Newbie: how important is testing image on a second hard drive?

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by rgombine, Feb 1, 2007.

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  1. rgombine

    rgombine Registered Member

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    I am a new user of TI home 10. I've been really impressed with the level of expertise on this board, and doing a good bit of reading here I have a feeling for the basics, but still have some concerns re: confirming that my backup image will be usable.

    So far so good: I have created and verified an image of my unpartitioned internal C drive (120GB) on my external (160GB) firewire drive. I successfully created a recovery CD and booted into the Linux version of Acronis. In the "full mode" I am able to take the process up to directing Acronis to the image on the external drive, terminating the process just at "proceed."
    1. Should I be concerned that I can't get to my backup image using "safe mode"?
    2. How certain can I be that I will be able to restore a bootable image without restoring it to an "extra" internal drive?

    Thanks in advance.


    (My system is Dell Dimension 8200 running XP SP2)
     
  2. Xpilot

    Xpilot Registered Member

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    I think of an extra drive as being like a spare wheel for a car. You could drive for years with never a problem but if you do get a blowout ...... Yes, you can call for roadside assistance but if a restore were to fail could Humpty Dumpy be put back together again?


    Xpilot
     
  3. ChairmanMeow

    ChairmanMeow Registered Member

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    When you did the backup did you select just partition C: or did you click Disk1 which includes partition C:. This is important. If you did the latter ATI will have backed up the MBR and Track 0 as well as partition C: When you do a restore it will restore the entire image of Disk1. I've done this quite a few times now without problems (4 partitions on Disk1).

    If you only backed up the partition and the disk fails you will need to recreate the MBR before you restore partition C:

    You can find out if you backed up the MBR by going through the restore process again and, when asked to confirm what you want to restore, there should be an entry MBR and Track 0 listed under Disk1. To restore the entire drive you need to select Disk1.
     
  4. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Hi Ragombine

    Until you restore the image, ideally to the disk you imaged it from you really don't know if you've accomplished anything. Be sure you have your Recovery CD(the dell one) and your data backed up. Restoring to a 2nd internal drive is okay, but still not bullet proof.

    Pete
     
  5. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Hello ChairmanMeow,

    This only applies to versions prior to TI 9.0 Build 3567. From TI 9.0 Build 3567 onwards and TI 10.0, the MBR and Track 0 data is automatically included in a Disk/Partition image, irrespective of whether you just backup a single partition or the whole disk.

    Regards
     
  6. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    As has been pointed out, the only sure way to know it works is to do the whole restore process with another drive.

    When you booted the TI disk and took the procedure to the "Proceed" point did you also validate the image using the TI boot disk? If not, do a validate because a validate done under Windows may not be successful in the Linux environment if there is some quirk with the HW drivers.

    I wouldn't worry about the Safe mode at all if you are able to start the Full mode and see your archives and target disk. Safe mode likely doesn't have the drivers for your external drive.
     
  7. ChairmanMeow

    ChairmanMeow Registered Member

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    Thanks.

    I didn't know that.
     
  8. rgombine

    rgombine Registered Member

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    Pete:
    Wow. So if I image my original C:/ to an external usb then successfully restore to a 2nd internal hard drive (and I can boot from that copy), I might still get failure when I attempt to do a restore to original drive?


    Seekforever:
    No, I didn't test it in Linux. Given that restoration is probably going to take place in a Linux environment, I guess I need to do that.

    So is this the best protocol?:
    1. validate in Windows
    2. Validate in Linux
    3. Restore image to a spare drive (which I don't yet own btw -- that's going to be exciting to explain to my wife: "I need this new drive to test my new backup program!")
    4. reimage back to the original C:
    (5. if reimage to C: fails, buy a 3rd drive!!)

    Let's assume that I am successful (and hopefully don't need to buy a 3rd HD). Since I have established that I have no Linux-related driver deficiencies, can I limit validations of future images to Windows only?

    Thanks to everyone for posting as clearly variations of this question have already been addressed in previous threads (I was just reading "Acronis 10 is such a let down...")


    R.
     
  9. Ralphie

    Ralphie Registered Member

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    And just so confusion does not arise later, you mentioned this:
    "I have created and verified an image of my unpartitioned internal C drive (120GB)". Your drive is partitioned - but it has just one, otherwise you couldn't put anything on it. :D
     
  10. rgombine

    rgombine Registered Member

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    So it is. :oops: Thanks for the gentle clarification.
     
  11. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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  12. Ralphie

    Ralphie Registered Member

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    After your #3, #4 should be:
    Put spare drive in place of C to make sure it boots.
    And about the "unpartioned" part ... I used to think the same thing not too long ago. :cool: :cool:
     
  13. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    My answer to that would be, it depends. If both disks are identical and identically configured, you probably are okay. In my case that isn't so. My C: drive is a raid 0 array, and my d: drive is just a third internal drive. I have restored back to my c: drive with several imaging programs including Acronis V9, although my program of choice is no longer ATI

    With some testing I've been doing, I've probably done over a 100 restores in the last couple of months with nary a problem. Restoring(which is my validation method) is now as common place as opening a word document. This is how you gain confidence in your images.

    Pete
     
  14. rgombine

    rgombine Registered Member

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    What's the worse that would happen if restore to the original C drive fails? I'll just migrate the data from my new backup drive (whose functionality w/ ATI is confirmed) to ext'l USB drive and restore my backup image to it. I'd be out a hard drive but at least with the assurance that my backup works.

    Curious -- -- what imgaging software are you using presently and why did you decide to move on? (if this is a kosher question given the this forum . . .)
     
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