Aspire M5-481PT - cloning hard drive to external usb drive

needhelp1
needhelp1 Member Posts: 5 New User
edited March 2023 in 2017 Archives

Clone attempts for my Windows 8.1 have failed.   I tried to clone my laptop hard drive to an external usb hard drive with Acronis.  Process will not work.   Acronis advised something in Windows prevents a bootable clone from being made to an external usb hard drive.  They told me I would have to remove my hard drive and replace it with a new one and then clone from the removed functioning hard drive.  I already replaced the hard drive once and the removal requires too much disassembly of my laptop to make their advised process practical. Then they said that the process will work if I have an internal hard drive in a usb hard drive enclosure as the source.  I did purchase an additional internal drive and tried the Acronis clone process with the drive in a usb dock.   Process will not work through this setup.  I hate to purchase a hard drive enclosure only to find out that does not solve the problem.  I hope someone can direct me to other software or any method that will produce a bootable clone.   For some reason my hard drive has 6 partitions which renders some clone software incapable of cloning so many partitions(Aomei software).  I did try partition wizard - the clone was produced but when I tried booting from the external drive the pc will not boot(changed boot priority in bios first of course).

Answers

  • Ingrid1990
    Ingrid1990 Member Posts: 21 Networker

    Hello. 

    To my knowledge, a cloning on laptop is risky. The cloning process may be suspended due to battery or connection problem. Since you have spare storage device, why don't you backup laptop hard drive and then restore it to the USB drive later? Both Acronis and Aomei Backupper can do the job. And this is the safest way to protect your data. 

    By the way, the exteral USB drive should be larger than the source hard drive. 

     

    [edited to comply with guidelines]

  • needhelp1
    needhelp1 Member Posts: 5 New User

    Thanks but the need for a clone is because in case of a hard drive failure I want to avoid going through the process of reloading Windows 8 - downloading all the updates needed since 2013(date laptop was purchased)   then downloading 8.1 and all the required updates for that.   I am on limited internet bandwidth so besides being very tedious it costs a lot to redo the entire operating system.  I need a clone that will be  my current operating system on a bootable drive.  Data protection is not the reason for cloning in this case.