Important Cloning Poll. Could lose your Plugs Authorizations if you update!

[scar97]

I am taking a poll here. In another thread we are experimenting on some other issues and I want to get some feedback from anyone who is imaging vs cloning.

I used to image everything until I tried the 3GB switch. I had a hard crash that I could not recover from (my fault). I am using acronis true image work station 9 and acronis disk director for partitioning.

Here is the situation. I used the rescue disk and still could not get it to install an image. Big problem as I have done this many times and now it has given me a false feeling of security. Thank goodness I always make a clone of the most stable system and I got it back up. After I got the clone drive up I made a backup clone and put it away for redundancy.

Now comes the issue I am trying to get the poll on. Since I had to do a bunch of work I decided to check and see what updates I needed on WINDOWS only since SP3. I downloaded all of them except IE8 (known issue). The only reason I did this was for security purposes because I still get authorizations on that PC but no surfing or DUC then I disable the network connection. After updating I lost all access to several plugs.

To make a long story short I had to put the backup cloned HD disk back in and boot up and everything was back to normal.

It seems like if I update anything windows (.net framework, security updates, etc..Just the bare bones updates) it corrupts the shortcuts to plugs like RMX, Trillogy, or anything that has a large library on a separate drive with a shortcut from the system drive. I hope I explained that right.

I know how to rework all of the shortcuts but after updating it no longer let me "point" to those libraries" and the plug in's no longer worked unless I put the backup cloned drive back in and booted from it without the updates.

We are thinking that the ID's of the hard drives are now being captured for piracy protection. I don't know that is why I am asking you about your experiences. If this is the case I would not suggest updating Windows XP past sp3 or at least in my case my cloned drives do not work.

Last of all I will NEVER EVER use an image again. I would rather pay for 10 hard drives and clone them than go through that again. Plus as I have found out from some very intelligent users on this forum they ONLY used cloned drives and it is about 2-5 minutes to swap out and you are running again after a hard drive failure (system drive).

I have now cloned my system drive x 2 my data drive and my storage drives. I feel very secure in this method now and it also gives me the ability to learn more and try different things where I was uncomfortable in doing so in the past.

If this has been discussed before sorry but for you newbies BE AWARE!!

Just my experience in the past week.

Your thoughts?