How long should restore normally take?

Hello,

I purchased TI 10 after having some booting problems. Backing up seemed to be quite easy and very reliable with TI. Unfortunately, I suffered a booting problem again and could not get the computer to boot at all, as it would endlessly and continuously boot itself. I had a backup from TI which was done while the computer worked well, so I booted from the TI recovery CD and tried to get the image backup to restore my computer. I left for several hours after starting the recovery and came back to TI exactly where it was with the recovery when I left and still TI had an estimated time of 5 hours for recovery. I left for a few more hours and TI still was at the same recovery point. I re-booted using the TI recovery CD and the same thing happened. I tried this over the next 2 days with no luck. Eventually I had to do a Windows reinstall. This need to restore my computer happened approximately 3 more times before I found out that I needed new RAM. However, each time, I had to reinstall Windows because TI would not restore my disks. This meant that I had to reinstall all my software and call Microsoft and other software vendors in order to reactivate my software. A hassle, for sure.

My specifications are as follows:
4 GB DDR400 RAM
250 GB SATA Internal HDD (dual boot Win XP and Win Vista, both 32-bit)
500 GB SATA External HDD (connected via SATA cable—backup saved here)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+
Backup size: approx. 90 GB (in 10 GB file sizes)
Normal compression

I would like to start using TI again, but I am leery. I have the Build 4942 of TI Home and am wondering how long it should take to restore my hard drive.
Also, what would be the best settings/options for the fastest restore (I do not care how long it takes to backup)?

Thank you,
edsager

 

edsager,

It should work properly now that you have good RAM. I'd guess the restore should run at 1 GB/minute.

 

I agree. Generally it seems to restore about 1GB/min.

 

How I would do it, on your 250gb make 3 partitions. keep your system partitions small (about 20gb), (below just a sample)
partition 1 = winxp 20gb ( takes about 5 to 10 minutes to backup normal compression about 6 to 8 gb of harddrive used)
partition 2 = vista 20gb (same as above)
partition 3 = data 210 gb (this can just be copied to 500gb drive as needed)
your 500gb 3 partitions = partition 1 =21gb, partition 2 =21gb, partition 3 =458gb.

When you restore, just restore each partition one at a time on to the new hard drive, just make sure that each partition on new drive is at least one gb larger than the original partition image (example you will need to restore your 20gb partition onto a 21gb partition) this program works better when it restores to a larger size partition. I have never used anything larger than 20gb for a system partition, my recoverys take 10 to 15 minutes and I'm usually back up and running.

I've never done a full disc clone, due to all the problems I've read about here on the forums, and if you can't trust a certain procedure, go to plan B which is simple partition image backup. Always works for me. The only problem you might run into is that the drive letters might change (when there are multiple partitions/hard drives on computer) during the restoration especially on windows xp (the cause of your restoration rebooting)

The above directions is an extra step or 2 but it's reliable, and fast. I've done it like this for over an year and am confident I can recover from a crash drive everytime. I only have 512 mb of ram on my winxp computer and never had any type of issues because of low memory. Calling to reactivate all your software is definitely too much trouble, especially just to change a hard drive.

 

Hello edsager,

It would appear that the Sata drivers provided in the Acronis /Linux environment are just not up to the job.

I suggest that you create a Bart PE rescue disc with TI plugin and run your recoveries from there. You should be amazed by the increase in recover speed.

Xpilot

 

Hello edsager,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please try booting with "acpi=off noapic" parameter as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

If the issue persists, please collect some information to let us investigate it thoroughly:

Please create Acronis Report and Linux system information (sysinfo.txt) as it is described in Acronis Help Post. Please keep all drives connected and powered on during the creation process.

Please also clarify if the restore stalls at the very beginning, or after some progress; and if you can cancel it or not.

Then submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

Thank you all for the responses.

XPilot: your assessment of the drivers issue seems to be spot on. Thank you. I will definitely create a Bart PE rescue disc with TI plugin.

I hope I will not encounter a situation in which I need to utilize Acronis Support's suggestion, but I appreciate the availability.

I am now back in the fold.

Thanks,
edsager

 

edsager,
There is another way to get even faster restores. This involves using internal drives only thus avoiding the need for external drive drivers entirely.
For this to be practicable and improve security having the main drives in removable drawers is the way to go. Then one never has to overwrite a current drive and the whole process becomes fast and virtually risk free.

Xpilot