Dell Image

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by zledix, Nov 8, 2007.

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  1. zledix

    zledix Registered Member

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    Hi, guys. I have just received my new laptop, a Dell Inspiron 1521, with Vista. I want to make an image of the full drive in its "sealed" factory state (that's why I haven't even turned it on yet!). I have made an Acronis 11 bootable CD.
    I'm about to do this task, but I wanted to know if I have to take into account any special consideration in order to image everything (including the hidden partitions -MediaDirect, PC Restore, MBR, etc-).
    I'm planning to save the image in several DVDs.

    Thanks!
    Fed
     
  2. goriath

    goriath Registered Member

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  3. davidlhickman

    davidlhickman Registered Member

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    If Dell is like HP, you already have an image of the original disk state labelled a 'restore' or 'recovery' partition. If you make your recovery discs, those will take you back to the original condition. The discs copy the ISO image from that partition. That partition then becomes useless, if I have it straight.

    One thing you might accomplish, if it works, is that you would be able to make one set of recovery discs, restore and do it again. But I'm not sure what that would do for you. Supposedly they only work on that one computer model.

    But to do what you want to do, you need a bootable TI disc. If you have one, boot to it and do a backup of all the partitions, or if your external HD is big enough a sector by sector copy. I don't know enough to see an advantage either way. Then you would boot to it again to restore. What you want to avoid is installing TI on your virgin computer until after you have your image.

    Why do you want an image of the original disk?

    Good
     
  4. DwnNdrty

    DwnNdrty Registered Member

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    When you boot with the True Image Rescue CD, choose Backup and when the dialog window with the disk partitions come up, put the check mark against Disk 1. This will automatically put check marks in all other partitions.

    I would caution against saving the Image directly to DVDs. It is much better to first save the Image to an external drive and burn the Image to dvds afterwards. If you decide to do it this way, in the process for making the Image, specify a split size of 1492mb. This will let you burn 3 splits on to one dvd with very little waste.
     
  5. GroverH

    GroverH Registered Member

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    I would concur very strongly with DwnNdrty recommendation that you avoid the use of DVD as your backup media. It is not trouble-free for many and the results have often been un-predictable.

    It appears you have intentions of doing regular backups and you need a place to store these backups. An external drive fills this need very well and the price gets less all the time. Don't buy anything less than 160GB and try for a 320GB size if your pocket book will allow. The electronic chain stores have them on sale almost every week. Seagate offers the best warranty which is 5 years.

    With Vista, you should be ok using a TrueImage "Disk" restore when putting your drive back the same way it was at the time the backup was created.

    At any point should you need to replace your drive with a larger one, then you will need to do more research and ask more questions before using TrueImage for that function. Having "Media Direct" can complicate a disk upgrade. Below is a recent discussion regarding Vista.

    Fix Vista so a Repair is not needed after a restore or clone
    https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=185731
     
  6. goriath

    goriath Registered Member

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    In my case, I already followed all the advices. I have external hard drive (200GB), every time I backup the drive with all partitions... I select to split the image in the DVD format during the backup process...

    Yes, with Dell Laptop, there is a RECOVERY partition in order to restore OS partition to sealed state, but only OS partition.... Problem is that partition structure in Dell computers is complex and absolutely customized by Dell itself...
    There are 4 partition: Dell Utilities (Fat16X, hidden) Recovery (NTFS) OS (NTFS, bootable, OS is Vista) Dell Media Direct (Fat32X, hidden and more......maybe protected, I don't know...)

    I tried ATI11 but without positive results (see my thread for details)
    I tried ATI10, because it seems that through this version there are positive results. Nope. ATI10 freeze randomly during backup process...
    Now I turn back to ATI11 and I am keep trying, but this time I have installed ATI in OS, instead using rescue CD (and I would prefer perform a clean backup of the drive, without other sw added..)

    Now a question: If I backup for example 14GB of data, Acronis advertise me taht with NORMAL compression it will be about 8GB, but when process is finished, I find image about 6GB... It seems that some data (about 2GB compressed) are ignored during the process. So I tried to backup the drive uncompressed. This time, I expect to find the whole 14GB image hard drive, but I find about 11GB instead. Again, I think that not all the data was saved, something has been lost during the process... What do you think about??
     
  7. DwnNdrty

    DwnNdrty Registered Member

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    Some of that missing amount will be the Swap file which you don't need to back up and True Image rightly doesn't do it.
     
  8. goriath

    goriath Registered Member

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    Ya right!! But this happens in rescue CD mode also?
     
  9. DwnNdrty

    DwnNdrty Registered Member

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    Yes, the swap file is always there and True Image, even on the Rescue CD knows not to include it.
     
  10. goriath

    goriath Registered Member

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    OK. I have done many backup images...

    One complete backup with ATI11 in default bios settings (AHCI option for HDD)
    One complete backup with ATI11 in ATA mode (AHCI disabled)
    One complete backup with ATI10 in default bios settings (AHCI option for HDD)
    One complete backup with ATI10 in ATA mode (AHCI disabled)

    All images are stored in my 200GB external drive; all backups were performed in Windows this time, through clean Acronis installation (for every backup I restored OS partition through RECOVERY partition by Dell)...

    Originally, when laptop arrived, I immediately saved original Dell customized MBR through utility by Dan Goodell...

    Now, before trying images restore, I am performing low level format on the laptop drive (hitachi/ibm) through the hitachi utility...

    Question: Is Acronis able to correctly restore Partition Table and MBR?
     
  11. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello all,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup software

    goriath, Acronis True Image 11 Home would be able to restore partition table and MBR if you've created full backup of your hard drive (and I believe you’ve created it). Moreover you do not need to format your hard drive prior the restoration process because it will be done by Acronis True Image 11 Home automatically.

    Thank you.

    --
    Michael Levchenko
     
  12. goriath

    goriath Registered Member

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    Ok, I am trying restoring images those days...

    Unfortunately, rescuedCD by acronis is not good enough to perform perfect backup/restore. With rescueCD ATI10, backup is impossible due the fact it freezes randomly during the process. With rescueCD ATI11, backup are corrupted...This annoying me, because I prefer keep OS clean, without other software...

    So It is necessary install Acronis in windows and perform backup under OS...

    This time, things goes better. Backups are easily possible with both ATI version, and no corruption is occurred. After restoring images (both ati version) all seems ok, but when I try to execute Dell Factory Restore (using the Dell Image located in the RECOVERY partition) when finished, system reboot continuously instead to start OS...

    I tried with both ATI 10 and 11 images, but it is the same. I tried to restore MBR trough mbr-backup that I have done with mbrsaver, and I tried again with Acronis...but this did not solve the problem...

    I am trying to perform correct image backup of a Dell machine from a month; I tried first on Inspiron 1720 and now on a Vostro 1700, both without success...

    I don't know what I have to do anymore...
     
  13. GotMyBackup

    GotMyBackup Registered Member

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    Hello,

    This may help with the original problem.
    I had a similar problem & have used True Image for a couple of years.

    My problem related to the power supply of my Notebook. I was running a USB HD from the USB port on my Dell Latitude D600 - with varying results. Sometimes the backups & images would go to completion - sometimes not!

    I solved the problem by:
    1. Buying a powered USB hub (no longer need to rely on my laptop power & tiny fluctuations that might occur). [ No fault of the notebook, just that the USB drive could not function perfectly with small varieations in power via the PC. ]
    2. Powering the hub through my UPS ( uninterruptible power supply)
    3. Doing a data verification after each backup.

    Since adopting this method, (knock on wood) I've had great results (all BU's have gone to completion).

    Hope this helps.
     
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