Can TrueImage 11 do a *complete* from-scratch restore?

I have Vista Home Premium. My laptop recently dropped and needs to get repaired. There's a good chance that they are going to give me an entirely new computer. I did a total backup using the sector-by-sector approach of my hard drive while using the Recovery CD (so my HDD was not utilized at all while it was being made). When I get my laptop back, will I be able to wipe the new drive and then do a complete restoration and have it as if I've never lost any data? Will it work all right? Will literally every piece of data be back the way it was? Or do I need to partition my backup drive and do a disk clone?

 

While I've never done the Sector by Sector backup - it is slower than the standard Backup which suffices for most situations - I think it will work, IF you get the same laptop back. If, as you feel, they might give you a different computer, there's a chance the restore might not work.

 

If the new machine has the same drivers and processor as the old one then the restore should be workable. If not, then your system (C) restore will most likely not work, but all of your data files should be recoverable. The Echo workstation and universal restore products support restoring to dissimilar hardware, the basic true image home product does not.

 

You will also run into a Vista activation problem so make sure you have all the license numbers and whatever. You may also have the same problem with applications that use activation too.

 

Yeah, the new machine should have identical hardware. If it doesn't work, then I'll just tell it to back up my other data like program files and such. When you say identical hardware, do you mean like literally the exact same hardware that I am using now or the same hardware but new and unused?

 

The "identical" hardware issue is with drivers so if it uses the same driver it is OK.

 

To do a restore "from scratch" also called a bare metal restore, i.e. to a blank hard drive you have to have the bootable True Image Rescue cd which you can make from the installed True Image software. In other words, you must make that cd before disaster strikes preventing access to the installed software.

 

True Image 11 or 2009 does not enable you to do bare mnetal recovery. You can of course recover to a new harrdrive, no matter what the size or manufacturer if your harddrive fails (I have done this) but you cannot restore an image created on computer A to Computer B if these are dissimilar computers. Acronis released Echo plus additional software for this purpose but its a lot more expensive to buy

 

Often the "OEM" version of windows that comes with a new pc is licensed to be used only on that machine and is not transferrable to another --and it won't run on a machine with a diff CPU or motherboard even if they are exactly the same models of CPU and motherboard. With this restriction in the license, OEMs are allowed to obtain the licenses for the OS for less than it would cost otherwise and in turn sell their PCs with the OS for less.