Disk imaging advise

[Airman Thunderbird]

Guess I'm not as smart as some, but TI gives me the option to image
files or the entire disk OR partition,and includes the boot info, which
when transferred to another drive, boots. Least it seems to work that
way here.

Timothy Daniels wrote:
> "Joe At Work" work:
>> Hmmm, True Image seems to clone individual partitions here.
>
>
> Do you mean "clone" (i.e. make a byte-for-byte copy, including
> the boot files, and usually the MBR as well, onto a bootable device)
> or "image" (i.e. a file, like any other file, that can be compressed,
> which contains the contents of a partition, and which must be
> "restored" from its archiving medium onto a bootable device)?
>
> If you really mean "clone" and if you are correct, then the online
> User Manual for True Image needs updating because it only
> mentions cloning an entire hard drive.
>
> *TimDaniels*
>
>

 

[Timothy Daniels]

"Airman Thunderbird" wrote:
> Timothy Daniels wrote:
>> "Joe At Work" work:
>>> Hmmm, True Image seems to clone individual partitions here.
>>
>>
>> Do you mean "clone" (i.e. make a byte-for-byte copy, including
>> the boot files, and usually the MBR as well, onto a bootable device)
>> or "image" (i.e. a file, like any other file, that can be compressed,
>> which contains the contents of a partition, and which must be
>> "restored" from its archiving medium onto a bootable device)?
>>
>> If you really mean "clone" and if you are correct, then the online
>> User Manual for True Image needs updating because it only
>> mentions cloning an entire hard drive.
>>
>> *TimDaniels*
>
> Guess I'm not as smart as some, but TI gives me the option to image files or
> the entire disk OR partition,and includes the boot info, which when
> transferred to another drive, boots. Least it seems to work that way here.


Now if a process did something with just a file, that file couldn't boot
load the OS, could it? True Image certainly CAN *image* a partition
and put that partition on some archiving medium. Then it could be
told to take that image file and "restore" it to a formatted partition on
another HD that might have other partitions on it. But that wouldn't
be "cloning". That would be "imaging and restoring" - a 2-step
process which includes an intermediate medium on which to store the
image file. That is probably what you are doing, perhaps with the
intermediate medium being the file structure on the source hard drive.
Unless Acronis has neglected to update its User's Guide, True Image
cannot clone a lone partition unless that partition is the entirety of its
hard drive, and it cannot put that clone among other partitions on the
destination hard drive.

*TimDaniels*