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    Acronis True Image Recommendation?

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by Dragonpet, Feb 14, 2008.

  1. Dragonpet

    Dragonpet Notebook Evangelist

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    Does anyone here ever used Acronis True Image? I am seriously considering purchasing my copy. Let's just say I learned the importance of backuping periodically the hard way. I would like to make a copy of my harddisk after a clean install of Vista with some of the app I use on daily basis already installed; so if I managed to crash it again, I can just revert back to normal. Here are my questions: Is the software easy to use? and how big is the restore file usually? Finally, Do you have to be inside windows to do a restoration?

    Thanks for the help in advance.

    *btw, I manage to get looping BSOD on Vista ultimate about 1 week after I cleaned installed it onto my laptop. I am gifted. :D
     
  2. Fade To Black

    Fade To Black The Bad Ass

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    Yes, I have and it's a great program to use. The software is easy to use, but can also get advanced if you want to. The restoration file can be compressed if you want to and you can really make it smaller.
    You can be inside Windows to do the restoration process, but can also make a DVD in case you can't enter Windows or just want to have it on a DVD (or more).
     
  3. darnatl

    darnatl Notebook Guru

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    It just saved my butt last night! I got it a few weeks ago and installed it last week. I created a back up using the acronis secure zone. After a windows update yesterday, my laptop would not boot. It would try to start, but stall on a start-up screen saying configuring updates part 3 of 3 - 0% complete. Then it would restart and it just continue this cycle over and over. I tried booting in safe mode. I tried last good configuration. When nothing worked, I launch acronis secure zone and restored to my back-up. It saved me from having to do a complete reformat.
     
  4. SoFloAcer

    SoFloAcer Notebook Geek

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    I second Fade To Black's comments. I've used it at home and work and haven't run into any problems with it....the software does exactly what it says it does. I think the best feature is the disk clone where you can make an exact copy of a disk. This is great if you buy a larger drive and don't want to go through countless hours of installs and copying data.

    I'm relatively new to Vista and so haven't messed with the native backup solution, but if you don't want to use that for backups, True Image 11 is the way to go.
     
  5. Jamaicanyouth

    Jamaicanyouth Notebook Evangelist

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    I recommend it definitely. I however recommend True Image Workstation 9.1 and then create your own BartPE disc with Acronis on there. Way faster than the Acronis Linux boot CD (USB drivers are way better), also it has way better hardware support. Workstation is better than Home version which has a lot of unnecessary stuff. If anyone needs help with that, I can help.
     
  6. Dragonpet

    Dragonpet Notebook Evangelist

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    Thanks Guys, I went ahead and got it. I already made my first back up. :)
    I have another question: Should I use the security zone option, or just create a bootable media disK?

    btw, reps for everyone.
     
  7. Mecha

    Mecha Notebook Geek

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    love the program
     
  8. Polsta

    Polsta Notebook Evangelist

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    can anyone tell me with this program

    as my vista right now is how i want and like it,with all games and progs installed i use, my c drive partition with with windows and all games and apps is 100gig,and about 85 gig full

    so if i used acronis true image, could i do a total back up of that 100gig partition on to an external hard drive,and then i have an exact back up and wouldnt have to reinstall all my games and driver and programs or anything and go through all the hours it takes do do manually ? so whenever i wanted to do a clean install or if i had a major error or crash,i could just reformat and get it straight back to how it is now ?

    thanks !!!
     
  9. Fade To Black

    Fade To Black The Bad Ass

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    Yes, you could do that. The image can be saved wherever you want. But I am not sure about how you're going to restore it when you can't boot. I haven't dealt with this situation yet.
     
  10. roytse

    roytse Notebook Evangelist

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    I've just bought this program yesterday,
    really love this program, it works great on my system

    but I have a question,
    there are 3 processes that startup automatically at system startup
    1. Acronis Scheduler Helper
    2. Acronis True Image Monitor
    3. Monitor for Acronis True Image Backup Archive Explorer
    Is it safe to disable these 3 startup process?
    will it affect Acronis if i disable them?
     
  11. roytse

    roytse Notebook Evangelist

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    can anyone help me with my question?
    any help would be appreciated.
     
  12. deekeasy

    deekeasy Notebook Guru

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    I can't answer exactly, but I've been using True Image for years and have always set that Acronis stuff in Services to manual. I image my drive every couple of weeks onto an external. It's big enough to hold a few so i just make a new full image each time. A while back I put a faster drive in my laptop so all I had to do was install it right out of the package into my laptop, pop in the Acronis boot/rescue CD, plug in my external and in about a half hour I'm back in business EXACTLY as before, only faster. True image works every time on the several machines I've used it on, as does their Disk Director. It's good stuff.
     
  13. Incursis

    Incursis Notebook Evangelist

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    Post deleted
     
  14. NumLock

    NumLock Notebook Evangelist

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    Yup, but the downside is that you have to give extra effort to boot to the CD and backup the drive manually.

    IMO those three services don't really affect my start up speed.
     
  15. orion23

    orion23 Notebook Consultant

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    Acronis user here, and I love it! Best program I have ever used.

    Very light installation, very easy to follow instructions to back up and restore.

    The box version should come with a bootable CD which allows you to restore your saved IMAGE to the newly formatted / replaced hard drive.

    When using the downloadable version, there is an option within the software that allows you to create the bootable disc (the boxed version might do the same...)

    Go Acronis!
     
  16. Polsta

    Polsta Notebook Evangelist

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    ive got it downloaded but not used installed it yet

    will this defnatly work absoloutly fine with all drivers and all games and progs installed ? and make a perfect restore back up of absoloutly everything ? so if i had a major need i could simply make it to exact how it is now and do a complete back up of a 100gig cdrive partition to my external 500gig hd ? and also make a bootable cd to do it from scratch ?

    it sounds almost too good to be true that i wont have to reinstall all games and it will work fine !!!
     
  17. roytse

    roytse Notebook Evangelist

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    correct!
    It backups the whole drive, whole system, no mess at all!! great program :D
    however, a full 500gig hdd might take hours... :eek:
     
  18. Polsta

    Polsta Notebook Evangelist

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    im gonna try it out,it sounds excellent !

    although what i might do, is wait until the official service pack 1 is out, do a brand new install and install that and everything clean and all my progs and get exact how i want it ,then make an image

    how long would 100 gig take ? my c drive is on a 100gig partition,that holds all my windows and programmes,and i keep all documents and pics and music etc on another hard drive
     
  19. NumLock

    NumLock Notebook Evangelist

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    Based on my benchmark on a cross cable transfer: 1GB per minute. and Cross cables are slower than USB 2.0.
     
  20. Polsta

    Polsta Notebook Evangelist

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    ok thanks man !! im looking forward to trying it out, i might even make a back up of it tonight just to familiarise myself with it, then before i do a clean reinstall when service pack 1 is officialy released, just test it out by using the boot and image,just to see if i get any problems and basicly just so i know i can do it etc !
     
  21. Dragonpet

    Dragonpet Notebook Evangelist

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    Will this work?
    Let's say I have 1 physical drive but 2 logical partitions.
    One where I install and put everything that's not part of Windows, such as applications, Videos, etc.

    If I only back up the partition with Windows on it, since the registry and everything should be in tact, when I do a restore I don't have to reinstall all the applications right?
     
  22. ScuderiaConchiglia

    ScuderiaConchiglia NBR Vaio Team Curmudgeon

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    Nope that won't work, if the image you restore was made before you installed one of the applications. The registry is part of windows and damn near every application requires entries in the registry. As long as the list of applications is not different it will work just fine.

    I use a two partition setup. Windows and apps on one (just so I don't have to worry if my applications list and registry are in sync) and with all DATA on the other. DATA includes the My Documents folder, Outlook PST files, My Favorites, My Pictures and My Music folders.

    Gary
     
  23. ScuderiaConchiglia

    ScuderiaConchiglia NBR Vaio Team Curmudgeon

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    I have NEVER trusted any application that purported to be able to image a drive or partition while the OS was running. Call it superstition or whatever, but I always use a bootable CD to create an image. It just feels a LOT safer.

    Gary
     
  24. scooberdoober

    scooberdoober Penguins FTW!

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    True Image is the best IMO.
     
  25. medp7060

    medp7060 Newbie

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    Domian membership lost with Acronis True Image
    ---------------------------------------------

    I tried Acronis True Image Home 2009 and created an image of a whole partition of my laptop. However, after restoring from the image, my domian membership got lost, i.e. I could not log on to the domain while connected to the network, but could when discconected.

    Did the domian membership info did not include in the back-up image? Any way to retrive it from the image if it was still in the image?
     
  26. ScuderiaConchiglia

    ScuderiaConchiglia NBR Vaio Team Curmudgeon

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    Everything got included. An image is not a copy of files, it is a copy of bits. ALL bits.

    How OLD was the image? How do you log in to a domain whil not connected to the network?

    Gary
     
  27. medp7060

    medp7060 Newbie

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    I thought the image had all the files in the partition, but my first taste of it failed me: It was a two month old image and I restored the whole partition from it. When it's done, I could not log on to my network domain “domain\user”, then I disconnected the network by removing the cable, I successfully logged into Windows. I could still use the network resources when the cable was re-plugged. I later called our IT for help. It turned out the domain membership of my computer was lost! A re-joining the domain fixed the problem.
     
  28. ScuderiaConchiglia

    ScuderiaConchiglia NBR Vaio Team Curmudgeon

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    Not lost, expired. That's why I asked about the age of the image. The credentials for domain membership have a time constraint. I don't remember all the details, but I had the same issue with a Ghost image some time ago.

    Gary
     
  29. alto

    alto Notebook Geek

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    Is the program free?And where can you get it ?

    Thanks
     
  30. LaptopNut

    LaptopNut Notebook Virtuoso

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    I have used Acronis True Image but I prefer Drive Snapshot.

    Drive Snapshot does not install any services permanently it is just as fast, if not faster and you can image any drive without even having to waste time installing and rebooting.

    I have found that restoring an image is quicker in Drive Snapshot than it is in True Image as well.
     
  31. medp7060

    medp7060 Newbie

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    Thanks for that. I did not know that it expired. Then which files do I have to back up before I restore a system image, then overwrite the expired ones with the backup?
     
  32. ScuderiaConchiglia

    ScuderiaConchiglia NBR Vaio Team Curmudgeon

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    I haven't a clue. I suspect it is embedded in the registry. I did what your IT guy had you do. I rejoined the domain.

    Gary
     
  33. hendra

    hendra Notebook Virtuoso

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    Does Acronis work with BD-R DL (Double Layer Blu-ray disc, 50GB Capacity). Acronis website mention that it works with BD-R but it doesn't say if BD-R DL is supported.
     
  34. hankaaron57

    hankaaron57 Go BIG or go HOME

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    So, I'm using True Image home 2009 (version 12.x.x.x) and drive cleanser is not working. I have two drives, and I boot from the slave drive. The one in the master slot I want to cleanse, but I get the error message: failed to load the RPC server. So, after trying five more times unsuccessfully, I just formatted the drive with my OS. However, there's still other partitions (FAT16 and DOS and media direct) that I'd like to delete and make sure are gone. I wish the drive cleanser were working so I could run the sweet algorithms they have for deleting all traces of computer history.

    Can anyone help or point me in the right direction?
     
  35. hankaaron57

    hankaaron57 Go BIG or go HOME

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  36. Shyster1

    Shyster1 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    So we can all congratulate you on what a quick study you are, obviously! :D
     
  37. hankaaron57

    hankaaron57 Go BIG or go HOME

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    Haha. I wish. However, I have a new question.


    Once I delete the media direct partition on my boot drive with drive cleanser, how do I go about adding it to my existing boot partition? Is this something that I can do by formatting it with Acronis or do I have go and download another 3rd party partitioning software? Please don't tell me I have download something like partition magic - I just spent 7 hours downloading Windows 7 RC :(
     
  38. Shyster1

    Shyster1 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Did you get the disk director suite along with your copy of True Image Home? If not, then you will need a separate partition manager. The one I've been using recently that I like (and that's free for personal use), is EASEUS' Partition Master - and at only about 8.8MB, downloading it shouldn't take anywhere's near as long as Win7RC. :D
     
  39. potentv

    potentv Notebook Evangelist

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    I am very new to Acronis True Image Home 2009 and Disk Director 10.

    I was looking for portable versions for a long time because I didnt want to make my registry a mess. I heard of Drive Snapshot and was instantly intrigued.

    BUT, I didnt understand half of what it was about and what it did. I tried to restore a backup and couldnt get it going. Acronis I love because it is simple, intuitive and does exactly what it says without fault.

    I never need reinstall vista again because I have been making a lot of backups from scratch because it is so quick.

    I made a backup of a freshly installed vista with drivers installed. backup of a freshly installed vista with drivers installed completely updated OS and MS office. Another backup with all my favourite programs installed.

    I have restored several times and its amazing.
    10/10 from me. but i dont have those incredible specific requirements as many other users of this forum may have. but if you are like me: simple with simple requirements, then this program is for you!!!

    PS. Disk Director 10 is exactly the same for me BUT since i havent tried many alternatives I cant say this is particularly better than the alternatives but it is equally easy to use (I only tried to use Vista's partition thing but I couldnt shrink a drive very much but this worked perfectly)
     
  40. surfasb

    surfasb Titles Shmm-itles

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    Acronis is what backup software SHOULD be. It is laughably easy to use.