pawz7 Posted August 12, 2011 Report Share Posted August 12, 2011 if I image a hard drive including the recovery partition, and then copy that image to a new drive, will the recovery still work if needed on the original machine? I ask because I am unsure if there is something extra pre-installed to initiate the process. We are talking an Acer laptop here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted August 12, 2011 Report Share Posted August 12, 2011 Do I assume you are using Acronis ?If so, I personally would just use it to clone the original drive to the new one - using one of these :-/>http://www.ebuyer.com/229065-startech-com-usb-to-sata-external-hard-drive-docking-station-for-2-5in-sata-satdock25u Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pawz7 Posted August 12, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 12, 2011 you does, and I would be using Acronis and we do have a Sata dock - but, as I have not done such a thing before (in respect of copying over a recovery partition)what I want to know is will the recovery sequence (press this key, go through this menu of options, etc) still be intact after the new drive is installed? I can't see why not, but if I get these folk to fork out for a larger drive (darn Win sxs) and then find they have no longer got an active recovery option, should they need it, I shall be much embarassed... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted August 12, 2011 Report Share Posted August 12, 2011 From memory, it should be fine (I think).BUT you'll need to make sure that there are no USB storage devices attached to the machine during the cloning or restore (USB hard drive, card reader, printer, anything that has card slots etc). If you do have an inbuilt card reader, then disable it through Windows Device Manager.I always also boot from a CD to do this sort of cloning.Of course the result may depend on the version of Acronis you will be using + the O/S partition types involved (esp. the Recovery Partition).If you do want to be 100% sure that it'll work, look in the Acronis Knowledge base :- />http://kb.acronis.com/or ask the question in their Forum :- />http://forum.acronis.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pawz7 Posted August 12, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 12, 2011 Good idea Boris, I will check with Acronis and ask on the forum - I did have a quick look at the help files earlier but did not see what I wanted there. I will be using Acronis True Image, latest version. Thanks :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bludgard Posted August 13, 2011 Report Share Posted August 13, 2011 Just performed an experiment on this topic and thought I would share the results. The wife's laptop (an ACER) had a WD 250GB HDD that was getting a little worn. I acquired a Seagate Momentus XT 500GB (which is aSSD/Platter hybrid) and thought I would install it on her machine. As I must keep everything exactly as she had the machine, I figured I would clone the WD drive with Clonezilla live CD (with the Seagate connected via USB to SATA interface). The WD had 7 partitions including System Reserved. Long story short, everything looks to be exactly right and the machine runs great.;) Edit: System Reserved (WinRe) works fine as well. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pawz7 Posted August 14, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 14, 2011 what a star you are bludgard, I shall proceed with greater confidence now. We aim to buy another drive this coming week. Will post results on here. Great encouragement :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bludgard Posted August 14, 2011 Report Share Posted August 14, 2011 Glad to have been able to post useful content. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pawz7 Posted September 1, 2011 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2011 finally got around to doing the clone - and it all went smoothly, and yes, the recovery information in the MBR appears to have copied over to the new drive as well. Lady is very pleased with her new oodles of space. I do wonder about the Winsxs folder though, which is the gremlin that was giving the problem. I do think it actually misreports the space being used as it has given 11Gb at first look and then 4Gb after checking again in the properties sheet for that folder on my machine - but that is not much consolation if your machine THINKS it is using 16Gb of space ( which was the case with the Acer lady) even if it actually is not... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bludgard Posted September 4, 2011 Report Share Posted September 4, 2011 Glad to hear that the cloning went well, pawz7. I for one have learned something from this thread; namely, how to create a clone of a drive that is actually useful. Thanks, love. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pawz7 Posted September 4, 2011 Author Report Share Posted September 4, 2011 we all got something out of it then, good one :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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