Failing SDD

1540: Difference between Backup and Disk Clone

Thomas - personally, I always opt to do a full disk backup (to make sure I get all partitions as the goal is usually to completely replicate the original drive to the new one - once you have the full disk, you can always choose to restore only certain partitions from it if you want, but at least you know you have all contents on the drive to work with if you do only need to recovery certain partitions).  Once you have the full disk backup, then recover that backup to the new drive, swap them out and boot up the new drive.  

I find that cloning is more finicky and has more limitations.  Also, cloning has no "safety-net" so if you clone the wrong direction or something bad happens, you're doing this on the fly and it's happening in real time.  Even the clone documentation recommends you take a full backup before cloning, just in case.  If you have a backup, then feel free to try the clone and see how it goes.  Otherwise, just restore the backup.

56634: Acronis True Image 2016: Cloning Disks

If cloning... Always start the process from your recovery media and not from windows (even though Acronis allows you to do this).  The online guide recommends you use the recovery media too... the reason being is that it must reboot the system to boot into the Acronis Linux media environment anyway... however, if you start this in Windows, it temporarily changes the Windows bootloader and if it fails to boot into the Linux environment, it may not revert back!  This can be completely avoided by using your recovery media in the first place so why take the risk to save maybe 30 seconds?

1) Create your boot able recovery media:  Acronis True Image 2016: Creating Bootable Media | Knowledge Base

2) Boot into your recovery media and take a full disk image of the original - it will be your safety net if you clone, or will be what you need to restore from to the new disk.  This thread has screenshots of how a bios may look and/or need to be configured to allow rescue media to boot - each computer has a different bios and/or features though so may be different for you.  Acronis won't be able to help you here if you need to tweak your bios so you may have to refer to your computer user manual or contact their support if you're not sure.

3) These user videos will help (once you've figure out how to boot to the recovery media) regarding taking a full disk image and/or restoring that image.

SunGod2009 - How to backup and restore using Acronis True image - YouTube

Britec - How To Restore Windows 10 from a System Image - YouTube

4) If you decide you want to clone (now that you have a backup for safety), follow these instructions, but use the bootable media - DON'T START from windows.  

How to clone a disk with Acronis True Image 2016 - YouTube

The key with cloning is to:

a) Take out the original drive and put it in an external dock or external USB enclosure.

b) Put the new drive where the original drive was previously located in the system (same connector).

c) Boot to your Acronis media and start the clone process, making sure you select the external USB drive (the original disk) as the source and the new drive (that was placed where the original used to be in the system) as the destination.

d) Clone the drive and power off the computer.

e) Disconnect the original drive (the one in the USB enclosure).

f) Boot the computer with the newly cloned drive - does it work? (hopefully it does).