Not impressed so far.

To the President of Acronis,

Your information about True Image 8 says it will make a .tib of the hard drive you request but it saves that .tib on that same hard drive itself. (In my case my 40GB, D: drive.)

If you do not have enough space on that hard drive to accommodate the addition of the .tib then you are stuck having to take files off the hard drive until you have made enough room.

(I do not have enough space on the D: drive to accommodate the .tib and I really don't want to start removing files. I have 25 GB of data and True Image 8 using the defaults, wants 15 GB to make the .tib and the D: drive says I have only 12.5 GB of free space left.)


Is there a way to direct the .tib to not write itself to the D: drive and to write itself to the C: drive instead? (I have 17 GB of free space on my C: drive and there hopefully I could burn the .tib, D: drive to DVD without packet writing.) I could not find any info on this.

Seems foolish that you would limit where I can put the desired .tib file.


I would love to simply create and burn the .tib directly to several DVD discs all at once, in real time like you can do with Norton Ghost. Ghost does not require or rely on packet writing, etc. to make it’s DVDs.

I do not like your awful and very, very lazy solution to DVD burning using packet writing.

I have Nero but I would never use In CD.

Packet writing is very unprofessional and I would never risk making these kinds of discs because they are extremely unreliable and if you hope to be able to have your .tib successfully recovered in almost any DVD-ROM unit, you would only want to save and burn the .tib by making a data disc directly to a standard DVD-R or maybe DVD+R, nothing else.

Why you think informed people should accept packet writing as so much more important or neat and "cool" over a better chance of recovering the data via a more universal transfer process is beyond me.

If you are one of the best backup systems around, why would you permit one big gaping flaw in you approach to writing .tibs directly to DVDs. Don't you think that lots of people with only one hard drive would want to back up their stuff as easily as Ghost offers? And your .tib might need too much space to do it's thing, so you might want to offer a way to just get the stuff backed up pronto with out additional complexity or restrictions. Packet writing as the only answer should be unacceptable for a great company.

If you are a premium product, don't you think you should give me a premium ride when it comes to direct burning of DVD backups? Are they any less important than hard drives?

You are creating major hassles to burning DVDs when you introduce packet writing. You are not making it easier for us, you are making it harder and unreliable. Why?

Direct DVD burning is such a desirable feature I don't see how you can ignore it as you are doing.

It should have been pleasant and fun to try TrueImage 8. It was not, based on that one issue.

This bit about when it comes to direct DVD burning, yes of course True Image 8 can do it but surprise, we don’t directly support it and “you are kind of on your own” and the only solution we have for you is third party packet writing methods, that really puts me off. You must think your product is so superior to everyone else that you only have to please yourselves now and no one else.

If you want the quality, industry standards and ease of direct DVD burning, sorry we are not interested in putting that in our product. And therefore, the little people have to bow and genuflect to you alone.

It is so shoddy to treat clients like that.

I should have been happy trying your product and it should have pleased me but I was distressed instead.

Oh, you do direct DVD burning all right, but your recommended method is not in the best interest of the client’s data or the data’s future successful recovery potential. If your product is that good, you should care that you are only offering methods that promote the most reliable outcomes to match the quality of the product itself. What is the sense of promoting a world class, high quality, premium product if the method this company is offering to transfer the results of it’s high quality program to direct DVD in real time, (packet writing) is a poor one?

The reviews say you might represent the champagne of world class back up programs, so why are you offering draft beer solutions for something so very important as direct DVD burning?
All packet writing need not apply.



If you want to compete with Ghost and take people away from that camp, you have to do a lot better with the DVD thing. Ghost never asked me to do packet writing just to get a simple copy of the hard drive onto DVDs directly. What's wrong with you that you can not accomplish this too. Or is it your must be so individualistic that you reject what they have as an obviously better feature. Or do they have a copyright on that feature so you can't do it?

It is a hard drive, DVD and Flash RAM storage world and a product should let me easily make backups with out additional third party any thing. Either you are selling me a complete solution or you are not.

Exploring the world of precarious packet writing is for people who like to conduct esoteric experiments. I have been at this for 20 years and until I bought your product, I never needed to be involved in any packet writing what so ever. No program I ever needed asked me to use or put up with packet writing of any kind. That's for home consumers who like to gamble or they just don't realize that they may have serious problems in the future if they used packet writing to backup all their stuff.

When you archive at the University where I work for example, you do not use packet writing as the transfer method for anything, you avoid it!

I have been an upgrading Ghost user for many, many years. Lately, I was getting too many errors trying to make backups so I decided to try TrueImage 8.


Can you imagine my great dismay when I bought your product just to make a simple, quick backup and Gee, I would like to put this .tib directly on a DVD just like Ghost can and you throw me a totally unfair, whole other layer of unwanted complexity and unreliability that I simply do not want to get involved with.


So I am stuck not being able to use your product for what I need it for and I guess I will have to take my chances again with Ghost or some other company.


I am fully willing to spend $100 more than what I already paid for True Image 8 for a product that does every thing Ghost does, only a lot better. If True Image 8 cannot, do you know of a company that can? I bought True Image 8 in July 2005 and because of your stupid limitations with DVDs I opted not to adopt and use any of it. Right now I am still having problems with Ghost, so I tried to use True Image 8 one more time without doing direct DVD burning and because the drive does not have enough hard drive space, it seems I can't use True Image 8 again. And I don’t want to move 25 GB of data, piece meal.

(OK, so maybe your product has lots of great additional features and is a greater back up system compared to Ghost. I don’t really know and since I can not use True Image 8 for the 2 specific things I wanted to do, I have not been using True Image 8 at all. So I can’t compare it with Ghost’s performance. But I don’t care if you are God’s gift to the world. I just want to burn directly to DVD like I am absolutely sure most everyone else would like to do. And the company who figures out that this support is just as important as any thing else will get my future purchase too. For example, even if I loved True Image 8 which I don’t lately, if a company introduced a backup product that was as good as yours and offered great direct DVD disc burning, that would be so appealing to me, I would dump True Image 8 gladly.)

Beware, someone may beat you at your game because they are more concerned and motivated about what you seen to consider little, insignificant, details.


I sure wish I could have a refund, but I know I was a fool to buy without fully understanding your direct DVD packet writing surprise. I really thought, Ghost was doing it and you must be doing it also. But it turns out you have no motivation to compete in this area. It was an absolute aggravation and still is, to discover that True Image 8 could not burn DVDs directly. Ghost has you beat on that one, hands down!


Well, “To Bad For Me!” I know. But, I will not buy from you again so, “To Bad For You too!”

The rest of True Image 8 is OK is guess. I don’t really know or care much now. That’s too bad because I certainly looked favorably and hopefully to it when I bought it. You had me in palm of your hand, but you lost me to sloppy and indifferent attention to this detail.

Experiencing True Image 8 had a very negative effect on me based on the DVD issue and instead of winning me over from the moment I loaded and ran your program, I was repulsed and hurt and very, very disappointed.


Had you played your cards right, I should have been in love and an immediate great and long-term fan.


Your DVD solution just does not have the shine I think it should. I guess Ghost is still the gold standard for now and it is not that great either. You on the other hand may indeed have a great product but you have shot yourself a little in the foot on this one.


When you were in the board room designing this “great” product and thinking about the money you were going to make, and the success you were going to have, is this what you had in mind for my experience?


To adopt your product I have to retrograde from the direct DVD burning feature already built in to Ghost.


Is this how you plan to capture and win over the hearts and minds of present and former Ghost clients?




For the $80 or so I paid for True Image 8 you did not solve my problem, you simply sold and created for me another problem. And I rewarded you to create that problem for me by buying True Image 8. Via email you have recently offered me reduced cost upgrades to True Image 9, no thank you.
I didn’t get what I wanted from 8, why would I reward you again by buying 9?


I am really sold on this burn direct to DVD without packet writing thing

and I don't understand what I am missing that you know that I do not know

as to why you are not into it also.

Is this ok with you?


Sincerely,

Dale Ashby

 

I assume Mr Ashby requires the ability to record to DVD, to be more cohesive affair than it is at present.

Apart from the fact I had to race out and buy an A4 monitor just so as I could read his monologue, perhaps he could have provided a synopsis such as -

The abilty to record direct to DVD would make this a more usable product for many people, with the proliferation of DVD burners, and an inbuilt abilty to do so would make TI a more elegant product. Or words to that effect.

Colin

 

Dale,

Lets try and keep everything in one post/thread, your duplicate post has been removed.

Regards,

CrazyM

 

CrazyM, you deleted a few replies, mine included.

Dale, could you give sizes of your C and D drives and how much data on each? Any other partitions? Any programs installed on D drive or is it entirely data?

 

Sorry Brian K, just merging the ones that will stay now, save yours as you have already re-posted.

Regards,

CrazyM

 

I have to admit, that packet writing isn't safe.
I have no experience with InCD, but I have experience with DirectCD (Easy CD Creator 5 Platinium), which makes it possible to copy/paste files from your harddisk to a CD without burning.
I liked DirectCD very much in the beginning, because it worked with the same possibilities as a floppy disk, until it failed a few times and I lost a few valuable spreadsheets.
It's not the first time, I read bad remarks about InCD/DirectCD and a member at Wilders (forgot who) even adviced me not to use DirectCD anymore, because it can't be trusted and he was right.

IMHO, InCD and DirectCD should be removed as a method for writing files on a CD/DVD, because the risk of losing data is too high and you don't do that to users without knowing this in advance.
This way users are forced to burn their files on CD/DVD, which is alot more safer.
I've also read that Rewriteable CD/DVD's aren't as good as Recordable CD/DVD's to save data for a long time.

I'm in the process of buying a new computer and I decided not to use CD/DVD as a backup method for my harddisk anymore.
I think it's much safer and faster to backup on an additional harddisk or an external harddisk and harddisks are quite cheap nowadays. I also won't use InCD/DirectCD anymore.

 

Burning to CD or DVD is inherently less reliable than to a hard drive, particularly at the rotational speed (data transfer rate) of modern CD/DVD recorders. These high speeds may be acceptable for audio or vidio files, where the odd corrupt byte merely results in an audible "click" or dropped pixel, but can be disastrous for large data files that extend towards the outer edge (maximum data transfer rate) of a disk. Also worth bearing in mind that not all brands of CD/DVD media are born equal!!

Things can be controlled somewhat when burning a normal CD or DVD compilation by selecting a slower burn speed in the recording software. However, in the case of UDF packet writing (be it InCD, Roxio Drag-to-Disk or otherwise), the software will attempt to burn the data at the fastest speed possible unless reduced by an application such as Nero DriveSpeed.

For greater peace of mind I strongly recommend that images are burnt to CD/DVD at around half the maximum rated speed of your recorder or CD/DVD media (whichever is the lesser).

Regards

 

If you are really interested in writing the image file to another partition, not just rambling on about the DVD-writing abilities of TI8, read the manual. Start with section 4.3, page 21 (TI8 manual). Look at the screen-shot of the selection screen on the next page of the manual. The only thing you need to do after selecting the location is to type in a file name of your choosing. It can even be a long file name. I have never found this at all difficult.

One note: If you want to control where the imgae goes, do NOT use the "secure zone". That is really for PCs with one big C: partition. You obviously have more than one partition, so you do not need that option.

 

Dale,

You spent a lot of time criticising packet writing and praising the way Ghost writes to DVD. You failed to realise that Ghost uses Gear Software to write to DVD and it is packet writing too.

 

Is that right? Amazing, I figured that they just supported a variety of drives natively as CD burning programs like Nero and Roxio do. That's a sneaky way to look like you have standard drive support. It fooled me.

 

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPOR...od=Norton Ghost&ver=9.0&osv=&osv_lvl=&seg=hho

In Gear's favour it writes variable length packets which I understand is a more reliable format than fixed length packets that the others use for RW discs.

 

Well, well, what do you know!! Thanks for that info Brian. Perhaps it will keep a few True Image bashers/Ghost proponents quite now .

Regards

 

To the good people of this forum:


My original post was dated 11-25-05 so I think it is time to move forward.

Thank you for responding to my letter of inquiry and frustration.

Lots of good information was generated from this thread

and some illusions were broken.

Let me please give you the courtesy of responding to each of you:

 

Hi Colin aka bodgy,

First, if you did not need an A4 monitor, I am sorry you had to go out and buy one on my behalf. I am a specialist in audio, video and computers, I offer you free consultation (dashby@maine.rr.com) in an attempt to offer reciprocity.

I agree with your synopsis and the wording you used relative to my “monologue” completely. It is short, sweet and to the point. The kind of thing you would use in making a nice, intellectual and well thought out review of a product. But it is devoid of any emotional investment and pressure.

Please remember this has been festering in me since July 2005 and though I think your synopsis is excellent, I don’t think it can possibly convey how the experience really effected me. These days, I think a company needs to also consider just how much good and help they can actually deliver vs. how much pandemonium and obstacles they actually create and deliver.

Have you noticed to survive in this technological world even the general public has to increasingly become technical wizard/engineers? You get a computer just to do some basic word processing, email and internet surfing. Then you find out about: viruses, spyware, constant upgrades/patches, damage inflicted by these upgrades/patches and so on and you realize there is an awful lot involved just to maintain and keep a computer safe that has nothing to do with creating content. And as you comply with each new requirement and layer, it eats up more and more of your precious time and blood. So you come in to this only wanting to do some simple things and then you find out to do it right, you have to become your own expert and constantly keep up your guard. And then add: you buy products that are suppose to work but they don’t or they trash your computer. Then you spend hours and hours researching problems you did not have before and maybe cannot solve. And a simple problem easily cascades into several very difficult problems.

We unfortunately are having to pay the very high price to be the early pioneers in this new digital world. We are like drunken rats in a maze taking hits from everywhere. And if we do not comply we run the real risk and likelihood of serious major loss and damage. Even complying introduces damage. The rate of change is so profound we cannot even comprehend its impact, let alone control it and nor can we even realistically adapt to it because since it is pure brain power being applied to the physics of electronics and machines, it is moving faster than the general public can possibly adapt to. The closer you get to the heart of physics, fewer people can follow. All Einstein’s we average citizens are not and nor do we want to be.

I tell everyone to remember that the computer is the most dangerous appliance you have in your home, beware! Do you think your grandmother should have to go though this crap and sacrifice so much personal time, concern and caution just to send you a few emails now and then?

Hopefully, 5 to10 years from now these crazy conflicts will be moot.

The digital revolution only began for 85% of the general public with Windows 95 in 1995.

But I would assume that for some of us, technical burn out is all ready approaching.


How many of us are just living to keep machines alive?


All of these are rhetorical questions, just food for thought, not aimed at you.


Thank you again for your comment,

Dale

 

To CrazyM,

Sorry, I am a newbie at this and was not sure the first thread worked
and sent it again. When I realized it, I tried to delete the second one
but could not figure it out.

Thank you for removing it for me.

Regards,

Dale

 

To Brian K,

As you requested:

Both my C: drive and D: drive are 40GB Western Digital, Caviar, EIDE, 7,200 RPM hard drives.

The C: drive has 20.6GB of used space.

The D: drive has 25GB of used space.

I do not partition my hard drives and I do not use Secure Zone.

There are no installed programs on the D: drive, only data.

Regards,

Dale

 

To ErikAlbert,

Yes packet writing is not the way to go. And the Data Back Up Industry, the CD/DVD Media Industry, the CD/DVD Burner Industry and the Computer Manufacturing Industry, etc. as a whole, should make a concerted effort to steer us all away from packet writing instead of promoting it.

Hard drives for back up are best and I will consider one for myself in the future. But many times you are only going to have one chance to back up one time for a client or friend and most of the time they only have some kind of burner. And some people want the extra protection of a hard drive and a DVD back up.

The point is Direct CD/DVD burning for Data and C: drive Back Up is either safe and reliable or it is not.

And the methods you offer to secure that safety and reliability are just as important as the media you use.

I need to know for sure…

If it is not safe and reliable for the general public, then the company(s) should simply say so or warn us.

Regards,

Dale

 

To Menorcaman,

The knowledge and observations you make on CD/DVD rotational speed are excellent.

And certainly not all brands of CD/DVD media are born equal.

I suppose we all have our favorites.

I have been an audio producer/engineer and a television station engineer since 1981.

In audio it was tape and there were many brands. Memorex, “Is it live or is it Memorex?”

(The “ex” was suppose to stand for excellent.) It was a joke. I personally made thousands of audio

cassettes copies and I found Maxell and TDK to be great and consistent performers. I found the same thing

to be true with VHS videotape in television also. I personally made thousands of videotape copies as well.

This last 5 years I have been the Director and Audio/Visual Technician III for the Foreign Language

Laboratory at the University of Southern Maine. I have personally made thousands of copies of audio

CD-R and video DVD+-R discs and I again report Maxell and TDK to perform the very best for me.

I use Sony and Lite-On, home consumer burners and my discs are played back by college students in all

brands of CD/DVD players and it is really a very rare day in hell that I get any complaints or returns. At

the beginning of every semester I have to make successful copies of foreign language audio/video materials

for hundreds of students who are waiting for these discs. I buy retail discs right off the shelf and I have

about 5 days to produce thousands of discs like a factory, non-stop. I can’t afford to be riddled with flaws.


I know others will say their brands are better, but I have to go by experience and therefore, to each his own!

When Maxell and TDK start to displease me, I will switch to something better, nothing is in stone.


Your suggestion to reduce the rotational speed by half or less when burning to improve the reliability and

using a program if necessary, to slow down that rotational speed made me smile, you are right on!

Thanks again.

Dale

P.S. What a nice computer system you have!

 

To fharris270,

Thank you, thank you for the specific citation of the information I needed.

Strangely enough I bought True Image 8 as a download and at the time they did not have a

True Image 8 manual ready yet or something like that. So when I would click on the Help Tab

of True Image 8, I would get no .pdf file, no any thing. So after your message I went to Acronis to look for

the User’s Guide. I put it in the Acronis\TrueImage folder but it is still not recognized by the Help Tab.

It says the User’s Guide is not associated with a .pdf program, please install one. I have Adobe Reader 7

installed. So I have put a short-cut icon of the .pdf file on my desktop and can launch it from there.

I now have access to the material you cite and of course it is pretty self-explanatory.



Does any one know how I can get the Help Tab to recognize the .pdf?


I do like one big C: partition hard drives but I do not like to rely on “Secure Zone” stuff.


As far as the “rambling”, I mention its purpose at the beginning of this post, dated 11-28-05.

Thanks again.

Sincerely,

Dale

 

To Brain K, (No spelling error.)

You are certainly the Grand Wizard Tech of this forum at this time!
To figure out that Ghost is doing packet writing is a great find.
It was right there as you cited it at the Symantec website but you
have to know what to look for and exactly where to look. You did.


No wonder I hate Ghost when it comes to CD/DVD direct burning.

I can not count the number of times I have tired to burn CD or DVD discs with Ghost

only to have the burning fail as I am burning or the burned discs will not verify or the

discs will not restore the hard drive, etc. Let alone the hundreds of hours that have slipped

by and discs thrown away and yet still accomplishing nothing. And if one disc fails

during your burn, you have to start all over again. It has been a Russian roulette I can not stand.

And under these odds, who is going to erase their hard drive just to see if the restore will really works.

Not me, I just hope and pray when I really do need the back up, it will be there for me, good luck.


What through me off to not suspect packet writing with Ghost was this statement from Acronis.


“How can I use Acronis True Image 9.0 to write images directly to DVD discs?

Acronis True Image 9.0 is capable of writing to a DVD disc in Windows if UDF packet DVD-writing software is installed and the DVD disc is formatted. If a DVD disc is not formatted, Acronis True Image 9.0 will ask you to format it.

You need a Drive Letter Access (DLA) UDF packet writing driver so that you can format the DVD and the computer can see the disc. Acronis True Image 9.0 currently supports the following DVD-writing software:

* Roxio Drag-To-Disc-a part of Roxio Easy Media Creator
* Ahead InCD-available for free on the Nero site for Ahead Nero users (and usually is shipped with Nero)

In general, Acronis True Image 9.0 also supports other UDF packet DVD-writing software, but the two above are the most popular and they have been tested and approved by Acronis.

To make the DVD disc writeable in Acronis True Image 9.0, you should do the following:

1. Install UDF packet DVD-writing software.
2. Format the DVD discs.
3. Start Acronis True Image 9.0, insert the formatted DVD disc into the DVD burner and create an image.
4. The images from the DVD disc can be restored both in Windows and by means of the standalone version of Acronis True Image 9.0.

There is also a two-step method for writing to DVDs. Acronis True Image 9.0 can create an image of a hard disk/partition as a single file on the hard disk itself, and then you can copy the file using your own DVD-writing software to the DVD disc. We recommend you to set the image archive splitting size to 2,000 MBytes (2 GBytes) on the "Image Archive Splitting" screen, as generally the maximum size of a file stored on a DVD disc is 2 GBytes.”

Well I was not using CD-RW nor DVD-RW discs, I had not installed any UDF packet writing software to

use with Ghost (At least I did not think I had.) and I was not manually formatting anything.


So I presumed these were the tell-tail signs of packet writing.


In an email in July I asked Acronis how the DVD+-R discs formatted themselves without violating

the burn once only thing. Don’t you have to burn a DVD-R disc to format it? And then don’t you

have to burn it again to put data on this formatted disc? And he assured me that the formatting

would not leave the discs un-useable.


Is it Gear’s variable length packets that lets Ghost not have to ask us to format our discs manually first?

In any case, I do not want to have any thing to do with the Ghost or True Image packet writing aspect.

Kudos to you!

Thanks again.

Dale

 

To John aka jmk94903,

It sure fooled me too. I want native drivers for CD/DVD burners also.

Regards,

Dale

 

To Menorcaman,

You got a good laugh and I did too. I am sure we all did!

It was a major rush of knowledge and power.

Brian was the smart one!

But now that I know the truth, I say both Ghost and True Image are guilty as charged.

No one should be offering packet writing as the method of transfer, if you really care about your stuff.

And this revelation will not keep me quiet about bashing

Ghost and True Image both at the same time, if need be.

Regards,

Dale