System Disk Image/Clone

There's been some discussion on this in another thread & having previously not been too successful in the past, I'd like to seek some advice.

When a disk is cloned it makes an identical copy to another HD; the idea being that if the one in use fails, then the cloned HD can be used. Because the identity of both HDs is the same, Windows will only recognise one, so I guess that the cloned HD is removed from the system after backup & fitted should original HD fail.

When an image is created, this can be left as it is a file. Previously using Norton Ghost (doesn't register with Windows 8/8.1 or 10) I've experienced errors when restoring the image file.

Another problem I've encountered is that the cloned HD has the same identity as the originalHD, so if at some later stage you want to use that HD (i.e. delete clone backup) Windows prevents it from being used. I've forgotten how to change the identity of the HD, but I guess that it shouldn't ve too difficult to find fro an internet search.

What do you mean windows prevents it from being used? How? Can you show a screenshot? I have been playing around with clones for the past few years without any issue using and re-using SSDs and HDDs. Windows will definitely see both drives. You just probably need to assign a drive letter to the other one so that you can see it on the explorer window.

You can't use a cloned OS on another machine. That's for sure. But if it somehow worked, that would be illegal.

But on the same machine, you can switch between cloned OS.

I use clones as backup and if I want to experiment on something I knew will mess up the OS.

As for image backups, Macrium Reflect free edition worjs 100% of the time.

I rarely use the native system image creator on Windows.

Here's a screenshot of a cloned Windows 7 OS on 1 HDD and 2 SSDs (Win 10 running as a host OS on another SSD). They are one and the same OS installations (clones) but all on the same machine. The test Win 7 on Crucial SSD is dual boot with Linux.

TM, I mentioned that a cloned OS may work on another PC (like you said if the hardware specs are the same) but that OS may be not activated due to licensing issue. It is now a matter of how many machines you are allowed to run with your licensed OS.

But if you were referring to tech preview of Win 8, that wouldn't be an issue. You can run tech previews (activated) on as many pc as you have.

You can plug in as many drives as you can with different OSes. The only time you need to have them plugged in one at a time is when you are installing, repairing or restoring image of an OS. You can manually select a boot drive at startup.

davehc said:

Agreed with the posts above. I have frequently cloned the Tech preview, , using an external Laptop HD. I have also completed the process from an SSD to a standard HD and vice versa. No problems - so far. I use Acronis, but I don't think the program used is an issue.

Exactly. Right now I am using a hardware to clone (bare metal cloning). But Macrium Reflect Free Edition is also great for cloning. Also the Paragon Migrate OS which also automatically takes care of alignment.

Hi

This isn't really about cloned drives but I've used various back up programs over the years.
I've used Norton Ghost (a number of different versions) Pargaon etc, and I've finally settled on EaseUS TODO Free backup and recovery.

Not only is it free it is the easiest program to use that I've ever tried.
I've made dozens of backups with it and it's never failed to restore everything exactly the way it was when I needed it.

It makes it's own bootable restore disk, either Linux or Windows format, and it literally only takes a couple of clicks to backup or restore your computer.

Sounds like I'm selling software but after having issues with many different programs that didn't always work when I needed them I'm really happy with this.

A few days ago my sound went bad on my Windows 10 install, (unwanted driver update) it only took 20 minutes to have everything back to working perfectly again.

Because I'm testing beta software with W10 I make a new backup every few days.
This is so that I can get back to where I was if I need to, if I or Microsoft mess it up, (usually it's me).

This works perfect.

Mike

WightWalker said:

There's been some discussion on this in another thread & having previously not been too successful in the past, I'd like to seek some advice.

When a disk is cloned it makes an identical copy to another HD; the idea being that if the one in use fails, then the cloned HD can be used. Because the identity of both HDs is the same, Windows will only recognise one, so I guess that the cloned HD is removed from the system after backup & fitted should original HD fail.

When an image is created, this can be left as it is a file. Previously using Norton Ghost (doesn't register with Windows 8/8.1 or 10) I've experienced errors when restoring the image file.

Another problem I've encountered is that the cloned HD has the same identity as the originalHD, so if at some later stage you want to use that HD (i.e. delete clone backup) Windows prevents it from being used. I've forgotten how to change the identity of the HD, but I guess that it shouldn't ve too difficult to find fro an internet search.

My Acer came with one HD 750 GB and I cloned it to a 120 GB SSD shortly after I purchased. I cloned the HD which was only 60 GB full and moved the HD to the second bay. The system booted to the SSD without changing anything in BIOS. The HD became my data drive. Next I cloned the 120 SSD to a 240 GB SSD and put the 240 into the 1st bay and it booted fine. I took the 120 SSD and put tit back into drive bay 1 and formatted it and installed the technical preview and it's working fine. I use Acronis True Image to do the cloning.

I work in IT and we have an image we install on all machines that have our enterprise software on. We install that image on all machine and sometimes system get corrupt we re-image the machine. When we purchase a PC it comes with the current OS and we install the image of the supported OS. Our supported OS now is Windows 7.

Thanks for all responses.

Maybe I'm confusing myself. The problem was when I took a Norton Ghost image of the OS & restored it to a different drive on the PC with the original HD still in situ as drive C. When the process was completed, Windows 7 produced an error message: This disk is offline because it has a signature collision with another disk.

If either HD was removed, then each on it's own was visible in Windows.

Running Diskpart, listdisk, select disk 'x', uniqueid disk returned an ID which was the same for both.

Running uniqueid disk ID='NEW SIGNATURE' to an 8 digit number that was unique for my PC build on the Ghosted HD resolved the problem.

I have not created a cloned copy of an OS to another HD using the utilities mentioned in this forum, so it must be that if these individuals have not experienced any problems, then disk cloning creates an identical copy of the OS onto the new HD without copying the ID otherwise it wouldn't work.

Hope I've explained myself & my assumptions are correct.