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Acronis recovery to new hard disk

Pineman100
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Posted March 4, 2012 at 9:31AM

The HDD in my HP laptop has crashed - terminally. So I have to replace it.

I have an Acronis True Image 12 full system image that I intend to restore to the new HDD, but I've never done this before and there's one aspect of the process that I don't understand.

If I buy a new HDD, it's likely to be a larger capacity than the old 320GB one. Will ATI restore the system image successfully to a different sized drive?

I'd be very grateful for advice on this - and any other aspects of the recovery process.

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Fruit Bat /\0/\

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Posted March 4, 2012 at 9:42AM

Yes it will create a partition on the bigger drive once installed you can then merge partitions to get the full size back.

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Pineman100

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Posted March 4, 2012 at 10:59AM

Many thanks Fruit Bat /\0/.

May I add one further question about what I've done so far to check that it is definitely the HDD that's failed?

After Windows 7 hung, the only boot option it would offer me was Startup Repair. I ran this several times and it always stopped halfway through.

I then booted from my Acronis boot disk and tried to restore from my latest system image on my external HDD. This ran for a while (while I was out) and when I came back it had reported "Restore Failed".

I then ran the hard disk checker in by BIOS. This got as far as 54% complete then just stopped.

At this point I reckone dmy drive was dead. Would you agree?

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Fruit Bat /\0/\

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Posted March 4, 2012 at 11:39AM

Certainly doesn't sound good.

I would be tempted to do boot to menu (F8) and select command prompt and run chkdsk /f/r

if that doesn't work then a full format of the drive (have you got a W7 DVD?) and a full reinstall.

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Pineman100

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Posted March 4, 2012 at 5:28PM

OK, many thanks for your continued advice.

I'll run chkdsk as you suggest - what do the /f and /r switches do?

As to whether I have a W7 disk, the answer is... sort of!

I bought the computer preloaded with Vista, and as part of the deal I got a free upgrade to W7 from HP a few months later. The upgrade came in the form of two disks - one that is labelled "Run this first" (drivers, etc, do you think?) and one which is labelled W7 upgrade from W Vista - it has a Microsoft security key on the label. Do you think these two disks would reinstall W7 by themselves, or do I first have to reinstall Vista, then upgrade again? If I do then I'm in a bit of bother, becasue I don't have a Vista disk - just rescue disks that I was able to create when the computer was new.

What would you do?

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Pineman100

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Posted March 4, 2012 at 6:16PM

Update.

I've tried everything to get a boot menu - f8, f2, f12, esc... you name it. I just get a buffer-full beep and the screen remains blank.

I managed to get to a command prompt by booting from the recovery disk. At first the system reported that it couldn't run chkdsk until the volume was unmounted, and offered me the option of unmounting it - I said yes.

I then successfully ran chkdsk with the switches as you recommended. Chkdsk said that it didn't find any problems!

I'm completely baffled!

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Fruit Bat /\0/\

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Posted March 5, 2012 at 3:48PM

Now try running acronis and restore the image.

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Pineman100

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Posted March 5, 2012 at 6:34PM

OK, I've done as you suggested. Instead of restoring from the system image that I chose first of all (and which failed), I've gone back to an earlier image, about 3 weeks old. And it's worked!!

I'm so relieved, and extremely grateful to you! I've lost one or two minor data files, but nothing desperately serious.

Actually, I've decided that I am going to fit a new HDD to the laptop anyway. I could do with more capacity (I'm a photogaphy enthusiast with thousands of image files on the drive) and I just feel that this event may have been a warning of more impending problems. So I'm prepared to shell out £60 - £70 for the peace of mind it will give me. Once it's fitted I shall try again to restore from the later image.

I'll post again when this is done, in case it's of help to anyone.

Huge thanks again, Fruit Bat /\0/\ !

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Fruit Bat /\0/\

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Posted March 5, 2012 at 7:11PM

I've lost one or two minor data files,

If you still have the later image - open acronis locate the image and mount the image - this will give you access to all files in there you can then just copy across.

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Pineman100

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Posted March 5, 2012 at 7:22PM

I didn't think of that! Thank you again!

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