TrueImage restore

[emile curate]

Hi, I make Acronis true Image back-up's on an external disk drive very often, and I'd like to know if, in case of a crash of my computer hard disk, I can use a 'restore' from the external hdd to a new hard disk in my computer directly,or may I have to prepare this hdd first (format,partitions,and so on...).I don't understand very well the difference of using a 'clone' or a 'back-up'.
I thank you, emile curate

[Acronis Support]

Hello emile curate,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

If you use "Create Image" wizard, it allows you to create an image of an entire hard drive or partition. The backup image contains everything the system needs to run – the operating system, patches, upgrades, and applications. The Disk Clone wizard simply moves the entire contents of one disk drive to another and doesn't create image files.

If you have the image archive on the external drive, you should boot from bootable CD, choose "Restore Image" and follow the instructions.

Thank you.
--
Irina Shirokova

[rjbsec]

I've just replaced the HDD in my laptop and restored an image from an external USB Drive using the TI Rescue Disk - I just put the bare new HDD into the laptop straight out of the box and TI 8.0 wrote the image including partitions etc as a mirror of the original drive.
Using Acronis Disk Director also enabled me to see and utilise the extra space on the new HDD.