Vista Backup/Restore/Archive

I'm looking for a backup/recovery/restore/archive solution for Vista Home Premium. I need to be able to restore as-is to a replacement hard drive and I need to be able to access individual files on the backup for archival purposes. Right now I have found Acronis True Image and Norton Ghost.

1. Are there others I should be considering?
2. What are the pros & cons of each?

BTW, at this point it looks like ATI would be my preference.

 

I think they are the main names in disk imaging

 

I have ATI installed on a 15 day trial. Seems quite good so far. I also found this on a support forum, which seems to be good advice regardless.

 

I was in a conversation just today about Acronis and was directed to this thread: Acronis

The part about how Acronis handles disk spanning was quite bothersome. No way I want to deal with THAT issue. I'll stick with Norton Ghost. Although I am using an OLD copy Ghost 2003. But it works fine with Vista for me.

Gary

 

I'm using a 160GB USB 2.0 external drive as my backup target drive.

 

I got ATI and ADD today and backed up the HP recovery partition, then deleted it, then added the space it had been occupying to the C: drive, then backed up the "new" C: drive. No need for a HP recovery partition now that I can recover my real system to any drive.

 

I prefer ATI over Ghost also. Good choice.

 

Can I point you to a question about ATI in another thread?

ATI Question about image store

I am curious about the partition types where ATI images can be stored and yet be visible to the ATI emergency recovery process.

Also why do you like Acronis better? Is the info I quoted in message #4 correct? If I use ATI to create an image to DVD and the image spans DVD's will it indeed, require multiple DVD swaps when doing a restore?

Thanks,

Gary

 

Just got a new hard drive and used Acronis True Image 10 last night, in about 40 min's I was back in business. Worked great! Don't know why I never did this before... I always used to do clean installs.

 

My USB external hard drive contains multiple "Backup Locations" (in ATI nomenclature). The USB external hard drive is a single NTFS partition. I also created a bootable CD with the ATI software on it after selecting the appropriate options. The USB drive is also considered to be a removable media.

I do not intend to span volumes, so have not researched the mechanics of doing so. Perhaps The ATI Forums has a answer?

 

Gary, I like ATI because it can be simple or advanced depending on the users ability. I like ATI because it doesn't require the .Net framework to run in windows. I like ATI because the bootable media operates just like the program in windows.

I've used both ghost and ATI. Ghost has failed me on several occasions by not following a schedule, or not clearing the image location thus resulting in a failure.

ATI does require a little jostling of disks, but DVD/CD shouldn't be your first choice of a backup medium. HD first and if you must archive to DVD then do so.

ATI can also create a hidden partition for images, which can be restored by the program or the bootable media. Great feature if you are responsible for a backing up a novices computer. The partition is hidden, so they can't delete images, etc.

ATI will work with both FAT32 and NTFS.

Hope that helps.

 

I know it can image and restore both types, but can it STORE an image on either type and have the emergency recovery find the image so it can be restored. That was Ghost's biggest issue, the images HAD to be stored on FAT32 for the recovery boot diskette to find them.

Thanks for the info.

Gary

 

The ATI User Guide can be downloaded from here in PDF form.

 

ATI V11 is out if you're interested.

 

Acronis True Image is what I use. It's very easy to use and works perfect for me.

One of the best features is that I formatted a USB key to a bootable Acronis environment with True Image + Disk director.

Acronis Disk Director is the partitioning/multiboot/formatting tool.

 

Now that I've put both ATI and ADD onto a bootable CD, I can retire my old DOS 6.22 bootable CD (with FDisk, Format, ATTRIB, ...).

 

Gary,
ATI will store AND recover from FAT32 OR NTFS.

 

I gave up on Acronis True Image (V11) finally today after having tried, unsuccessfully since September, to restore. I never have had a successful restore using ATI 11.

I downloaded and installed Paragon Drive Backup (V8.51) and was successful with a backup and restore the first time.

I even bought on eBay a second HDD for my notebook, identical to the one in there, so that I could repetitively attempt restores non-destructively.