Clone or Backup

Hi all,

I just spent about 2 hours doing a fresh install of MS Windows including updates. (Linux is definetly easier to install). Now I want to make an image of my hard drive and its partitions so that I can restore my operating system from a CD or DVD if I have a hard drive failure. I'm using the TI boot disk because I only want the OS at this point. So do I use the option of making a backup or do I need to use the clone option?

 

Hello Fargo,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please note that there are two approaches available:

Clone Disk - transfers the entire contents of one disk drive to another;

Backup - creates a special archive file for backup and disaster recovery purposes;

Please read more in this FAQ article.

Actually, Clone Disk approach is usually used to upgrade the hard drive (e.g. install a larger disk), while Backup approach is basically dedicated for the complete data backup and disaster recovery purposes.

Since you are interested in backing up your hard drive for the disaster recovery purposes, I would recommend you to follow Backup approach.

Please also note that we recommend you to unplug one of the hard drives right after the disk cloning process has been finished, since keeping both original and cloned hard drives connected might cause different boot or drive letter assignment problems.

You can also find more information on how to use Acronis True Image 9.0 Home in the respective User's Guide.

Thank you.
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Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

Thank you. I will use the backup approach.

Am I correct, that when I need to restore, I can simply boot from the 'stand alone' recovery cd. Then select the DVD as the source and restore from there?

 

Exactly!

Personally, I prefer to put backup images on a hard drive, either a second internal drive or on an external USB, Firewire or even network drive. The writing and restoring is much faster to/from a hard drive than optical media. If I want a copy on a DVD, I burn the image from the hard drive.

 

By far my preference too!