Nothing but LOVE for Acronis :)

I purchased True Image 11 home about three months ago, "just in case."

Well, "just in case" happened four days ago. I plugged a USB device into my system, and BOOM -- somehow it managed to fry my motherboard.

I rely on my PC for business purposes: I create custom installation discs for Windows and Linux distros, and I also transfer VHS tapes to DVD. I was in the middle of a couple of projects when my PC died, but as luck would have it, I had created my latest back-up images just one day prior.

Restoring my data was a breeze, saving me countless hours of rebuilding and re-installation. Even if I never need to restore another image ever again, the purchase price I paid for TI11 was well worth it.

And no, nobody paid me to say these things.

 

So you're the one satisfied customer.

Seriously, glad it worked out for you. I use TI11 as well and was starting to wonder if the issues I've experienced with getting the location rules to work and the extremely poor tech support were a prelude to the kinds of issues I'd have doing a system restore. It's nice to hear from someone that it worked out.

 

If your motherboard was fried, how did you get your computer up and running? Did you buy a new one?

 

I dont' think the complaints amount to claims that ATI never works in any sistuation for anybody but that versions 11 and 12/2009 have too many serious bugs and fail in ways that they should not for too many folks and in too many situations.

 

I'm still interested in how a fried motherboard can magically work again just by loading up Acronis from a CD.

Incidentally, let's say my computer's motherboard did completely fail, beyond repair. If I purchase a brand new computer, boot up Acronis and restore from an external hard drive, what will happen? Will the new computer be restored to the exact same state as the old one was in?

 

True Image Home will restore the image and then you will have to go reboot your PC with your Windows installation disk and at a minimum do a repair. Note that if you have a manufacturer's recovery CD this may or may not be possible depending on how they configured it. The repair is necessary because of the different drivers typically required for a different motherboard. If you got an indentical motherboard/PC then the driver issues would be a lot less.

If you are planning to change your motherboard/PC and wan to migrate an old image you should change your display to a generic VGA before making the image to be transported which will remove video issues from the startup. Also, look at Microsoft's Sysprep tool which will help with plug-and-play PCI devices. Even though I haven't done it, you could also consider uninstalling all possible devices then shutting down the PC and make an image of the static HD with the TI boot CD.

Acronis has an add-on product which does not work with TI Home called Universal Restore which is made for changing PCs. You need Echo Workstation to use it.

A lot of us feel the safest way to go to a new PC is by reloading the OS and apps even though it may take longer. The most important files on your PC are your personal data files, not the OS and not the apps - they can be installed or purchased again, your personal files are nowhere else.

Regarding TI reliability, as far as the basic imaging goes nobody should be finding out for the first time whether it works or not if the disaster is real. This applies to every backup program ever written; you must do test restores to ensure it works on your system. This is best done by a restore to a spare HD in case it doesn't work. Second best way is to boot up the TI rescue CD and validate your archive then go through the Restore Wizard up to the point of being asked to click Proceed and Cancel out of the wizard.

 

Well, OP, how does Acronis TI "fix" a fried motherboard?

 

It cannot. It can only restore a disk to a prior image, or restore files to prior conditions. This might inclulde hardware drivers that somehow had gotten mucked up, which will enable a mucked up PC to work again, but ATI doesn't make any changes to motherboards. If a mobo is fired,i.e., electrically malfunctioning, nothing ATI can do can help that; that's a physical problem, not a software problem.

 

Seems we are perhaps dealing with computer slang symantics in this thread. To me, fry means electrically destroy the motherboard so it needs to be replaced. I didn't think of the "screwed-up the software" option.

 

I've been using TI11 for a year or so and for the way I use it (manual full imaging) it seems to be pretty reliable. I don't do scheduled backup, don't do incremental/differential, don't use the secure zone, try-and-decide, etc.

I've had a couple of minor hiccups, but overall its never let me down and I've restored probably 15 times now for various reasons (knowing I can easily rollback allows me to do a lot of things I wouldn't try otherwise).

If I get the chance to pick up a copy of TI10 really cheap, would I be any better off using it rather than TI11? As I said, my experience with TI11 hasn't been perfect, so I'm wondering if TI10 would likely be any better.

 

Maybe, maybe not. It could well be that TI10 doesn't have the proper hardware support for your system so you would be a lot worse off. Imaging programs seem to have a lot more hardware dependency than typical apps.

Just what are your minor hiccups?

 

I've had one image show up as corrupt upon trying to restore, it was on an external USB HD. I didn't know about the reported issues/workaround with USBHDs at the time, and just deleted the corrupt image and used the one from the week before (from the same drive), which worked fine. If it happens again I'll try the copy to an internal partition method and try to restore from there.

I've had a couple of instances (none lately however) where the restore process suddenly halted and the progress bar froze a few minutes into the recovery. Each time I just tried it again and it worked fine the second time through.

Incidentally, I've always imaged the system partition while running ATI in Windows, which seems to work OK in my application. ATI seems to be able to lock the C: partition while backing up the image, so I haven't noticed any corruptions using that technique. I always restore with the recovery disk, would there be any advantage to doing the backup image with the recovery disk as well?

 

It may be a general USB problem rather than a TI problem. I have had large file transfers get screwed up with other programs. It is better to connect a USB drive to the rear connectors rather than the (unfortunately, convenient) front ones to reduce cable length. Avoid hubs. If it only happened once then it goes into the "one of those things" category.

Had you previously sucessfully validated this image with TI?

Can't say anything about that other than it certainly isn't ideal.

Imaging within Windows does not seem to be the source of many problems. There isn't any real advantage in doing a backup with the recovery disk if the Windows imaging isn't giving a problem. There is less chance for a screw-up though since it is dealing with a static disk. It also demonstrates that the recovery CD's Linux environment is working on your PC but a successful restore does that too. You may find the CD operation a bit slower.

 

Acutally being able to backup from the CD doesn't guaranty that you can resotre. In fct, being able to f=ick source drives in Restore mode on the CD doesn't guaranty that you can pick any target drives in resotre mode. The only thing that guarantees you can restore is to do a restore.

I agree that backing up within windows is not generally a source of problems with ATI, nor with most backup imaging programs that do windows-live backups. I'm not even sure there's less chance for a screw-up as the issue -- I suppose, if you doub the filters ability to filter writes to the source disk -- but I've never actually heard of such a problem.