A Perfect Test Restore

Hi everyone,

I see many posts here that speak of problems, but this one is about my test restore that worked perfectly. I am using TI8 build 768. I use my PC for software programming, 3d and 2d graphics, and most importantly as a DAW for our recording studio.

PC is Intel D850GB MB, P4 at 1.5 GHz, two harddrives with one partition on each, running Windows XP Pro SP1 on drive C: and all music data along with Acronis Secure Zone on drive D: (guess this means there are two partitions on drive D. There are two soundcards running on this system connected to three external sound mixers along with Fostex studio monitors. Pc is networked to an iMac with a crossover cable.

As you can see, my setup is simple and yet it is not. The PC must operate with no errors what so ever in order for me to place this many demands on it.

How did I test Acronis TI8? I made sure that all versions ( Windows, F11, and Boot CD ) of TI8 could read my partitions, create and verify an image of drive C:, and that Windows TI8 could mount the image without errors. I have 'The Ultimate Boot CD' which has many recovery tools on hand for an emergency, don't leave home with out it!

I created my test image from the F11, secure zone, NOT Windows. Next I ran all above tests on this image to make sure there were no errors. There must be no errors at all with any of this to proceed with what is next. Remember that my Windows XP system is running totally error free at the time of the image creation, no flab, lean and mean.

Now I tell myself that I have been programming computers since the Apple II and know all about DOS so I CAN recover if this test fails...alright...I put the Boot CD in and restart. The CD boots to TI8 and I choose to restore image, go through all the wizards including deleting my perfectly working partiton on drive C:, and click on proceed.

What a rush!!! 12 minutes of that horrible yet optimistic gut twisting feeling until finally I have a dialog pop up saying "Your PC has been restored". So far so good, but will it boot and work again? I reboot and find myself back in Windows XP. Now I put this thing through some stress tests. Maya, Cakewalk, Photoshop, Samplitude, and all is working perfectly. I have proved that I can trust Acronis TI8 to backup my PC! This is a very good feeling!

I made two changes before the backup, to verify that the restore image was genuine. A skin to my mixer software and virus scanner dat files. These two changes did not appear in my restored system, so there you go, it restored everything with out a flaw.

I see alot of negative in this forum although a support forum is really all about how to's and trouble shooting. I posted this for the people having second thoughts about TI8, yes it has some bugs in the compression ratios and so forth ( build 768 ) but they will be fixed by Acronis developers. I have proved that I can depend on it when Drive Image 2002 failed when my c: drive became to large.

BTW...DO NOT follow my procedures above unless you are very good with computer system hardware software issues or unless you need to from the result of a system failure!

Very good software Acronis! State of the Art I think!

baba