How Reliable TI is for a Dual Boot ?

[bob1711]

I have been using another product called XACT copy for backing up my entire hard drive on a daily basis. In fact incremental back up 2-3 times a day. It has never created any problem in last 3 years.

Unfortunately it works only with Win XP & late OSs & not Vista & they have not come up with a Vista version.

But now it seems that sooner later I will have to learn Vista so why not start now.

The problem is that I have to do it as a dual boot to start out with.

Acronis TI seems to be a popular choice but after going thru some threads it seems that TI is not very reliable when it comes to dual boot XP & Vista.

I am not a very techy person so troubleshooting after a cloning going wrong would not be a thrilling experience for me.

Can you guys give me recommendations as to how should I install my OS so that I can have a very reliable cloned copy of my hard drive ready to be replaced in few minutes in case something goes wrong ?

I mean should I just install only Vista for TI to be very effective ?

OR

Is there a way to install both OSs so that TI will work flawlessly ?

I would really appreciate any and all recommendations.

Thank you in Advance.

[DwnNdrty]

I backup and restore a dual boot system (XP & Vista) using True Image ver. 9 build 3677 bootable Rescue CD with the BartPE option. I suspect that the latest ver 11 boot cd would be equally as good as long as it sees the drive containing your backup images. I also never use the Secure Zone nor do any automatic backups.

[bob1711]

Is it necessary to boot from CD to have a successful back up ?

Acronis does not clarify this.

Also as someone else asked before what is RartPE option ?

Thanks

[shieber]

You can't restore the same instance of an OS that is running. So you have to boot from the CD or else have ATI reboot from the harddisk--inc which case is doesn't boot up in the normal OS. More specifically, you can write to certain systems files while they are open and running.

BartPE is version of xp on a single disk so you can boot from it and runs some programs.

VistaPE is same sort of thing but with Vista.

[MrMorse]

-{ Quote: "Is it necessary to boot from CD to have a successful back up ?" }-
No. You can create images from the Ti-windows-installation.
To create an image from the boot device I prefer the boot-CD to create an image. But it is not required.

-{ Quote: "
Also as someone else asked before what is RartPE option ?" }-
Here is the Link of the signature of the member 'shieber': Click (http://www.mechrest.com/plugins/BartPEGuide/VistaPEGuide.htm)

EDIT:
I'm sorry that is a link of VistaPE...

Here is the link to BartPE: Click (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/)