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General discussion

Can I create a hd image and backup to a different size hd?

Sep 27, 2006 5:35PM PDT

Hello!!! First le me apologize b/c I wanted to post this to the "PC Software and Utilities" forum, but the link kept telling me "page not found" so...

My desktop at home has an old 10Gb hd for the OS and other stuff that somehow manages to make it's way on there. I also have two 300Gb setup in a Raid config. My goal is to move everything on my 10Gb onto an 80Gb and then use that as my "new" boot drive. I've never used Ghost or TrueImage before and wanted to know can that be done or when creating an "image" of a hd it can only be moved to another identical size drive. I need to do this ASAP since my HUGE 10gb drive is on it's last legs. Any help would be greatly appreciated along with feedback on which software might be better suited to the task and more user friendly. TIA

Discussion is locked

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Oops, forgot one other part...
Sep 27, 2006 5:39PM PDT

This might be an easily answered question to some, but if I am able to "mirror" the 10Gb system hd to an 80Gb hd, can I do it by putting the 80Gb hd in an external enclosure via USB? TIA (again)

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Yes, Acronis does that. Caveats.
Sep 27, 2006 10:00PM PDT

There are issues that I'd rather not get into yet since the issues list varies with the OS's in use. But the USB drive issue limits us to tools like Acronis where I might have used the drive maker's free tools instead.

Bob

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Thanks...
Sep 30, 2006 3:38AM PDT

A belated "thank you" for your feedback...

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Acronis
Sep 28, 2006 9:47PM PDT
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Acronis
Sep 28, 2006 9:47PM PDT
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Thanks...
Sep 30, 2006 3:40AM PDT

A belated "thank you" for your helpful info.

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Isn't "imaging" a drive sufficient?
Sep 30, 2006 3:45AM PDT

My "safety" plan is to have an image of my system hard drive on an external hd via usb. I would do this once a week and if the system disk should go down I can just swap in the "imaged" drive, or so I thought that was how it was going to be. Am I misunderstanding how the software is going to work? I ask because you mentioned about the "universal restore" feature of the workstation version. Will this be enough or should I go for the workstation version because of something I may be missing? TIA

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no-no True Image home is enough
Oct 1, 2006 8:36PM PDT

sorry, i just misundertood ur prevous post.
i though after backuping up to USB HD are u going to restore that data to another PC (in this case there will be problems with drivers and winXP license and etc).this is place where Universal restore is needed.
in ur "Safety plan" case just home version of True Image is enough. it complitely meets ur demands.
hope it's clear Happy

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Thanks...
Oct 2, 2006 3:28AM PDT

Missed this message and responded to the last one first. True Image Home it is!!! I've been reading alot of good things about this program. Supposedly more user friendly than Ghost...

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Understanding backup vs. image
Sep 30, 2006 3:50AM PDT

Thought of another one... What is the difference between "backing up" and "imaging" a drive? I understand the basics behind each, but in terms of best method to allow ease of restoring hd. Can I just backup the whole hd and if it fails for some reason just "restore" the backup to another hd and use that? If I maintain an "image" of the hd on another one, can't I just instead install that hd and it will work just like the previous? I can't believe that for the number of years I've used computers and never really did the backup thing or even understand it as well as I should. Well, that situation is being corrected now so... TIA (again!!)

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ok, here we go
Oct 1, 2006 9:13PM PDT

i should warn u that i didn't understand what u was trying to asking regarding "image" maintance.

assuming u are going to operate using same PC for differnet HDs. yes u can backup the whole HD(say to USB or any other removable disk) and if ur HD fails restore it to another HD. it's normall practise.

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Thanks...easy enough.
Oct 2, 2006 3:08AM PDT

Thanks for the info. What I was planning on doing seems to be the right way. I want to clone my old hard drive (system) and replace it. However, I didn't quite get the best thing to do after that in terms of hd backups. Do I regularly clone the hard drives so if it fails I just replace it with the backup hd or do I just keep regular backups and if a hd fails, just restore the backup files to a new hd and swap that one in. I understand now of just regularly backing up. I would guess cloning a hd each time versus backing up (complete at first then incremental afterwards) would be alot faster. Thanks again for all your help.

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U're wellcome
Oct 2, 2006 5:49PM PDT

glad have helped u.
u are on the right way. "complete backup at first then incremental afterwards " - this is what exactly u need.
good luck Happy