Boot CD Linux distro and TI flavors Question

Hi, I am looking at getting TI after being a Drive Image and now GHOST 2003/9.0 user for many, many years. I have a couple of questions that I tried searching the forum for, but no luck. So hopefully someone can help me!

1) I have heard TI will create a bootable CD (not floppies) with the ability to choose between a Linux or DOS mode. Which Linux distro is used? Can anyone confirm? Is there any way to choose the Linux distro e.g. Knoppix 5.1? Also, does TI support writes to NTFS volumes (whether backups/restores) in the Linux mode since writing to NTFS is not natively supported in Linux? These are important questions for me because hardware support is a big issue under Linux and I want to be sure that I will have NIC/NTFS support in a rescue environment versus just USB/IEEE1394/ext3/FAT.

2) Related to network support, will the regular version of TI support backups/restores across a home network between a laptop and desktop for example, or do I need the Workstation version?

Thanks for the help!

 

The Rescue CD is based on a Linux distro called BusyBox v0.60.5. It's an old distro, but Acronis updates it for driver support. You may or may not get support for your hardware. Cutting edge hardware support can be questionable. I'm not aware of anyone providing info on how to get it installed in a live CD such as Knoppix.

The best way to go if your hardware is not supported is BartPE with a True Image plugin. That way you can provide the Windows drivers you need. See my website.

The Linux version does support NTFS volumes. Full disk/partition restores work well. There have been some issues with individual file/folder restores. Hidden files are not available for restore from files/folder backups. Also, sometimes there is file corruption on file/folders restores. The best way to avoid these problems is again BartPE.

The Home version will backup to and restore from an image from a network location. If you need central control from a single computer, you need the Workstation version.

 

mustang, thanks for the reply. I hadn't ever heard of BusyBox until your reply. You can't even find it listed on distrowatch, but wouldn't you know wikipedia has a page on it which lists the latest release as v1.4.2.

I played around with Bart's Pre-installed Environment a couple of years ago when Bart was the only guy around who knew anything about making bootable CDs for Windows. However, I found it a little overkill for what I was trying to do (I am not an IT professional, just a power user). But, it sounds like BartPE has now matured and become the Windows equivalent of a Knoppix Live CD. Time to dust off that old BartPE CD I made but didn't know what do with since I had no idea how to plug-in the XP versions of my favorite programs for system maintenance. Plus my needs have grown!

 

Sorry for this off-topic question, but is the SRM the same Linux-based environment as the bootable CD?
The reason I ask is because it looks identical, including the hand shaped menu selector and the arrow cursor.

 

Yes, it is the same. When you activate SRM ,the Linux recovery files are copied to the Seure Zone instead of being written to a CD. You can see this by pressing the F11 key when the menu is on the screen and removing the word quiet. Linux will boot in verbose mode. When you get to the end of the boot process, just read the last 2 or three lines on the screen. You will see the BusyBox version.

 

Thanks for the confirmation, mustang.

 

Hello ComputerJoe and dougeeebear,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please be aware that the 'Full' version of Acronis True Image Bootable Rescue CD utilizes the latest RedHat Linux kernel with some Acronis patches and also uses Busybox shell. It has it's own assortment of drivers for a wide variety of modern hardware devices (P-ATA (IDE), S-ATA, SCSI, USB, IEEE1394 (Firewire) and PCMCIA interfaces including: CD-ROM / DVD-ROM and CD-R(W) recorders and burners) built as modules and stored in the so-called RAM disk. It also includes drivers for NTFS and other file systems supported by Acronis True Image (FAT16/32, Linux Ext2, Ext3, ReiserFS and Linux SWAP).

The safe variant of the standalone version of Acronis True Image is based on the DOS environment and works via BIOS. It provides you with the access to all hard drives recognized in BIOS. However, please note that we do not guarantee that the safe version will work correctly with the USB, Fireware, SCSI, RAID drives and network. We recommend you to use the safe variant only if the full one doesn't work.

As mustang noted, Acronis Startup Recovery Manager and Acronis True Image Bootable CD (full version) load the same Linux-based version of Acronis True Image.

Please note that using Acronis True Image 10.0 Home you can back up local drives only. Storing the image archive to the network shared folder is also possible as well as restoration from image located on another computer. You can also use Acronis True Image 10.0 Home to create file-based backup of the networked (mapped) drive or network shared folder.

Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation gives the ability to back up/restore disk/partitions remotely from a central location. Check this previous post of mine for more details.

If you have any further questions concerning Acronis software, please feel free to submit a request for technical support or post any of them on this forum. We will certainly try to help you in resolving any issues.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov