T61 & Cloning Hard Drive

How can I clone my T61 hard drive so that the cloned drive will be identical to the main drive? I have made a backup with Retrospect but it is only a backup and it is not bootable. Ghost will not work because it cannot handle the hidden partition; it fails as soon as it encounters that region. The hidden partition cannot be "unhidden" because the option to do so is missing from the BIOS. I have made the Rescue and Recovery disks, but these are not clones of the HD. I have been cloning disks for 15 years via Ghost and this is the first time that Ghost has been unable to handle the job. Does anyone know of a program that can "see" the hidden partition and clone the T61 HD so that the cloned copy can actually be substituted for the original HD?

Norm

 

I heard Acronis True Image works well for that task.
They have a trial version but I'm not sure whether it has full functionality or not.

 

i was actually curious about the same thing if i ever decide to upgrade to a different hard drive it would be nice to be able to just copy the hidden partition to a new hard drive. i hope someone else know an answer to this im not sure what would be able to see a hidden partition

 

As you say, the R & R disks are not clones of the HD - but what about just using those as your emergency OS backup, and cloning the main partition? [BTW, I might need to do the same thing.]
Isn't there software to do this? I noticed that Acronis has a new version/update out for $29.95.
[You have more experience in this than I do, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about!]

(PS - I'm downloading the trial version of True Image 11 right now.)

Thanks
Dave

 

Acronis will do it for you. I used it on mine and it makes an exact image of your entire hard disk.

 

I downloaded the trial version of True Image 11 (Acronis) and tried to make a clone of the C: drive onto an external HD. Then I noticed they state that the 'old drive will have to be removed when the process if finished'. I don't understand why. Aren't they supposed to end up as two identical C: drives? Isn't that the whole point?

Anybody familiar with the Acronis cloning facility?

(nsnadel - sorry didn't mean to hijack; maybe this helps though.)

Dave

 

Clone means that you want to duplicate your existing hard drive onto a new one, ie. when you replace it with a bigger one. What you want to do is a "Backup" onto your external drive. That will create an image file (.tib) that you can later restore onto your old hard disk.

 

No, I wanted to do the same as nsadel - make an identical, bootable replacement for the C: drive. Maybe I misunderstood the comment in the cloning dialog box... it sounded like you HAD to remove the old drive when done. I just don't get why you would *have* to remove it - I didn't think the process would change the original drive at all, so you could still boot up with either one.
Aahh! I just realised - maybe it's to do with the one MS OS license not being allowed use on two different HDDs?

Or the new drive needs to actually be in the machine in order to be set up and recognised as the C: drive - thus at least for that, the old one has to come out, and then could go back in again. Is that right?

Dave

 

Hey guys .. thanks for all the replies .. and I do mean ALL of them. According to the manual, the original disk is left untouched IF that was your choice. It will not be destroyed unless you specifically request that option. What confuses me is how a program can clone a drive from within XP .. what about all those files that are in use and open? How are they cloned. This is why I use Ghost from a DOS boot disk. I plan to call Acronis later today and ask their tech people.

Norm

 

I believe it uses Volume Shadow Copies to do the open files. I've done it many times, works like a charm.

 

Well, I ran the trial version of TrueImage Home, 11 and attempted to CLONE my HD to another HD in the DOCK. All went well ( took 30 seconds after reboot) with no error messages. However, NO DATA was transferred to the new HD .. it remained without any files. Acronis tech support is nowhere to be found. Any idea of why no data is transferred during the clone?

 

I think the easiest way to clone an HD is by using this program:

XXClone (freeware)
http://www.xxclone.com/

I am not sure if it handles hidden partitions though, but you could try it. It's only a small download.

Here's a guide:
http://www.techsupportforum.com/content/Hardware/Articles/47.html

How XXClone operates
http://www.xxclone.com/itheory.htm

From the above link:
XXCLONE views a Windows disk as a collection of files and directories and with a few exceptions, its access to data on the disk is carried out as a logical (file) access operations using the standard Windows file I/O Application Program Interface (API).

Whereas, nearly all of competing products on the market that are designed for disk cloning operations access the disk using physical, low-level (sector to sector) device I/O technique.

In short, XXCLONE is a special purpose file-copy utility with extra features to make the target volume self-bootable (this portion of the operation still requires low-level disk I/O). It is not a disk-imaging tool that treats a disk as a collection of sectors. Much of XXCLONE's advantages is a result this fundamental difference to its competing products.

Here is a list of contrasting characteristics in the two approaches in the disk cloning problem.

• When a clone operation is performed for the first time, all the files created on the target volume will be stored in a contiguous region. Therefore, the clone operation in full backup mode automatically performs the so-called "de-frag" operations.
  
• The competing products that are based on a sector-to-sector duplication principle propagate the same degree of fragmentation found in the source volume to the target.
  
• When the same clone operation is repeated for regular volume backup, XXCLONE can skip files that were unchanged since the previous backup.
  
• Disk-imaging products typically cannot perform an efficient backup operation in incremental mode (Note: some products do claim to skip unchanged sectors).
  
• You may operate XXCLONE in a regular Windows session without stopping your routine use of the computers, since XXCLONE acts as a regular Windows applications for most of its operations.
  
• Disk-Imaging tools typically force you to terminate a Windows session and run in DOS mode.
  
• XXCLONE can clone a volume into another with a different file system. That is, you may clone a FAT volume into an NTFS volume or vice versa.
  
• Disk imaging products require the same type of file system between the source and the target volumes.
  
• With XXCLONE, the target volume's size need not match that of the source. As long as the target volume has the capacity to hold the files, it can even be smaller than the source volume.

I hope this helps.

 

Do you mean Acronis appeared to take only a few seconds to clone your new drive then asked you to push any button to shut down resulting in no data, applications, or files being transferred? If so, I had the same problem with my T60, Windows XP Pro (sp2), trying to clone from my internal C: drive to new Hitachi SATA 200GB HD in the ultra drive bay using Lenovo's Drive Bay Adapter. I had initialized and formatted my new drive in the ultra drive bay prior to attempting to clone.

Here's what I did to solve the problem. Selected Control Panel, then Administrative tools, then Computer Management, then Disk Management. Right clicked on the new drive, and used the delete volume command.

Warning: When you right click to delete the volume making it "Unallocated", you are deleting everything on the disk so make sure you right-click the drive you want to clone to (new drive).

This resulted in the new drive being designated as "Unallocated". Then reran Acronis ver 11.0 and it saw my old C drive listed as source and my new drive as clone. Acronis reboots and activates the clone process in MS-DOS environment. This should take at least 30 minutes or more depending on size of your old drive. Acronis then stops the clone process indicating cloning is complete. It asks you to push any button to shut down your machine.

Once the machine shut down, I placed the new drive (cloned drive) into my permanent hard drive bay and put my old drive aside. The new cloned drive booted perfectly, no lost files or data.

 

Hai All..,
I tried Cloning T62 using Ghost and is working fine.. ..

U can use Bartpe , The same u can Download from
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/#download

Boot from the Bartpe CD, once done..
1)Got to Symantec ghost32
2)under options/ boot select boot partition option [ok]
3)Select Disk--> to Image Option [ The important option, other wise it wont boot]

4)Select the Source partition
5)Locate the Destination folder, type the image name [eg: T61]
6)Start creating image.
7)Once completed reboot when prompted..

Woww... It is booting...working fine...

Regards,...
Try it off... Further quries.. post here ..or mail me @ [email protected]

 

This entire thread is ridiculous if you have Vista Business or ultimate.

Vista Complete PC copy will do all of this. You do need a bootable Vista Distribution DVD to BackUp the new images.

 

And as several earlier posters indicated, they are using XP, not Vista. So how can this thread be ridiculous?

 

I'm going to upgrade to a new hdd this weekend.

I'm not going to clone the factory Lenovo hdd.

My plan of attack is to do a clean install of Windows XP Pro with the minimal Lenovo utilities.


I have the factory "Reboot" CDs (7 of them).

After I do a clean install I am going to open up the stock hdd files and copy and paste the files/applications I want to the new hdd.
I have done this before using a VANTEC CB-ISATAU2 SATA/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter.


This is mine:




Full specs: http://www.vantecusa.com/p_cb-isatau2.html


It's an awesome gadget that I have used to extract files from troubled hard drives.


Once I do that I'm going to 0 out the stock hdd.

 

What's on the hidden partition?

 

The default hidden partition? It contains data to perform a factory restore.

 

OK. That's good. So, I can get rid of the Thinkcenter backup?

I want to upgrade the hard drive. From the info I got here, I think the Scorpio is best.

Then, I buy hard drive and some kind of USB enclosure, right?

Then I use Acronis to clone everything including hidden partition, si?

Finally, I make the swap?

Thanks.

 

Hi, I'd like your advice before I do this. Will I be able to get the hidden partition with the free Acronis?

 

i use one just like this daily at my computer shop.. works fine.. we use http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/ since you can do it inside windows.. works fine..

 

Just used Acronis to transfer to my WD Scorpio. Worked great.

 

Hi. I tried the freeware xxclone to clone my t43 drive, as suggested before by Freakish.

Xxclone recognizes the presence of 2 partitions in drive c:, IBM_PRELOAD and IBM_SERVICE. But apparently it can only clone the first and I cannot even select the second.

My needs are simply the following:

1. to copy the whole drive, with both the partitions together into an external usb drive.
2. I don't care to compress the created image.
3. to run the cloning software in another pc (i.e. not in the drive that i want to clone: this can be easily done by extracting the hd to be cloned from the thinkpad, putting it in an external enclosure and connecting the enclosurre to a pc with the cloning software)

Can anyone suggest a really working software?

acronis true image has a 15 days trial period. Can the image that I create in this trial period be restored using the same expired program even after its expiration date? Can the image be restored by a new and licensed version after the expiration date, or is the expiration date applied to the image as well?

(I want to be absolutely sure that i will not loose my data: i read something about it in this extremely helpful forum, but the replies are not always in the same post so i feel not sure about the effectiveness of the tools and procedures)

Thanks