I too tried this and could'nt get it to work.

I've never used this type of app before and I was initially quite impressed given that I am always finding new ways to mess up my system.
I had to do a clean install anyway so it was my intention just to load on XP, all the drivers and the tried and trusted apps (half a days work). Then make an image to go back too (when I eventually mess things up).
Everything went fine to begin with. I made 2 images one to the secure centre thingy and one to an additional folder just to be on the safe side (both on an internal slave HD (SATA2).
I felt sure I was sold. When I tested it by restoring the image back to my C drive. Everything seemed perfect. HOWEVER, the problem started when I came to install additional programs. When I rebooted none (or very few) of my shortcuts seemed to work, nothing in my sytem tray either. It even invalidated my firewall licence. It seemed like the XP had forgotten where everything was. The same happened with both images whether I restored with windows or F11

I felt sure I followed the instructions to the letter. What did I do wrong?

A bit dissapointed really (besides the additional half day reinstalling everything). I feel sure I am in the market for something similar to this but don't want to follow the Norton route because they are basically crap! (Single handedly responsible for more clean XP reinstalls than any other developer in the world ever. A Fact)

Anyone with any pointers

 

If after the initial restore all your programs worked satisfactorily, and only after adding new programs did things go awry, I'd suggest it'd be more likely that one of these programs had an install failure (catastrophically by the sounds of it) rather than TI.

On the above assumption, my suggestion would be to repair the installation using the XP Cd (second repair option, not the first console mode one) and see what happens from there.

Could you mention which TI version you are using, whether you tried the restore from the SZ or from the image you made, and did you choose full partition backup or just files and folders.

Colin

 

Much thanks for the reply
I believe it was the most recent trial version. I tried to restore initially from the SZ and subsequently from the image. After I restored the image I tried to install a number of different software packages with the same effect. Ive never had any trouble before with these packages except when installing over subsequent to an image restore.

Have thought about it (am only guessing) but is it possible that the installing of additional software has in some way corrupted the MBR (that TI altered initially when setting up SZ). What I am trying to suggest is that MBR in the TI image is corrupt (when I from image restored I included MBR in the restore wizard). Just a wild stab in the dark though.
does this sound plausible? If so how would I prevent such an error in the future?

many thanks

 

I think that would only be the case if these other programs need to access the MBR, and really only things like OS selectors or disk utilties do that.

Try de-activating the SZ - and just make an image to the other hard drive and see what happens.

I'm not sure as I don't use the SZ but maybe it doesn't like being put on the non boot drive. With my setup my boot drive is SATA#2 (don't ask) and Acronis OSS selector has a mind of its own because of this - maybe SZ would to.

Colin

 

Hello voicebox,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for the delayed response.

Could you please clarify if you created the image of the entire hard drive or of the system partition only? Did you use Acronis True Image Bootable Rescue Media or did you use Acronis True Image in Windows to restore the image archive?

Could you please clarify what kind of the software you have installed on your computer that led you to this issue? Please give an example of such programs.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

voicebox,

Please be aware that upon restoring from a disc/partition image file, TI does not necessarily rewrite all the data to the very same sectors they were copied from. But up to now, I have only seen reports of older versions of Photshop requiring reactivation due to this misplacement of restored data.