Acronis Home 2009 backup Options

[longbelly]

I have just purchased a boxed Acronis True Image Home 2009 for us with my PC running on Vista. I should point out that I do not have the original Windows OS installation discs.

Before I use it for real I have some questions - I apologise if these seem too simple:

If I activate Acronis Recovery Startup Recovery Manager, does this appear every time I start the PC? In other words unless I want to use it I can boot up normally as before?

Backup Wizard choices: When doing a full image backup, I'm not sure whether it's best to choose Acronis One-Click Restore which will make the backup bootable. This seems an easy option because I assume I won't then need to create a separate Bootable Rescue disc using the Bootable Rescue Media?

[Xpilot]

I have never seen much point in the Start up Recovery Manager so I have never used it. I believe it will pop up at an early stage in the boot process which will enable the F11 key to get you into TI
Note that the ARSM Modifies the MBR which can lead to complications in some circumstances.
In a worst case scenario, when your are confronted with a failed hard drive, The ASRM will be of no avail and you would have to use the Acronis recovery CD.

Part of your backup strategy should include a full hard drive image. I am not familiar with one click restore because I always restore to a swapped main drive where One click will not work.
Maybe you mean one click protection? Backup images are not bootable, they have to be restored first.

One of your first steps should be to create an Acronis recovery CD. You should then boot from it to ensure that TI can "see" your hard drives and backups.

Xpilot

[longbelly]

Many thanks Xpilot for clearing up the issue of the Start up Recovery Manager.

The Acronis One-Click Restore Option (referred to in the User Manual '5.4.8 Media components') is still not clear to me. My understanding of this so far: In the event of a PC crash and having booted up with the Acronis recovery CD (that I will have created) I can then restore my full disc image backup (which will be on an external USB HDD) with one click without having to re-install the Acronis True Image Home 2009 program. That sounds quite useful to me - if that's true?

Or ---

Do I restore the full disc backup direct from the booted-up Recovery CD?

Help please.

[jehosophat]

Good advice from Xpilot as usual

To answer your question: Yes use the Recovery CD.

I always restore a full backup using the Acronis Boot Disk.

This way I know that its simple with no Windows involved. This is also the way that I need to be sure that it will work if Windows dies and I have to restore a full backup.