Create Image in Windows or from bootup?

I'm sure this has been addressed somewhere but I can't find any reference to it. I know that a disk image can be created from either the bootable rescue disk or from within windows. Is either method better or preferable?
Thank you in advance.
Atreyu

 

Hello Atreyu,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

There is no difference between the two methods of image creation. You may use any you find convinient. Acronis exclusive technology allows you to create images when Windows is running without any data corruption. If you have any further questions please feel free to ask.

Thank you.
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Ilya Toytman

 

I beg to differ. Although the rescue media tries to hide it by implementing an XP-like GUI, the rescue media is LINUX based. This is important to know when it comes to NTFS support. NTFS is not officially documented by MS, meaning that access to NTFS formatted partitions from the rescue media is implemented via one of the available Linux NTFS drivers (none of which currently has stable NTFS write support BTW), which are all based on reverse-engineering the NTFS file system and thus by design are inferior to the official Windows NTFS driver. I think this is very, very much different from backing up/restoring within the Windows environment where MS' native NTFS driver is used. Unless of course, Acronis obtained a NTFS license from MS and rolled their own Linux NTFS driver, but I doubt that

So, I'd be really interested to know how exactly NTFS read/write access is implemented from the rescue media. Which driver is used?

 

Hello Caranthir,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We have tested Acronis Bootable CD and had no problems with writing and reading from NTFS partitions. We have drivers for NTFS and they are working properly. Did you encounter any problems with access to NTFS?

Thank you.
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Ilya Toytman

 

Aside from MS mouse recognition problems (on PS/2 port), I have not experienced any difficulties whatsoever creating/restoring an image of WinXP Pro's NTFS partitions using TI's Boot CD!

 

I have experienced problems! I am able to successfully create and restore images from within Windows XP Pro, but I have problems using the Boot CD method. I can create an image successfully (plus verify it), but when I go to restore the image (using the Boot CD) True Image always says the image is corrupt.

 

Creating the image in Windows will most likely be faster because your computer will use the optimized HD drivers. Verifying the image is faster as well.

 

No problems, I was just making a general statement about the different technology used from the rescue media.

Ilya, is it possible to contact you or somebody responsible for the rescue media technology privately about this? I may have an interesting alternative to the Linux and BartPE approach...