Create image using boot CD or within Windows.. which one more reliable ?

A friend told me that in order to get a reliable backup, I should create the image using the rescue boot disk (not within Windows) because this is the only way to completely lock up the HDD while TI trying to create the image.

Is that true? One of the reason I'm using TI is the ability to backup and restore within Windows.

How reliable the image created within Windows?

 

Hello UCI_MECH,

Thank you for using Acronis True Image (http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/).

Acronis True Image supports creating images under Windows and also using Acronis True Image standalone version. It is up to you to decide which way is more preferable.

Thank you.

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Best regards,
Andrew Berezovsky

 

Hi UCI_MECH

Just to add to the advice provided by Andrew, be aware that the boot rescue disk can't create images direct to DVD. Check out the details here.

Regards

 

Thank you all for your response.

If creating an image within Windows is as reliable as using the boot disk, why people go through the hassle of booting to the rescure disk? what I'm missing here?

Menorcaman,

No I don't need to backup direct to a DVD. Usually I create the image on a second HDD or over a network then I burn this image to DVDs as a backup to the original backup... I know I'm too paranoid but this is the only way to make sure that long time research work is safe.

 

My 2Cents on this:

If you are as paranoid as I am about critical data, then you would image from a boot CD.

To me anyway, Windows does what it wants to, so when you image inside of it, services may not be unavailable for imaging, the CPU might be too busy doing something else rather than let TI do its stuffs, so the imaging process is definitely not as clean as from a boot CD.

And with TI 7, imaging from inside Windows includes the pagefile (rather large), which does not happen with the boot CD. TI 8 took care of this issue.

Having said that, in some cases I had no choice but use TI inside Windows for its LIVE feature.

 

Well...

In some particular cases (particular hardware and software configuration) Acronis True Image may fail image creation under Windows. Please realize that we cannot test all hardware and software configurations in our Testing Lab. We strongly recommend to contact support@acronis.com in these cases.

"And with TI 7, imaging from inside Windows includes the pagefile (rather large), which does not happen with the boot CD." - this is not true. Acronis True Image 7.0 does include pagefile and hibernation files even if the image creation process runs with the boot CD.

Thank you.

--
Best regards,
Andrew Berezovsky