noob question

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by mal_t, Jun 22, 2005.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. mal_t

    mal_t Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2005
    Posts:
    22
    A couple of questions:

    Can I create an image of a complete NTFS hard drive including operating system, then resore it if needed over the top of said drive at a later date? Obviously would store image on a different drive or partition.

    Do I have to use the secure zone?

    Cheers,
    Mal
     
  2. pjb024

    pjb024 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Feb 24, 2005
    Posts:
    351
    Location:
    Leeds, UK
    Yes to your first question and no to your second, although it is advisable to create a secure zone but not mandatory.
     
  3. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

    Joined:
    Apr 28, 2004
    Posts:
    25,885
    Hello Mal,

    Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    You can create an image of the entire hard drive or selected partitions. Acronis program can backup everything on the drive, including all the computer data, operating system, and programs. Then you can restore your image to the hard drive (or partition).

    Acronis Secure Zone is a special, hidden system partition for storing disk and partition images. Ordinary applications can’t access it, for image security purposes. If you create an image on the same disk (partition), we recommend you to store an image in the Acronis Secure Zone.

    Hopefully answered all your questions well. If you have further issues, please feel free to ask us.

    Thank you.
    --
    Irina Shirokova
     
  4. mal_t

    mal_t Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2005
    Posts:
    22
    Thanks very much for the replies.

    I've just recently added a new hard drive to put my operating system on. Then reformatted the old one to use for personal data etc. Both NTFS

    Essentially I bought True Image with a view to being able to back up the drive with Windows on. Thus saving time with format and reload when things go wrong.
    I install and play a fair few PC games and find after a while that a format and reload keep things sweet.

    Before I fitted the new drive I had a quick go at creating an image with True Image. I used the secure zone to do this, which worked fine. I did notice the SZ partition was FAT32 though. Is this Normal?

    Also I wasn't sure how to proceed without choosing SZ, as the option to proceed [as far as I remember] was only available when choosing SZ. Where can I read up more info on creating an image using TI, apart from the help files included with the program?

    Hope this makes sense, sorry to be such a numpty!

    Mal
     
  5. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

    Joined:
    Apr 28, 2004
    Posts:
    25,885
    Hello Mal,

    You can read the User's Guide of Acronis software from the following link: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/docs.

    You can store images on almost any PC storage device: local hard drives, network
    drives or a variety of IDE, SCSI, FireWire (IEEE-1394), USB (1.0, 1.1 and 2.0) and
    PC card (formerly called PCMCIA) removable media drives, including CD-R(RW),
    DVD-recordable, magneto-optical, Iomega Zip and Jaz drives.

    Thank you.
    --
    Irina Shirokova
     
  6. mal_t

    mal_t Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2005
    Posts:
    22
    Thanks Irina

    That looks like the same help file that comes with the program. Doesn't mention NTFS under the file system heading.

    Can you explain why when I saved an image of an NTFS drive it displayed FAT32 when looking at the image in Manage Secure Zone?
    Does it save images as FAT32, then convert them back to NTFS?

    Cheers,
    Mal
     
  7. pjb024

    pjb024 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Feb 24, 2005
    Posts:
    351
    Location:
    Leeds, UK
    The SZ is a FAT32 partition. The format of SZ is not a restriction on use and you should not interpret the SZ format as imposing limitations on what type of partition you can image to SZ.
     
  8. mal_t

    mal_t Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2005
    Posts:
    22
    Thanks pjb024
    Does that mean an NTFS partition is stored as NTFS, but inside a FAT32 partition?
     
  9. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

    Joined:
    Apr 28, 2004
    Posts:
    25,885
    Hello mal_t,

    Yes, when you create the image, it includes the information of your file system. After the image is created it is an ordinary file and can be stored anywhere, on any file system. When you restore it, you get the partition with the same file system you had previously on it.

    Thank you.
    --
    Irina Shirokova
     
  10. mal_t

    mal_t Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2005
    Posts:
    22
    Cheers Irina

    That makes sense.
    Still have a few more queries before I try restoring from a saved image though. When I get time to install TI on my new drive I'll get back to you with a few more questions, if that's ok.

    Mal
     
  11. mal_t

    mal_t Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2005
    Posts:
    22
    Just a quick question before I proceed.
    Now that I have two hard drives, which would be the best to install TI on? My smaller drive with programs and OS on is the drive I want to take an image of.
    Obviously I'll create SZ on other larger drive, but should I also install TI on that drive.

    Thanks,
    Mal
     
  12. pjb024

    pjb024 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Feb 24, 2005
    Posts:
    351
    Location:
    Leeds, UK
    There is no benefit in installing TI on your SZ disk. If your system disk fails then you couldn't run TI anyway (without an operating system) and you would use the Bootable Rescue Disk to recover. Placing TI on your system disk also means you have a backup of TI.
     
  13. mal_t

    mal_t Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2005
    Posts:
    22
    Thanks pjb024, I'll install on my C [OS] drive then.
    Cheers,
    Mal
     
  14. mal_t

    mal_t Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2005
    Posts:
    22
    Hi

    Is it possible to delete a single full backup image? I've created a second full backup in SZ by accident and don't want to delete the first one by deleting whole of SZ.

    Mal
     
  15. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

    Joined:
    Apr 28, 2004
    Posts:
    25,885
    Hello Mal,

    You cannot delete images from Acronis Secure Zone. Acronis True Image deletes images automatically when the space is out. The detailed algorythm of how the images are deleted is described in the User's Guide (Chapter 3, point 3.2.3).

    Thank you.
    --
    Ilya Toytman
     
  16. mal_t

    mal_t Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2005
    Posts:
    22
    Thanks Ilya

    So it's not necessarily a bad thing that I've created two full images in SZ?

    Will I be able to add incremental back-ups to either of my full images then?

    Cheers,
    Mal
     
  17. pjb024

    pjb024 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Feb 24, 2005
    Posts:
    351
    Location:
    Leeds, UK
    If you create an incremental image it will be related to the latest of your full backups. It's not a bad thing that you have created a second full backup in fact it's normal practice to periodically crate a full backup. Typically you may create a full backup weekly and incrementals daily but of course you can adjust the frequency to suit your own needs.

    If you only had one full backup and then you always made an incremental backup you would eventually fill the SZ and then backup would fail with an 'out of space' error. Your SZ should be large enough to hold say three backup cycles (a cycle being a full backup followed by a number of incrementals) and then you will not run out of space in SZ because TI manages the SZ automatically and it frees up space from the oldest backup cycle when there is no available space in SZ. Of course if you had only the one backup cycle, as mentioned at the start of this paragraph, TI would be unable to free up space as it could only do that by deleting your only backup. SZ is a very easy way to manage your backups once you understand the fundamentals.
     
  18. mal_t

    mal_t Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2005
    Posts:
    22
    This first full back-up was essentially just a clean install of Windows XP after I'd set things how I like them, with just a few programs that I'll always use.
    The plan was to use this image to save time when I next need to clean install XP.

    So is it possible to burn a copy of this first full back-up I made onto DVD using Nero Express 6? Can't see anything in the help files.

    Thanks for the replies.

    Cheers,
    Mal
     
  19. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

    Joined:
    Apr 28, 2004
    Posts:
    25,885
    Hello mal_t,

    Yes, You can create an image to DVD. Please note that Acronis True Image does not write to DVD disсs directly, instead it utilizes third party UDF packet DVD writing software. We may recommend you to install a UDF packet DVD writing software such as Ahead InCD or Roxio DirectCD, format DVD disсs by means of this software and then use formatted disсs with Acronis True Image.

    Please read the information about writing on DVD.

    Also you can create image archives on local or network hard drives specifying the image archive split size and burn them to DVDs later.

    Thank you.
    --
    Irina Shirokova
     
  20. mal_t

    mal_t Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2005
    Posts:
    22
    Can I use the two-step method to make a copy onto DVD of a full image already in SZ?

    Thanks,
    Mal
     
  21. TheQuest

    TheQuest Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 9, 2003
    Posts:
    2,304
    Location:
    Kent. UK by the sea
    Hi, mal_t

    No because your burning [or any other] program can not see the Image file in the SZ, because it is a hidden Partition, so is unable to Burn what it can not see to Optical Media [CD-DVD].

    PS: Any other then Linuk that is, which is another ball game all together.

    Take Care,
    TheQuest :cool:
     
  22. mal_t

    mal_t Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2005
    Posts:
    22
    Thanks TheQuest

    Is there any other simple way of getting a full image in SZ copied somewhere else on HDD?

    I will make sure I don't use SZ next time, it seams very inflexible.
     
  23. TheQuest

    TheQuest Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 9, 2003
    Posts:
    2,304
    Location:
    Kent. UK by the sea
    Hi, mal_t

    Not that I know of. [only Linux that I know can see and move the Image but you will have to learn how to copy and paste to another Partition [must be Fat32 Partition because of file storage size, well not must be Fat, but the Linux writing to NTFS is not that reliable]

    Yes it is really for older system with just the one HDD or no way of external HDD's being used.


    Take Care,
    TheQuest :cool:

    PS: You will not have to install Linux if you use a LiveCD. [I use, and would recommend KANOTIX LiveCD the latest being KANOTIX 2005-3
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2005
  24. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

    Joined:
    Apr 28, 2004
    Posts:
    25,885
    Hello mal_t,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    I'm afraid that there is no way to copy the image archive from Acronis Secure Zone.

    I recommend you to create a new image saving it to any partition\folder on your hard drive specifying the image archive split size as it is described in section 4.4 of Acronis True Image 8.0 User's Guide and then burn this image to DVDs.

    You can also burn your images directly to DVDs, but you should first make sure that you have the appropriate UDF DVD-writing software installed and all of your DVDs are UDF formatted according to this FAQ article.

    Thank you.
    --
    Alexey Popov
     
  25. TheQuest

    TheQuest Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 9, 2003
    Posts:
    2,304
    Location:
    Kent. UK by the sea
    Hi, Acronis Support

    Alexey

    I would beg to differ, very strongly.

    Take Care,
    TheQuest, :cool:
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.