you expect to utilize more than one
physical drive broken into separate partitions.
Using our assumptions in paragraph 4, you would end up with the letters
C to H representing the following volumes in this order:
C:\ - 1
D:\ - 4
E:\ - 2
F:\ - 3
G:\ - 5
H:\ - 6
Now THAT'S Ugly!!! And, while my reason for explaining all this is to
help you best plan your adventure, I hope I have not further confused you
with these statements. :O)
Peace,
G
http://tinyurl.com/ynlcr7
"The only dumb questions are the ones we fail to ask!"
----- Original Message -----
From: "RMB White" <roguer@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 9:08 PM
Subject: -=PCTechTalk=- Re: GMan -----Question about creating a Acronis
image
>I was very pleased to see your post as I am in the middle of
> decision-making also.
>
> Whilst am slowly learning to do Real backups by the longhand method
> (with the incomparable erudition and tireless patience of GMan), I am
> also a "belt AND braces" man and need all the options, so have been
> researching both Acronis and Ghost (which has now evolved into version
> 14.0).
>
> I found a useful Review of Acronis (www.BrightHub.com) also by PC
> Magazine (www.pcmag.com) and waded through the Acronis Forum at
> www.wilderssecurity.com (becoming confused, but not drowned)
>
> I was finally swayed in favour of Acronis by the 2008
> (http://data-backup-software-review.toptenreviews.com) ........
> which gave some unhappy news about Ghost (which I had previously been in
> favour of; because it was invented here in New Zealand).
>
> So I have downloaded a Free trial of Acronis 11 Home, and hope to have
> some time to road test it before it runs out in 15 days.
>
>
> I have a question please, "When is a dual boot NOT a dual boot??" and
> wonder whether the answer is "When a clone of the HD puts a mirror
> image of your OS on the external HD" So, does this mean I should
> be able to reboot from the external??
>
> Any help will be much appreciated
>
> Roger W
---------------------------------------------------------------
Please remember to trim your replies (including this sentence and everything
below it) and adjust the subject line as necessary.
To unsubscribe or change your email settings:
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/pctechtalk
To access our Archives:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PCTechTalk/messages/
http://www.freelists.org/archives/pctechtalk/
To contact only the PCTT Mod Squad, write to:
pctechtalk-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
---------------------------------------------------------------