Major Acronis True Image failure

Been using ATI since version 6 and never had a problem, using a Boot CD only as it started getting rather bloated around V9 and only create full backups. W7-32, 2 discs, 3 partitions, AtI 2010, 2011- I successfully restored an image this morning but when I went to boot couldn't. I tried to restore from ATI again but no longer showed a C drive as all my partitions and writers had new letters. I then reinstalled Windows but even a backup no longer works as ATI shows C as reserved, Windows sees all partitions fine and all my backups are where they should be, incidentally, the reinstall showed C as unallocated with no OS. Figures, I was just telling someone last night how much better and more stable ATI is than System Restore. Any chance ATI has to be installed, hasn't been for years though? Thanks

 

I agree. I just dropped Acronis after having nothing but headaches with the last two updates, and I've been using it since 2002.

 

Have you tried the system backup utility that comes with Window 7? It is used to backup full disks or partitions. You do have to backup within Windows though. You can restore with a repair disk you create or by starting out in safe mode and picking advanced boot options.

 

Gonna try out Macrium Free, no need of incrementals anyway, worked fine the few times I used it and it has a Boot CD. Thanks

 

It's almost 100% certain that Acronis will let you down after using it for a bit. It happened to me too. Paragon, Macrium and Image for Windows are the products that always did the job for me. With these three I have never had a failure.

 

After ATI version 9 let me down and I switched to Shadow Protect. I have never had a problems since then. A little pricey but well worth it for such a solid app.

 

As a follow up, don't know what ATI did but one partition and writer were renamed from C, D, O and E (writer) to C, D E and F (writer) by ATI, no big deal. Macrium sees them all fine on backups from within Windows but a restore from the Boot CD shows C as Reserved at 100 MB with D, E and F as my partitions now with the backup on F and restoring to D (there is no F partition and backups are on D). The last window shows the backup going to C and all is fine from there but I have a feeling I'm in for a surprise in the future and even a partition program (Easeus) shows no F partition.

 

Norton Ghost is good too.

 

I'm also an ex-Acronis True Image user but gave up on it because of the bloat and some problems. I still use their much better Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 (Workstation version), which they advertise as "the next generation disaster recovery product family, succeeding the Acronis® True Image product line." [emphasis not mine] And I only use it from a boot disk or a WinPE partition (too much bloat otherwise). Macrium Reflect, ShadowProtect, Drive Snapshot are also among my other favorites - they all have their pros and cons.

 

There are quite a few good programs but the problem is , so far, only Macrium restores to my C drive and even then only eventually after I get through its process and it finds the backup on a fictitious drive. Image for Windows will make a backup but then can't find it to restore. I'm fairly computer savvy but ATI 2011 is seriously unstable and downright dangerous and has made some deep changes to my computer, even after a clean reinstall this is going on, I didn't even have a Windows Old folder on the reinstall because ATI wiped my whole drive clean. May have to reformat both drives but I don't want to start over again.

 

I've never had an Acronis True Image backup failure, but I only use the version 11 rescue CD for "cold" imaging and recovering. Since I use my computer for gaming, I keep the background programs to a minimum. So after I install ATI v11, I create the backup CD and then uninstall ATI. Voila! It works great!

SourMilk out

 

Actually, I've used every version since v6 and swore by v9 for years except it won't run on W7. What I usually did was install the program, make the Boot CD and then image back to before ATI was ever installed and then continue from there only using the Boot CD, never had a problem for years but got to give ATI credit, this is a big one.

 

I had a similar problem with Acronis, but am not sure if the problem was theirs or mine, Fortunately I also had Acronis DiskDirector on the boot disk and was able to resolve the problems by destroying all the disk partitions then restoring them. Recovery went fine after that.

But not being a trusting sort, I alternate imaging weekly with Ghost 15 which finally has a nice boot disk making it equal to Acronis.

Finally, if you don;t want the Acronis services due to "bloat", just disable them. You can always turn them on if needed. Better than not having the ability to mount an image or use Try and Decide (which works really well in my testing).