Please help me recover a file inside Acronis image.

Hello all,

My friend suggested this forum for me to get some guidance in order to recover a file from within an Acronis image backup.

In 2008 my dad backed up my C-drive with his copy of Acronis True Image. The backup was saved to my external USB drive. My dad has since passed-on and I now desperately need to recover a single data-file from that backup image, but I don't have the version of Acronis True Image that he used to make the backup! ...so I have two questions:

1. If I buy a new copy of Acronis True Image will it be able to restore an image made with an older version?

2. Since the backup that my dad saved to my external drive is an image of my entire C-drive, how do I go about extracting the one and only file that I need?

Cruise

 

Absolutely it should, assuming the image is fine (not corrupted).

I haven't used Acronis in a while but I can check later at home if it's possible to mount an image using the Acronis recovery disk to explore its contents, and copy paste the file you want, or someone else can answer this conclusively.

EDIT:

A quick look at the user guide reveals on page 136:

 

Thanks very much for your reply and offer to help. As mentioned, I just need one data-file (database file) from within the Acronis image (as the entire image is 2 years old, I don't want to do an entire restore)!

Since the file in question contains extremely important data, it would be well worth it to me to buy whatever version of Acronis that would stand the best chance of recovering that one file (unfortunately, I don't know which version of Acronis True Image my dad used). Would any current version of Acronis True Image allow me to 'explore' my 2 year old image?

Cruise

 

Officially they state that you can go one version back. My direct experience is that ATIH2010 has been able to recover files from a partition image from archives created by ATIH2009 and ATIH 9. (ATIH = Acronis TrueImage Home; There were two versions between 2009 and 9, 10 and 11 that I have never used.)

I am not sure about cross-compatibility with the non-home versions such as Echo Workstation however. It could also be a file archive with which I also can offer no experience.

You can download and install the current version which will operate from 15 to 30 days depending on the version. I have seen some older trial versions on various download sites as well. Circa 2008 might be ATIH 11 or earlier.

WD offers a free version (an ATIH version with some features disabled) that will work if there is at least one WD drive in the system. Likewise for Seagate/Maxtor. I'm not sure what version they offer now, but you may be able to find older versions of those as well.

Edit:
http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&wdc_lang=en
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/discwizard
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/

Compatibility:
http://kb.acronis.com/content/3838
http://kb.acronis.com/content/1689

 

Thanks for that info xygor. My dad used to keep his apps up-to-date, so I imagine it's whatever version was current in Spring of '08.

I really don't know the manufacturer of my Toshiba laptop's hard drive (probably Toshiba), but I don't mind buying ATI Home 2010 as I get a great discount at the student store ...or do you think I'd stand a better chance recovering my file with a 2009 version?

 

try mounting the image using whatever version u have now. Assuming you have acronis installed on your pc. just plug in the external drive and browse to the image file location. right click the file and select "mount". then just follow the steps on the screen. this will not do a restore. all it does is mount the image as a virtual drive that shows up in "My Computer". You can browse the files on the image as though it was a secondary hard drive installed in your pc. Good luck!

 

As an even simpler alternative to mounting the image, you could use ATI to explore it and when you find your file, just drag it to your desktop (or wherever).

Good luck!