please help first timer

hello to all just installed my software. i running win xp pro first h/drive 200g with 3 partition and 2 h/drive 80g with 3 partition all are ntfs.

i want to make an image of the whole computer. is there anything that i must know before i do this

thanks

 

I am a first timer also. The biggest issue I see is that you have to decide where you will keep the images. Most likely you would want backups of the first drive on the second, and backups of the second on the first.

 

Hmm, you need to think carefully about that strategy if you are going to continue making new images of opposing drives. You'll run out of space unless you delete the opposing drive's image before creating a new one. Think of it as looking at a reflection of a mirror in a mirror.

Regards

 

johnpd, I think you need a dedicated drive for your backups - if you can't use an internal one then I suggest you look at an external USB/Firewire one.

As Menorcaman points out, your current strategy will escalate your disk consumption rapidly, especially if you are not overwriting the base image every time.

 

Hiya foghorn

Overwriting the base image each time won't help much I'm afraid. You really must delete the opposing drive's image before creating a new archive. For example:

Backup drive C to D and D will contain an image of C. Now backup drive D to C and C will contain an image of D which also includes the image of C.

If you backup drive C to D again without first deleting the image of drive D then, even if you overwrite the original archive, D will now contain a new image of C which also contains the original image of C plus D.

And so it would go on, with the image on each drive getting bigger each time. Hence the need to delete the opposing drive's image first.

Phew. I just hope the above makes sense!!

Regards

 

Yes it does make sense, I was simply pointing out that if in addition to the base image one was continually adding (potentially large) incrementals ( say on a daily basis) the problem would be significantly worse.

This is a little off the point however. I agree with you that this strategy is not viable anyway.

 

Hello Bern,

First of all you should decide if you need the external storage for your backups. It depends on the free space you have on your hard drives. If there is enough free space then I recommend you to create Acronis Secure Zone on the second hard drive and save your images into it.

Thank you.

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Best regards,
Andrew Berezovsky