Backup up the system drive using DVD+R's

Hi guys,

I hope that as successful users of Acronis you can give me an educated suggestion on the above.

> The TASK:
Backing up the system drive (C) using DVD+R's ONLY (or in combination with CD's).
IDEALLY: making ONE bootable DVD+R that stores all the data on drive C. Not sure if this is possible. If the free space will be replicated as well I guess that I need 2 DVD+R's.

> The SETUP:
- 2 CD/DVD drives - one Plextor DVD+/-RW, and one Samsung CD-RW
- 1 (one) 14GB HDD with 2 partitions: C drive: 6 GB (about 2 GB free), D drive: 8 GB ( about 1 GB free)
- I have Roxio's Drag-to-Disk (rel. 7) and I have disabled EasyWrite mode.

> QUESTIONS:
- How should I go about backing up drive C (just once as I will not use incremental updates)? I have to use just external backup (DVD+R's), as I cannot use a 2 step due to not having sufficient HDD free space.
- I did succeed creating a bootable Acronis CD-R, but NOT a bootable DVD+R. I finally succeeded making the bootable CD-R only with the most radical method described in the forum: using Windows in Safe mode. No matter what I cannot make a bootable DVD+R. I have disabled Window's own CD burning capability, I have tried starting the process and load the DVD+R only when asked, and I have ran Acronis under Windows Safe Mode. Nothing works? Any way I can make this happen?

Any help that will lead to a solution would be much appreciated.
Thanks,

buju

 

buju:
Have you tried any of the methods for creating a bootable DVD here?

This must be done as a two-step process (as opposed to imaging directly to DVD), so if you don't have any intermediate storage to place the images, then I can't see any way that you can do it.

 

Hello buju,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

First of all please make sure you used the latest build of Acronis True Image 8.0 (889 build). In order to get access to updates you should register account on our site (or just log in if you have already created it) and then register your copy of the product. After that please create new Acronis Bootable CD and try using it.

Please note that the current version of Acronis True Image does not write to DVD disсs directly, instead it utilizes third party UDF packet DVD writing software.

Please also read the information about writing on DVD.

Thank you.
--
Irina Shirokova

 

Thanks for your replies. Much appreciated.

wdormann, no, I have not yet tried the respective procedure(s).
Thanks for your clear feedback on not being able to use Acronis to do one step backup if you want to use a bootable DVD + data on the same DVD.

That is important to me, at least till when I will have a second HD, or more likley when I will buy another PC..

Honestly I would have expected to have the capability of creating backup DVD's in one step.

I may try the 2-step by doing a full backup of my data on drive D, delete all or at least enough data to backup C on D and then burn DVD image off the temporary image on D. I would then have to restore the data from DVD back onto D. Fairly painful, but I may have to do it.

I will report back once I will succeed one way or another. Or if I am still stuck.
Thanks for your help.

Cheers,

buju

 

Thanks for your reply, Acronis support.

With regards to your feedback I would like to confirm the following: I am using 889, and I am using Roxio's Drag-to-Disc, which provides the UDF functionality. So I should be all set. Yet, I am not able to burn a bootable DVD, no matter what trick I am using (and yes I already read the info that you pointed me to). As per my initial email I have turned off the Windows drag-to-disk functionality, I have loaded the DVD only when asked and I have also tried running from WIndows Safe mode.

All attempts have failed. Only burning the boot up CD succeeded, from Safe Mode.

Now, if I could use this bootable CD and burn the system drive to one or two DVD's I guess that I could live with that. Yet, without actually having tried that I realise that I should boot Acronis using the CD-RW drive, as opposed to the DVD one. That way when asked to point to the destination for the data that I am backing up I can point to the DVD drive. If I am using the DVD drive I suppose that taking the Acronis bootable CD and inserting DVD+R's in the same drive may not work.

Could you confirm that?

The reason for asking that is that as I mentioned in my first post the Acronis bootable CD that I made using the DVD drive works in that drive, but when booting up the PC with thw boot up CD in the other (CD-RW) drive, the Acronis CD will NOT be recognised.

Of course that for troubleshooting purposes I will try burning the bootable CD in the CD-RW drive, as opposed to the DVD one.

Note as well the media that I am using: DVD+R - is that a problem?
Do I have to use DVD+RW? I thought that DVD+R's work as well.


Finally, as mentioned in my last post I am surprised that the product is not able to burn the backup bootable DVD's in just one step, without the need for intermediate storage.

Thanks,
buju

 

Hello buju,

may be it's worth to do/check the following:

1. check your BIOS to make shure that you will be able to boot from your CD(!) drive (Samsung?)
2. create the full version of TI bootable CD(!)
3. if both is successful, boot from this CD from your Samsung(?) CD drive, only to check if everything is OK, shut down
4. Boot up normally into Windows
5. Format your DVDs
6. Create your image with TI from within Windows on the preformatted DVDs in your Plextor(?) drive
7. shut computer down and boot from the full version of TI bootable CD(!) as under no. 3.
8. now you should be able to restore the image from your DVDs in your Plextor(?) drive.

(for testing I would create a very small "dummy partition" with any kind of data and image only that)

Try it and give us your field report.
Artemisa

 

Hello buju,

Please be aware that you can not create Acronis bootable rescue DVD. In order to create Acronis bootable rescue media you should use CD or floppies. You can only store your image in DVD.

If you create the image archive to DVD, then you can boot from bootable CD, then remove it and run restoration of your image from DVD.

If you have any questions concerning our software, please feel free to ask us.

Thank you.
--
Irina Shirokova

 

Hi, and thanks for your replies.

Artemis,

I have realised that there may have been something wrong with the old CD drive (yes, the Samsung). Even before seeing your response today I have tested the bootup capability of the CD drive and... it does not work. To be absolutely sure I used the bootable Windows setup drive and no, it does not work.

It used to work just fine before I have installed the new Plextor DVD-RW drive, but now it's not. I can use bootable CD's in the Plextor drive.
I am not sure what the problem is as I can use the CD drive just nicely, and, on the other hand the BIOS booting sequence does have the CD-ROM options selected. For safety I even used that as options 1 and 2! Still not working.

My Plextor is in the Secondary IDE as Master, and the Samsung is in the same IDE, slave. Correct ribbon connections (80 wires) - blue in the mobo, Samsung (slave) in the middle, Plextor (master) at the end.

Conclusion: not sure why it does not work.
I have to find out. If you have any suggestions please let me know. Thanks.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
ACRONIS SUPPORT:

Hm, I do understand that the sw itself does not support the option of bootable DVD backups that are ... bootbale and hold the data as well.
Yet, there are a couple of solutions described in the forum (see the first reply to my initial post) that provide a solution for that.

<As I said, Acronis should have this capability as especially with DL DVD+/-R's it is now possible to backup full system drives (just Windows plus a few key applications) on ONE DVD. Hence, it should be possible to make that DVD bootable. Food for thought.. Thanks>

Anyway, for now, all I am trying to achieve is A WAY to do it. I will try the BEST, prefered way afterewards...

The way that I am trying now to make work is that that you have described: using a boot CD and backup on DVD+R's.

Thank you for confirming that I will be able to boot from CD first and then replace the Acronis boot CD with the DVD data when needed.

This way I know that I will not need 2 drives to restore the data, evene if I am using a boot CD and the data will be on multiple DVD+R's.

I will do that and report back.
Thanks for your help,

Eugen

 

ALMOST THERE...

Succeeded to:
> Create the Acronis Boot Disk.
> The Acronis Boot Disl works fine in the DVD drive, almost every time.. I tested a few times and sometimes the Acronis does not load the GUI. It gives an error - but I am not worried about that. Most of the time the boot CD works.
> Create the System Drive (C:\) to DVD+R.
> Verify the Image on the DVD
> Navigate through the DVD image
> Compare the number of the files on the C:\ with that on the DVD. It is the same. For some reason the total size on the DVD is slightly smaller !??

BUT, I CANNOT RESTORE FROM DVD
Upon booting up with the Acronis boot CD I go to the Restore Image and when it prompts me to pick the image location I switch the boot CD with the DVD+R holding the System Image and I CANNOT FIND THE tib file on the DVD.
It's like Acronis does not support the DVD drive for some reason. Is it that since the PC is not in Windows Acronis cannot see the DVD+R contents??
It cannot be, as otherwise how would you restore from DVD+R's.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks for your help.
Cheers,

buju

 

>Succeeded to: Create the Acronis Boot Disk.
Which one? full version or save version?

>My Plextor is in the Secondary IDE as Master, and the Samsung is in the same IDE, slave.
Sure the jumpers are in the right position at your Samsung?
Sure that your machine boots from a slave?

>Hm, I do understand that the sw itself does not support the option of bootable DVD backups that are ... bootbale and hold the data as well.
You can do that with BartPE and the Acronis TrueImage plug-in
With BartPE you can include TI through the plug-in option and any other kind of files through a CUSTOM option. There you could include the image files (created beforehand).

Artemisa

 

Artemisa,

>Succeeded to: Create the Acronis Boot Disk.
Which one? full version or save version?
>> FULL

>My Plextor is in the Secondary IDE as Master, and the Samsung is in the same IDE, slave.
Sure the jumpers are in the right position at your Samsung? >> Yes. And the drive works fine. I cannot boot from it though. Before adding the Plextor I was ablt to boot using this drive.

Sure that your machine boots from a slave?
>> How can I know? That's the only open question.

>Hm, I do understand that the sw itself does not support the option of bootable DVD backups that are ... bootbale and hold the data as well.
You can do that with BartPE and the Acronis TrueImage plug-in
With BartPE you can include TI through the plug-in option and any other kind of files through a CUSTOM option. There you could include the image files (created beforehand).

>> Very interesting. I will try that for sure.
YET, for now, as you can see I cannot get to restore from the DVD+R backup that I made using Acronis. See my previous post (#9).

Thanks Artemisa!

buju

Artemisa

 

Hello buju,

Please try the "acpi=off noapic" workaround and if it doesn't help please create sysinfo.txt file (please see Acronis post for the detailed instructions) and send to support@acronis.com along with the link to this thread (to your post #9).

Thank you.
--
Irina Shirokova

 

buju,

Sure that your machine boots from a slave?
>> How can I know? That's the only open question.
>>>rearrange/reconfigure your two drives Plextor/Samsung

Artemisa

 

Hi Artemisa,

I suppose that you mean rearrange in the BIOS.
The BIOS does not have the option of say CD-ROM 1, and CD-ROM 2, just one types of CD-ROM setting - plain "CD-ROM".
I have 3 priorities and I have set priority 1 to CD-ROM, prio 2 to CD-ROM and prio 3 to IDE0. It's been like that for a week or so.
There's no other thing I can do in BIOS.

Am I missing somthing?

This remains an open issue that I do have to solve.
I certainly want to be able to boot from the CD-RW drive - just a safeguard.

For now though... I managed to finally create the first DVD image of my system drive and to RESTORE the system by booting off the boot CD and loading the image from the DVD+R.

FINALLY!

Thanks to everyone who helped!

I am certainly not done though and ... I am not at all satisfied with what it took to make it happen. Also the whole procedure and overall behaviour is way too unpredictable for something as crucial as a backup software.

Will post a separate report.
Cheers,

buju

 

FIRST SYSTEM RESTORATION SUCCESS and BUG/FUNCTIONALITY SHORTCOMINGS REPORT

Hi guys,

For anyone interested:
Here are my findings and OPINIONS after getting to finally backup to and restore from a DVD+R.

Successes:
1. I got to create and make use of an Acronis boot CD.
2. I managed to create a DVD backup of the system drive (C:\). Many tweaks have been necessary (trial and error). Yet, the most important thing was to leave Drag-to-Disk running (otherwise the UDF functionality cannot be used by Acronis).

What I have either not tried or not succeeded yet, and I will try in the near future:
1. Making and using incremental backups
2. Making and using bootable DVD+R backups
3. Making and using images spanning multipls DVD+R's

What I do not like and certainly should be improved:

1. Acronis should have its own UDF driver that would allow to make bootable DVD's. My point here is that my most basic image of the system drive should include only Windows and Acronis. Nothing else. Right now I have to use the Roxio package, even though I am not sure I want to use it. (that is another issue, that I will discuss separately)

2. The bootable CD (full version) does not always work. I get an error message of hdc: drive not available, or something like that. Booting up from the Acronis boot CD should be consistent, always working without any F11, without any need for tricks.

3. Inconsistent representation and availability of image on DVD+R.

When running Acronis from Windows:
- DVD Drive name: correct name
- Image file icon and name: both correct

When running Acronis from the boot CD (Acronis/full):
- DVD Drive name: no name (shows just the drive letter and CD)
- Image file icon and name: *correct icon, no file name.
* Note that the first time I burned the system image on the DVD+R there was no icon whatsoever (see my posts above, plus this thread:thread)

So far, with the current status of the software (889), would I recommend this software to someone else?

Response: NO.
I would recommmend that the person tries another software, or waits till Acronis releases release 9 (if he/she can wait).

I will continue to test and report here.
But honestly, when I will get a chance I will also try other software.

Thanks everyone for the help given.
This forum is the sure brightest thing about using Acronis.
I also hope that my report will help others.

Cheers,
buju