Cloning

tgiv, welcome to these user forums.

One word on cloning - don't!  It isn't worth the risk if your main aim is to have a good working backup of your current HDD as there are much safer ways to achieve this than using cloning.

See KB document: 1540: Difference between Backup and Disk Clone which gives good background information on the differences involved in these different approaches.

The steps you need to follow are very simple in outline:

1. Make a full disk backup of your current HDD to an external backup storage drive - make sure you include all hidden partitions that may be present on the disk.
2. Make the Acronis bootable Rescue Media using the Media Builder Tool present in the main application Tools folder.
3. Test the Rescue Media will work for you by booting your computer from this.  Do this <<BEFORE>> yoiu have a need to use it for any recovery situation.
4. Repeat step 1. after any significant changes to your HDD or key components of the same.

With cloning you only get one copy of the HDD which has to be written to another dedicated HDD (or SSD), and this has to be done from outside of Windows.  With Backup you can store multiple backup images of your HDD on a single storage drive, and can choose to have Full, Incremental and/or Differential backup image types to help make the best / most efficient use of that drive. 

Thanks, Steve

I'm certainly listening - you have my attention.

You may be omitting what is obvious to you & others but for me, a cavern to hurdle to get a working internal HD that may be failing

over to a new internal HD that boots up same as old (old being removed of course) w/o interferance from Microsoft Windows, et al.

NOT having to reload all that software that must have a key or phone call to activate

+ enlarging C: partition from a sliver size of this larger pie for the elbow room required

These concerns were stated but may be obvious to you they are all somehow resolved with your advice thus far ... but I need more details how-to.

To keep things simple here, what is the exact situation you are facing here?  
Do you have a current failing HDD in your system?  
If so, do you have a good backup of that disk from before it started to fail?

If your answer to all of the above = No, then you need to make getting a full disk backup a priority so that you have some protection in place before you get into that failure situation.

Your full disk backup will contain the whole of the data from the drive you backed up - that includes your Windows OS and all installed programs plus data, so this could then be restored to a new bare HDD and you would be back up and running in short order, without having to reload software and reactivate etc.

Steve,

This seems too good to be true and learned from past experiences with Dell, MS, BestBuy the horrible time consuming failures in their promises - too many to list here.

I am glad to be free of cloning as a solution!

In fact, what I'm hearing is that my full backups to remote HD via Acronis are almost all I need if/when my internal HD dies.

Correct me wrong:

all I have to do is go fetch another internal HD, remove old/failed, insert new HD and have the Acronis .... CD? boot disk in order to access the backup on remote HD, restore, then disconnect, shut down & when it starts up w/o CD inserted, all is back to normal (as per date of backup).  Windows8 still works, all my password, need authorization from off site & other professional software works and doesn't need me to call or apply for codes/permissions to work again?

 Really?

I'm a bit suspect about the phase where a boot CD/other starts up the system while blank HD sits there and the USB/CD/other ports work just fine to do the restore work.  Biting nails .....

NOW

Let's talk what about - I screw all this restoring up.  Would I then take this mess to a computer guy repair store (ala once upon a time with winME) and they get everything recaptured, OS running but I still have to reinstall all those professional softwares, getting permissions on each?

If so, would I then consider the same hassle but in a new better upgraded computer system .... and seek out what OTHER software may be torpedoed by the latest windows OS?  (win8 killed my winXP accounting program with data 1994-2013 ... down the drain, except when running on a winXP laptop).

Clearer or muddier now?  Current HD was new Nov 2013, not yet making sounds BUT I need to be ahead of any potential demise on any front due to family emergencies that depend on automobiles, computers, phones when a crises appears (e.g. ER runs out of town).

Acronis is designed and intended to perform bare metal recovery, i.e. to recover to a brand new hard disk drive by booting from the Acronis Rescue Media and restoring a full disk backup (created prior to the disk replacement) stored on a backup drive (normally connected via USB), so that the new disk then looks identical as far as possible to the one that it replaced.

See my post #1 above and read the steps that I outline there - those are the important actions that you need to perform before any problems arise, so that you have time and opportunity to work through any issues that may arise while testing the process.

See forum post: 117004: Great Acronis "How-To" videos and other Acronis Resources which has some good video tutorials that should help build your understanding of the processes.

It may seem to good to be true, but it is correct. A full disk backup includes everything and can be restored to a replacement disk to result in a working system exactly as it was at the time of the backup.

1. If your current drive is failing, stop using it now. It's not clear if it is, or if you are just musing about the possibility, as your posts are quite confusing. Do not continue to use a failing drive.

2. Create the ATI Rescue Media and boot your PC from it to ensure that you can. Do it now, do not wait for an emergency.

3. Create full disk backups where you check the checkbox for the entire disk, which will thereby include all partitions including hidden partitions. That will give you everything.

Perfect ... no one made that crystal clear before.

Now as to the problem of current tiny ASUS partition C: running out of room ... Acronis Restore doesn't offer partition resizing when restoring and thus I would seek a solution form some other software ... or take the mess to a computer technician business?

Thank you for volunteering!

Sorry, but you haven't mentioned any problem of 'current tiny ASUS partition C: running out of room' so it is difficult to know how to advise you on this one without more information?  

What size is your HDD drive, how many partitions does it have and how much free space is available on these?

Resizing partitions is best done by dedicated Partition Manager software such as from Mini-Tool, AOMEI or EASEUS among others who offer free versions of their software BUT make a full backup of the drive before you attempt to make any changes to partition sizes etc.

tgiv wrote:

Now as to the problem of current tiny ASUS partition C: running out of room ... Acronis Restore doesn't offer partition resizing when restoring and thus I would seek a solution form some other software ... or take the mess to a computer technician business?

It's hard to advise you, as you provided no information about this issue. I would suggest deleting unneeded Windows backups, restore points, Apple device updates, etc., and use Disk Cleanup to free up space. But, I can't advise much else as you haven't given us anything to go on.

To obtain help in user forums, you need to write clearer, more informative posts. This article may help:

How to ask for help in on-line forums and news groups
http://www.webhostingbuzz.com/blog/2010/09/30/how-to-ask-for-help-in-on-line-forums-and-news-groups/

ASUS partition C: running out of room 

Do you have space on other paritions on the drive, or looking to move to another hard drive?  If moving to another hard drive, Acronis will extend the space to make use of it on the newer, larger hard drive if you use "automatic" for your restore to the larger drive.

You can also extend the C: drive (assuming there's blank/unparitioned space at the end of the drive) using Windows disk management - right click C: drive and "extend" and tell it to use all the available free space.  Be AWARE if you have disk encryption of any kind, you should decrypt before changing any paritions or it may result in your drive not booting.

Parition tools like minitool parition wizard and aomei partition wizard are both free, and very reliable.  They aren't necessary for the purpose of migrating from a small drive to a large drive - Acronis can and will do that automatically in that case. 

Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:

Parition tools like minitool parition wizard ... <snip> are both free, and very reliable.

Amazing that minitool parition wizard is free. It's a powerful, incredibly useful tool that does a fine job of its core functions.