Restoring an image backup to a brand new HD?

On Tue, 20 Mar 2012 18:20:07 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

I'm a little confused about this seemingly basic issue, in this case
involving the use of Acronis True Image and its backup images, but it could
be more general, too.

Is it possible to restore an image backup of your system to a *completely
brand new hard drive* that has never been used or initialized? Let me
explain further:

Suppose your main hard drive dies, and that you also have another HD that
only contains some Acronis True Image backups of your system stored on it,
AND that you also have an Acronis True Image Boot CD handy.

So you replace the bad drive with a brand new drive (which naturally is
unbootable if you just tried to boot up on it).

However, using your Acronis boot CD, you can use that to boot up into the
boot CD, and then presumably select a backup image you'd like to restore
from the other HD.

BUT will the restore operation work for a brand new virgin hard drive that
has never been used before (i.e. make the brand new hard drive bootable into
windows, etc)? I'm guessing it will, but that's only an assumption on my
part. I know the operation works well on a normal HD, but have never tried
it out on a brand new hard drive, and am wondering if there is some
limitation there I'm not aware of (like you can't restore an image to a
virgin hard drive that has never been initialized or whatever).



Bill,

I've certainly restored a Acronis TI Image to a new hard drive many
times without any problems. The new drive just goes on from where the
old one left off.

I've usuallky kept the old drive "just-in-case" but I've never needed
it.

However, I've usually used the Acronis boot disc to partition the new
disc how I've wanted it before I've done the image restore. (I usually
make my C-Drive about 50G for XP just so daily incremental TI backups
don't take very long or are very big files.)

Ross

On 3/21/2012 5:06 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
BillW50 wrote:
On 3/21/2012 4:31 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
I have read this, however: IF you go the CLONE route, I believe you're
supposed to initially boot up on the clone drive once to properly
initialize
it as the boot drive. Meaning, if you don't do this, and by mistake
leave
the clone plugged in at first bootup (and are still using your *original*
boot drive), it might make the clone drive unbootable (without some
patching). I'm not sure why though. I assume this is related to the MBR
and Track0 stuff. ??

The only thing I can think of that sounds similar is this. If you clone
under Windows (or Windows has ever seen this drive before) and not a
boot disc, Windows will see the new drive and give it a drive letter.
Now you clone and all is well so far.

Now you dump or save the original drive and boot up the clone. And let's
say the original drive running Windows saw this new drive as drive F or
something. And say the original drive Windows was on drive C. Now
Windows remembers this new drive is drive F, but the OS expects to be on
drive C. Now lots of problems.

This was an old problem. And the old fix was to use a Windows 98 Startup
Disc and to create a new MBR. Which has a bug or a feature that corrupts
part of the drive's serial number that Windows uses to track. Thus when
you boot the clone for the first time, Windows will claim it has never
seen this drive before and will assign it as the C drive. Now all is well.

Nowadays I don't know any modern day cloning software that doesn't know
how to get around this problem. So the user should never see this. And
that is the only thing that I can think of.

Thanks. Yes, this sounds like what I was thinking of. I wonder when, and
basically how, this issue was ever resolved, with the newer programs?

For example, if you simply create the clone and leave it plugged in but
along with the original source drive, and reboot, won't it still be assigned
a letter like F:? Your original source hard drive is still there and is
still C:, naturally.

So that next time, IF you detach the clone and replace the original drive
with the clone, it's still F? How could the cloning software take care of
that, unless it creates some new MBR on the clone drive, forcing it to be
seen as C:? But that won't work right if you leave both the original drive
and the clone drive plugged in simultaneously. There would be a conflict.

Windows keeps a list of drive serial numbers and what drive letter it
was assigned before. So changing the serial number of the clone to
something that Windows doesn't have in its list works. Also removing the
clone drive from the list works too on the cloned drive. Also
unassigning the drive letter on the clone when cloning. There might be
other tricks too.

When this was a common problem, it was very interesting. As if you
booted from the cloned drive with this problem, parts of Windows boot
would see it as drive C and other parts would be looking for some boot
files on drive F in this example. So you would get the continue, ignore,
and retry for many files while booting. I don't recall if you could make
it to the desktop or not, but if it did, parts of Windows was missing.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v3.0
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 1.5GB - Windows 8 CP

On 3/21/2012 5:25 PM, RMD wrote:
I've usuallky kept the old drive "just-in-case" but I've never needed
it.

You know how that works. If you didn't keep the old drive around, you
would have needed it. ;-)

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v3.0
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 1.5GB - Windows 8 CP

On Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:31:10 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

I have read this, however: IF you go the CLONE route, I believe you're
supposed to initially boot up on the clone drive once to properly initialize
it as the boot drive. Meaning, if you don't do this, and by mistake leave
the clone plugged in at first bootup (and are still using your *original*
boot drive), it might make the clone drive unbootable (without some
patching). I'm not sure why though. I assume this is related to the MBR
and Track0 stuff. ??

That's why, at the end of the cloning process, the backup program will
usually end with a message saying that cloning is complete and
prompting you that the next step is to shut down and remove one of the
cloned drives.

I can't think of any good reasons to have a drive and its clone
connected at the same time.

On Wed, 21 Mar 2012 16:38:37 -0500, "Jo-Anne"
wrote:

I use ATI 11 Home, and it works differently.

When you guys talk about ATI 11, do you mean ATI 2011? If so, that's
what I'm using as a basis for my responses in this thread. I'm not
aware of an actual version 11 of the program so I assume you folks are
using shorthand. With the program running, if you go to Help, About
Acronis True Image Home, does the window that opens say "Acronis True
Image Home 11"?

It really is version 11, and it came out long before 2011. Mine says
"Acronis® True Image Home® version 11.0 (build 8,101)."

Yep, mystery solved. You're using a relatively ancient version of ATI,
not that there's anything wrong with that. I just assumed you were
referring to something more current, so the steps will be slightly
different.

Char Jackson wrote:
On Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:31:10 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

I have read this, however: IF you go the CLONE route, I believe you're
supposed to initially boot up on the clone drive once to properly
initialize
it as the boot drive. Meaning, if you don't do this, and by mistake
leave
the clone plugged in at first bootup (and are still using your *original*
boot drive), it might make the clone drive unbootable (without some
patching). I'm not sure why though. I assume this is related to the MBR
and Track0 stuff. ??

That's why, at the end of the cloning process, the backup program will
usually end with a message saying that cloning is complete and
prompting you that the next step is to shut down and remove one of the
cloned drives.

I can't think of any good reasons to have a drive and its clone
connected at the same time.

Oh, that's easy. Suppose you want to get back some files from an earlier
time (stored on the clone), OR suppose you want to update the clone a bit
with some new files from your current setup.

BillW50 wrote:
On 3/21/2012 5:06 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
BillW50 wrote:
On 3/21/2012 4:31 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
I have read this, however: IF you go the CLONE route, I believe you're
supposed to initially boot up on the clone drive once to properly
initialize
it as the boot drive. Meaning, if you don't do this, and by mistake
leave
the clone plugged in at first bootup (and are still using your
*original*
boot drive), it might make the clone drive unbootable (without some
patching). I'm not sure why though. I assume this is related to the
MBR
and Track0 stuff. ??

The only thing I can think of that sounds similar is this. If you clone
under Windows (or Windows has ever seen this drive before) and not a
boot disc, Windows will see the new drive and give it a drive letter.
Now you clone and all is well so far.

Now you dump or save the original drive and boot up the clone. And let's
say the original drive running Windows saw this new drive as drive F or
something. And say the original drive Windows was on drive C. Now
Windows remembers this new drive is drive F, but the OS expects to be on
drive C. Now lots of problems.

This was an old problem. And the old fix was to use a Windows 98 Startup
Disc and to create a new MBR. Which has a bug or a feature that corrupts
part of the drive's serial number that Windows uses to track. Thus when
you boot the clone for the first time, Windows will claim it has never
seen this drive before and will assign it as the C drive. Now all is
well.

Nowadays I don't know any modern day cloning software that doesn't know
how to get around this problem. So the user should never see this. And
that is the only thing that I can think of.

Thanks. Yes, this sounds like what I was thinking of. I wonder when,
and
basically how, this issue was ever resolved, with the newer programs?

For example, if you simply create the clone and leave it plugged in but
along with the original source drive, and reboot, won't it still be
assigned
a letter like F:? Your original source hard drive is still there and is
still C:, naturally.

So that next time, IF you detach the clone and replace the original drive
with the clone, it's still F? How could the cloning software take care
of
that, unless it creates some new MBR on the clone drive, forcing it to be
seen as C:? But that won't work right if you leave both the original
drive
and the clone drive plugged in simultaneously. There would be a
conflict.

Windows keeps a list of drive serial numbers and what drive letter it
was assigned before. So changing the serial number of the clone to
something that Windows doesn't have in its list works. Also removing the
clone drive from the list works too on the cloned drive. Also
unassigning the drive letter on the clone when cloning. There might be
other tricks too.

When this was a common problem, it was very interesting. As if you
booted from the cloned drive with this problem, parts of Windows boot
would see it as drive C and other parts would be looking for some boot
files on drive F in this example. So you would get the continue, ignore,
and retry for many files while booting. I don't recall if you could make
it to the desktop or not, but if it did, parts of Windows was missing.

Well, it's still a bit confusing to me, unless windows could always be
forced to recognize the drive it's booting up on to to be C: and keep it
that way, no matter what. Here's an example: suppose you later boot up
with both the original drive and the clone attached. Hopefully that doesn't
screw up the clone drive in case next time you pull out the original drive,
and stick in the clone as the boot drive. Or vice versa.

What we really need is for the windows to ALWAYS let the booting up drive
(either the original or the clone) be C:, no matter which drives are
connected. That way there would never be a problem, and one could
physically interchange the original drive and the clone at will, or have
them both connected simulaneously, without any issues. But is that the
case?

| Does Microsoft have a problem with it if you have an OEM license?
| Microsoft never makes this clear. All that is clear is at least one
| piece of the hardware is still being used, then it is legal.
|
It's not "legal" for an OEM version. With a full
version it's legal to move to as many PCs as desired,
as long as it's one at a time. With an OEM version
Microsoft claims it's licensed to the motherboard.
I've never tried moving a pre-installed OEM version
via disk image. I don't know if that will work. If it
wants to re-activate then the new activation will
not work with a new motherboard.

If one is moving a disk image to a new computer
a new disk image should be made first. Uninstall the
IDE drivers. Then make the new disk image. Otherwise
XP will blue-screen at boot and the only way around
that is to boot into something like UBCD, run a registry
editor, and remove the IDE settings that way.

(Acronis or other software may get around that issue.
But the above is necessary otherwise.)

On Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:08:17 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:31:10 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

I have read this, however: IF you go the CLONE route, I believe you're
supposed to initially boot up on the clone drive once to properly
initialize
it as the boot drive. Meaning, if you don't do this, and by mistake
leave
the clone plugged in at first bootup (and are still using your *original*
boot drive), it might make the clone drive unbootable (without some
patching). I'm not sure why though. I assume this is related to the MBR
and Track0 stuff. ??

That's why, at the end of the cloning process, the backup program will
usually end with a message saying that cloning is complete and
prompting you that the next step is to shut down and remove one of the
cloned drives.

I can't think of any good reasons to have a drive and its clone
connected at the same time.

Oh, that's easy. Suppose you want to get back some files from an earlier
time (stored on the clone), OR suppose you want to update the clone a bit
with some new files from your current setup.

It would never occur to me to (mis)use a clone that way.

Char Jackson wrote:
On Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:08:17 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:31:10 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

I have read this, however: IF you go the CLONE route, I believe you're
supposed to initially boot up on the clone drive once to properly
initialize
it as the boot drive. Meaning, if you don't do this, and by mistake
leave
the clone plugged in at first bootup (and are still using your
*original*
boot drive), it might make the clone drive unbootable (without some
patching). I'm not sure why though. I assume this is related to the
MBR
and Track0 stuff. ??

That's why, at the end of the cloning process, the backup program will
usually end with a message saying that cloning is complete and
prompting you that the next step is to shut down and remove one of the
cloned drives.

I can't think of any good reasons to have a drive and its clone
connected at the same time.

Oh, that's easy. Suppose you want to get back some files from an
earlier
time (stored on the clone), OR suppose you want to update the clone a bit
with some new files from your current setup.

It would never occur to me to (mis)use a clone that way.

Is it really "misuse"? It's afterall just another backup; why not use it
for something else, if it's available and you feel the need?

But admitedly, I'm not saying that's a common event, however (in fact, I
haven't yet felt (the perhaps somewhat desperate) need to use it that way,
in large part because I already have some other backups, and keep frequently
updated images) But at least it can be an option.

I'd admit that trying to manually update the clone on a file by file basis
over time is probably not such a great idea, and that there are better
options.

But as for the being able to get some older file extraction off of the
clone, at least in some rare circumstances, who knows.

On Wed, 21 Mar 2012 20:50:16 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:

It would never occur to me to (mis)use a clone that way.

Is it really "misuse"? It's afterall just another backup; why not use it
for something else, if it's available and you feel the need?

Personally, I treat a clone as an object that I don't mess with. I
don't pull files off of it (because I have other non-clone backups
that are better suited for that) and I would never try to 'update' it
file by file. It's no longer a clone at that point. That's just how I
look at it. YMMV

On 3/21/2012 7:39 PM, Mayayana wrote:
| Does Microsoft have a problem with it if you have an OEM license?
| Microsoft never makes this clear. All that is clear is at least one
| piece of the hardware is still being used, then it is legal.
|
It's not "legal" for an OEM version. With a full
version it's legal to move to as many PCs as desired,
as long as it's one at a time. With an OEM version
Microsoft claims it's licensed to the motherboard.
I've never tried moving a pre-installed OEM version
via disk image. I don't know if that will work. If it
wants to re-activate then the new activation will
not work with a new motherboard.

How do you explain that service centers replace motherboards all of the
time and the machine keeps the same OEM license? And did you know that
Woody Leonhard stated:

"After an exhaustive search of case law, I could find no example of a
Microsoft EULA prevailing in a dispute with a regular, everyday PC user."

The EULA you click may not be the one in effect
http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/...one-in-effect/

If one is moving a disk image to a new computer
a new disk image should be made first. Uninstall the
IDE drivers. Then make the new disk image. Otherwise
XP will blue-screen at boot and the only way around
that is to boot into something like UBCD, run a registry
editor, and remove the IDE settings that way.

(Acronis or other software may get around that issue.
But the above is necessary otherwise.)

Actually you are correct, although it is a bit more than that. As when
Windows first runs after a fresh install, uses generic drivers. And
Windows quickly replaces these universal, but inefficient drivers. And
what these programs do is to simply plug in those generic drivers back
in once again. Of course, Windows will just replace them again on the
new machine.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v3.0
Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

On 3/21/2012 7:18 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
BillW50 wrote:
On 3/21/2012 5:06 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
BillW50 wrote:
On 3/21/2012 4:31 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
I have read this, however: IF you go the CLONE route, I believe you're
supposed to initially boot up on the clone drive once to properly
initialize
it as the boot drive. Meaning, if you don't do this, and by mistake
leave
the clone plugged in at first bootup (and are still using your
*original*
boot drive), it might make the clone drive unbootable (without some
patching). I'm not sure why though. I assume this is related to the
MBR
and Track0 stuff. ??

The only thing I can think of that sounds similar is this. If you clone
under Windows (or Windows has ever seen this drive before) and not a
boot disc, Windows will see the new drive and give it a drive letter.
Now you clone and all is well so far.

Now you dump or save the original drive and boot up the clone. And let's
say the original drive running Windows saw this new drive as drive F or
something. And say the original drive Windows was on drive C. Now
Windows remembers this new drive is drive F, but the OS expects to be on
drive C. Now lots of problems.

This was an old problem. And the old fix was to use a Windows 98 Startup
Disc and to create a new MBR. Which has a bug or a feature that corrupts
part of the drive's serial number that Windows uses to track. Thus when
you boot the clone for the first time, Windows will claim it has never
seen this drive before and will assign it as the C drive. Now all is
well.

Nowadays I don't know any modern day cloning software that doesn't know
how to get around this problem. So the user should never see this. And
that is the only thing that I can think of.

Thanks. Yes, this sounds like what I was thinking of. I wonder when,
and
basically how, this issue was ever resolved, with the newer programs?

For example, if you simply create the clone and leave it plugged in but
along with the original source drive, and reboot, won't it still be
assigned
a letter like F:? Your original source hard drive is still there and is
still C:, naturally.

So that next time, IF you detach the clone and replace the original drive
with the clone, it's still F? How could the cloning software take care
of
that, unless it creates some new MBR on the clone drive, forcing it to be
seen as C:? But that won't work right if you leave both the original
drive
and the clone drive plugged in simultaneously. There would be a
conflict.

Windows keeps a list of drive serial numbers and what drive letter it
was assigned before. So changing the serial number of the clone to
something that Windows doesn't have in its list works. Also removing the
clone drive from the list works too on the cloned drive. Also
unassigning the drive letter on the clone when cloning. There might be
other tricks too.

When this was a common problem, it was very interesting. As if you
booted from the cloned drive with this problem, parts of Windows boot
would see it as drive C and other parts would be looking for some boot
files on drive F in this example. So you would get the continue, ignore,
and retry for many files while booting. I don't recall if you could make
it to the desktop or not, but if it did, parts of Windows was missing.

Well, it's still a bit confusing to me, unless windows could always be
forced to recognize the drive it's booting up on to to be C: and keep it
that way, no matter what. Here's an example: suppose you later boot up
with both the original drive and the clone attached. Hopefully that doesn't
screw up the clone drive in case next time you pull out the original drive,
and stick in the clone as the boot drive. Or vice versa.

What we really need is for the windows to ALWAYS let the booting up drive
(either the original or the clone) be C:, no matter which drives are
connected. That way there would never be a problem, and one could
physically interchange the original drive and the clone at will, or have
them both connected simulaneously, without any issues. But is that the
case?

Well legacy Windows of the past didn't have such a list. And any new
drive got the next available drive letter during booting. And the
optical drive(s) drive letter got moved around. And your external backup
drives drive letters also got moved around too. The way Windows works
today is far better IMHO. As now drive letters are far more fixed.

Another thing, Windows shouldn't treat every boot drive as drive C like
you want. Windows used to work that way. As it causes problems
especially under dualboot configurations.

And yes I know this might sound weird, but not everybody installs
Windows on drive C. As you can install Windows 2000 and later on any
drive you want. I once installed Windows on drive W of all places. I
didn't mean too, but I left it that way for a time. But some people
purposely install Windows on a non-C drive.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v3.0
Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

On Thu, 22 Mar 2012 07:55:17 -0500, "BillW50" wrote
in article ...

On 3/21/2012 7:39 PM, Mayayana wrote:
| Does Microsoft have a problem with it if you have an OEM license?
| Microsoft never makes this clear. All that is clear is at least one
| piece of the hardware is still being used, then it is legal.
|
It's not "legal" for an OEM version. With a full
version it's legal to move to as many PCs as desired,
as long as it's one at a time. With an OEM version
Microsoft claims it's licensed to the motherboard.
I've never tried moving a pre-installed OEM version
via disk image. I don't know if that will work. If it
wants to re-activate then the new activation will
not work with a new motherboard.

How do you explain that service centers replace motherboards all of the
time and the machine keeps the same OEM license?

Replacing motherboards (due to failure) is allowed by the OEM licensing
agreement. Upgrading the motherboard is not.

That said, I've never had (or heard of) MS refuse to activate an OEM
system regardless of the changes that have been done - though if you
answer their questions wrong, I suppose they might.

--
Zaphod

Vell, Zaphod's just zis guy, ya know? - Gag Halfrunt

| It's not "legal" for an OEM version. With a full
| version it's legal to move to as many PCs as desired,
| as long as it's one at a time. With an OEM version
| Microsoft claims it's licensed to the motherboard.
| I've never tried moving a pre-installed OEM version
| via disk image. I don't know if that will work. If it
| wants to re-activate then the new activation will
| not work with a new motherboard.
|
| How do you explain that service centers replace motherboards all of the
| time and the machine keeps the same OEM license?

I don't know. Microsoft may provide them a means
to do that. I don't have much experience with PC
service shops, but from what I've seen it seems
they usually try to push an upgrade and then charge
for a copy installed from their own corporate CD.

| And did you know that Woody Leonhard stated:
|
| "After an exhaustive search of case law, I could find no example of a
| Microsoft EULA prevailing in a dispute with a regular, everyday PC user."

So what? Microsoft has a lot more money, lobbyists
and lawyers than you do. Who is going to fight them
in court over $100-$300? Are you going to take them
to small claims court next time a product activation
fails? Microsoft makes all sorts of
claims that are at best unethical, and possibly illegal.
But no one stops them. Did you know that it's "illegal"
for two people to use a PC at the same time, according
to their EULA? You're breaking Microsoft's version of the
law every time you sit down to help a friend or teach a
child. If MS could find a way to charge for that then I'm
sure they would. You also agree to allow Media Player
to be spyware if you use it... but you can't remove it,
either. Microsoft doesn't need to enforce that. Most people
use Media Player because they don't know any better.
Most people don't know it's spyware. MS only puts that
in the license so that tech gossip can't accuse them of
hiding something.

The genius of their Windows licensing scheme is that
it's passive. They don't have to be an ogre because
product activation does the job for them.

For most people a name-brand
OEM machine is Windows. That's licensed to the motherboard
*and* to you, according to MS. The activation method
checks various hardware in order to guess whether
you're installing to a new PC.

An issue I've never actually tested is the enforcement.
If you buy an OEM copy of Windows and install it to two
PCs, the second activation "should" fail. If you image
your Dell or HP PC and copy it to a PC you build, that
should also fail, but I don't know whether Microsoft has
planned for that. (And given that XP is an extremely
brittle system, it's not so easy to move between PCs.
I have no doubt that's deliberate.)

So Microsoft is exploitive. Their licensing is absurd and
probably illegal. They should have been broken up over
monopoly abuse a long time ago. (And they probably
would have been if George Bush Jr. hadn't come into the
White House before the case was over.) .... But none of
that matters if you buy a OEM XP CD and try to install it
to 2 machines. That's the genius of it all: MS doesn't have
to look bad with nasty enforcement. They just give you
a broken product and you have to contact them to ask
them to fix it. By making product activation effortless for
most people, Microsoft was able to make it standard. As
a result, MS is actually stealing from most of their customers
by forcing them to buy a new Windows license with every
PC, even if they've already bought one. ...And most people
don't even realize it.

You may be right that the license won't stand up in court,
but that won't help Jo-Anne. All we can do is be grateful
that we haven't succumbed to the Invasion of The Wallet
Snatchers and turned into AppleSeeds. Then we'd be
getting exploited *and* we'd be thanking Lord Jobs for
doing it.