Back up readable without Acronis True Image ?

I just purchased True Image 9. I read the user's manual but there's something that is not clear to me : I have a separate partition on an internal hard drive just for my pictures. I backed up the whole partition to a partition on an external hard drive.

I'd like to know if there is a way to make that archive readable without True Image. What I'd like to do is take the external hard drive, plug it to another PC and be able to see the pictures, without installing True Image on that PC.

Is there a way to do that ?

Thanks !

 

No.

And, yes, by copying your photographs directly to your external hard drive. Or, restoring them to your external hard drive, using TI.

The problem with storing photographs, or any other personal or unique non-replaceable data in any proprietary format backup file, such as an Acronis TI .tib file, is that, if anything happens to that file, everything it contains is lost. Not a few photos. All of them. No way to recover them.

So, use Acronis as a tool, to help you keep current, and to backup your system drive and programs. But keep copies of your data intact, in several forms, such as on external USB drives, CDs and DVDs, and internal hard drives. Wouldn't want you coming here later asking, how can I recover the data from a corrupt archive? If you can't see them today, without a special program, and everything working perfectly, you may not be able to see them later. And, no, there is no other program that can read Acronis Archives, even if they are fully intact. Once corrupted more than slightly, even the data recovery engineers can't open them.

So, don't rely on any software program to protect your data.

Some, like Xpilot, a frequent poster on these forums, suggest keeping a fully restored duplicate hard drive on hand as the best insurance. At today's prices for hard drives, that's a pretty good idea.

Regards

 

Thanks for your answer.

Should I understand from your post that TI is not going to help me if I want to keep a "clean" (ie without any reliance on TI) copy of my photos ?

Thanks again.

 

Matmi,

Well, yes, if you choose to simply copy your photos to another location, using your OS, as I do, then you can do that without using TI. On the other hand, I also use TI to make a daily Image BU including my data partition, which includes any new photographs I have placed there recently. Once I have archived those recent photographs myself, I remove those photo files from my data partition. I am referring to the photographic sense of archival storage here, that of preserving long-term, not in the sense of making backup "archive files."

You could also use TI to make Images of the entire partition containing your photographs, then restore that Image regularly to another drive, if you don't mind overwriting your existing files. In my next configuration (I'm about to replace my mainboard and CPU), I am going to create a smaller, dedicated partition for recent, non-archived photographs. This way, I'll be able to use TI's core competency - making drive/partition Images - without having to backup or overwrite my entire photographic collection each time I restore that Image to other drives. I'll also be able to use TI's incremental or differential features, rather than keeping track of exactly what has changed.

As to your point of whether or not TI will still be a help to you: I find that having Images of my configured OS and programs is invaluable. I also like being able to mount Images, browse their contents, and copy files from within Windows. I like TI's fast-loading, OS-independent boot mode which enables restoring in minutes. And, having daily scheduled tasks means I should be covered if I haven't copied my photographs yet. But, if they are important, I make copies at once.

The end results on my system are multiple instances of intact, digital photographs, not .tib files with photos in them. Should I encounter "archive" corruption, I'd rather lose a few photographs than my entire collection.

Regards