Anybody manged to clone an Windows 8 HDD on a Samsung???

For the last few years, as soon as i buy a new notebook i remove and clone the hdd to another Seagate momentus XT or an SSD and use that, so my original hdd never get`s touched, as there normally slow hdd`s

Now i bought an Windows 8 Samsung, don't remember the model, and i could not clone the hdd, with Acronis True Image 2012, the notebook would not boot with it, i cannot remember the reason why, but obviously something was wrong, now i have cloned 20+ Win7 hdd`s with no problems.

I suppose it`s something to do with uefi and secure boot.

Now i am looking at another Samsung notebook the NP700G7C-S02UK and it comes with Win8, If i buy Acronis True Image 2013 will i get a good clone ???

Or suggest other cloning software, I already have Norton Ghost 15

Thanks

John.

 

Hi John,

You're on the right path, and you're not alone. It's just that Win8 uses an entirely different partition layout from Win7 (GPT vs the good old MBR) which requires UEFI options in BIOS to even read the disk. I am not sure all imaging and cloning tools handle that correctly. And with SecureBoot enabled, you can basically only boot the pre-installed OS (to protect against malware and rootkits). You may be able to re-enable SecureBoot once you have a new Win8 installation running (or a cloned one).

Anyways, I remember posts in the 2013 Chronos pre-announcement thread discussed how Recovery on the new models can be used to clone onto an external disk prior to swapping it in. Specifically, check this excellent post by member black83.

You can also use the following Google search to look for more posts on the subject: site:notebookreview.com 2013 chronos clone recovery ssd.

Let us know how it works out

 

black83 post, does not help me, i just need to clone the original hdd to an ssd, i need to do this without ever booting the original hdd in the notebook.

John.

 

Acronis Products: Cannot Boot Windows 8 Secure Boot Machines with Acronis Loader | Knowledge Base

 

Thanks Thors.Hammer , so Acronis True Image 2013 should work once patched

 

Oops, I see that. It was this post by member blue13x I meant to link. He used the Recovery to clone onto the SSD (while it was still external). In later posts others report doing the same.

My NP700Z3A has the older Samsung Recovery Solution 5 which doesn't have this feature, so I cannot give you exact steps, only pointers. You have the newer SRS6 like those in the linked posts.

I understand your desire to leave the original HDD untouched. I am not suggesting you boot Windows, just the Recovery (using F4). That WILL create a log entry in the recovery (and maybe stamp the purchase date) -- but there are ways to clear those, using recovery Management Mode and USB Admin Tool. Here is a post discussing those.

Also, you should know that many imaging tools lose the Recovery F4 link when partitions are restored after a backup -- and it is not easily re-created. I would imagine that must be true of cloning tools as well. That's one more reason to use Samsung's tools for this.

Edit: There we go, Thor beat me to it. Thank you, Thor!

 

John I used acronis true image 2013 and it kinda *worked*, with the exception that after cloining pressing f4 would no longer take me into the recovery software on boot. For full compatibility I used the f4 recovery software's clone feature, with the new drive hooked up via ext usb enclosure. Worked great.

 

The problem with the f4 method, is that if you miss the button press, Win8 will have started to setup, I dont need F4 recovery to work on the clones version anyway.

I am currently downloading a torrent of Win8 to do a clean install as a backup, in case the clone fails, it should pick up the licence key from the bios right, i dont like downloading torrents of software as you dont know, if they have been messed with, does anybody have a clean link to a download they can PM me?

Also does the NP700G7C-S02UK come with Win8 x64 or the Win8 x64 Pro, i think it only comes with Win8 x64, it should be pro for the price of the notebook.

I just bought the upgrade to Acronis True Image 2013, I already had 2012 and 2010.

Thanks Everybody

 

Even if you miss it and it loads Windows, you just restore the factory image from recovery next time; it will restore it as if you'd never booted Windows. Again, the only trace is a Recovery log entry -- and even that can be cleared if you know how.

At least that's how mine works.

Trust me, I am the same, I want to keep a new PC 100% pure until I made backups. But on these Sammies, if your Recovery works AND you have an intact factory image, you can always get back to stock.

BTW, this discussion is an interesting tale of a guy who thought he was safe with a full Paragon disk image of his original Win8 HDD. He restored it after a problematic Win7 installation, wanting to use Recovery to restore the factory Win8. He never managed to boot that Recovery again -- and it wasn't for lack of trying or knowledge.

I've never had a failed disk or partition image myself -- but I've also not heard of any imaging tools that can restore that F4 link to the Recovery.

OK, enough with the warnings. You know what you're doing

 

I have had a few recovery partitions on original hdd`s go corrupt or were corrupt from the start, i have had recovery dvd`s fail to work as well, so i am very wary of running recovery on the original hdd as i dont want a paperweight, so i now always clone the original hdd to another drive, and then put the original away for safe keeping.

John.

 

Got it. And that IS indeed a very safe approach, as far as protecting the original disk goes. Let us know how it goes -- in particular if Recovery works on the cloned disk.

 

I don't know if you have done this yet...

I swapped out my drive for an ssd today, cloning it exactly as you were thinking of with Acronis True Image 2013, and it worked fine, boots fine, but recovery can't see the partition as stated in other posts.

 

I am very curious if F4 works to boot Recovery on the new (cloned) SSD. This and dozens of other past oopsies is the reason I ask.

If Acronis True Image 2013 now is now able to clone/restore Recovery Partitions correctly, that will be excellent news for many Samsung owners.

 

Unfortunately it does not.

 

OK. Thanks a lot for reporting. At least we know that this is still a problem.

 

But can you still boot Recovery with F4 on the cloned SSD?

 

Acronis True Image 2014, bootable thumb drive, bios boot option to boot thumb drive, work just fine on X3G.

 

Does that include preservation of the F4 access to Samsung Recovery?

John