Pre-sales questions

I've heard that:

1. True Image does not record DVDs. Is that so and, if so, when will True Image be able to record DVDs?

Related question would be :Can True Image restore files from DVDs?

2. The created disaster recovery CD is a Linux OS. Howcan one create a disaster recovery CD that corresponds to an installed OS, e.g., Windows 2000 or Windows XP?

3. Accoring to Page 18 of the True Image manual.

"When Acronis Startup Recovery Manager is activated it overwrites the Master Boot Record
(MBR) with its own boot code. If you have any third party boot managers installed, then you
will have to reactivate them after activating the Startup Recovery Manager. For Linux loaders
(e.g. LiLo and GRUB) you might consider installing them to a Linux root (or boot) partition
boot record instead of MBR before activating Acronis Startup Recovery Manager."

How can one prevent the MBR from being overwritten?
It makes no sense for a backup program to overwrite the native OS' MBR

After posting the above, I noticed the wish-list thread anf began to peruse that thread, which raised the following questions:

4. Does True Image support SATA drives?

5. The wish-list has a a number of postings that indicate that a bootable CD is not created by True Image. Yet the True Image manual states that bootable CDs can be created. Which is correct?

I would suggest that the wish-list be cleaned up to eliminate obsolete posts.

 

Hello Howard,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

1. Acronis True Image doesn't burn images to DVD directly. However if you have third-party DVD burning software you will be able to burn images to DVDs. Please see Acronis article concerning DVD burning for more details. Acronis True Image is able to restore images from DVDs even in stand-alone mode.

2. Acronis Bootable CD is not system-specific so there is no need for it to correspond to particular operating system. Even if you have no operating system on your computer you will be able to boot from Acronis Bootable CD.

3. If you do not activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager the MBR will remain untouched.

4. Acronis True Image does work with any hard drives under Windows, providing Windows can work with them; it does support all SATA disks and most of SATA controllers in stand-alone mode. If you are not sure whether this software works on your particular system you may download free trial version of it from our site, create Acronis Bootable CD and see how it works.

5. Acronis True Image does create special Acronis Rescue Media. The problems with this option may arise on a particular computer but usually these can be easily overcome.

I am afraid I cannot clean the wish-list because it would be not ethical. We delete only those posts that violate Forum rules. However, the visitor can delete the wish him/herself if it was implemented.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

I may be able to answer some of your questions with my own positive experiences:

I have used True Image for several years on Dell, Gateway, and home-built, with 98 through XP.

I am currently using TI8 build 800 on XP home with SP-2. It has saved me on several occassions.

I did have a little trouble when I first build this PC, since it has SATA hard drives on an ASUS P4S8X motherboard, and at that time (May 2003) TI7 did not support my particular brand of SATA controller. (Note that it is the disk controller, not the disk, for which one need to have drivers.) I contacted Acronis support and they woked with me over the course of a few days to diagnose the problem, then told me that they were working on a LINUX-based driver for my controller. A few months later TI7 worked for me. Remember, SATA was very new at that time, whereas now TI8 comes with support for many SATA contorllers. I contrast this experience to the one I had at the same time with Symantec support, since GHOST 2003 would also not see my hard drives, at least not all partitions. Symantec bluntly told me that GHOST did not support RAID, or SATA (period, end of story, go away, do not bother us).

My experiences with True Image are that if you let it create a bootable CD with a complete set of drivers (default), boot from it, and see the hard drives, then everthing will work as expected. If you do not see the hard drives from the bootable CD, then contact Acronis support and they will work with you. Sometimes it is as simple as setting a few easy options in the LINUX kernel. If you do not know LINUX, do not worry, they will give detailed instructions.

I have never attempted to write directly to DVD, since my DVD writer is far slower than my USB 2.0 external hard drive. I do occassional copy an image set to DVD. I have found that one must set the span size in TI to less than 4 Gig, which appears to be a limitation of the DVD file system. 4 Gig is also the limitation on file size in FAT32; NTFS as no pracical limit. I usually use a span of 650Meg, which gives me the option of copying to CD or DVD. The time to make an image seems independent of span size, unless you accidently set the span to be very small (e.g., I once typed 2000 instead of 2000MB, and got infinite files of 2K each.)

As for the bootable CD being LINUX, from a user viewpoint it feels the same as the windows interface, it works, and thus the details are unimportant to me. Further, LINUX is open source (free) so Acronis legally provide it to the user. If they built a bootable CD based on XP or 2000, then there would be a potential copywrite conflict with Microsoft.

As for your last question, True Image definitely can create a bootable CD, and that is far superior to a set of floppy disks, which it can also create. The only problem I have had creating bootable CDs are on computers that have autorun enabled for the CD writer drive. On such PCs I have learned NOT to close the tray after inserting a blank CD-R. Instead, just let TI8 close it after pressing the final proceed button. If autorun is off, then I can manually close the tray, if I choose to do so. Since I use an external CD burner, I have found that I need to connect it to the PC, before starting TI8 and requesting a bootable CD.

 

This was not clear from statements in the wish list.

I understood that.

My concern is that if something goes awry during the boot, I may have to go back to my *ix daze to fix things. I'd rather just suffer the slings and arrows of whatever OS I'm using than have to use another OS, especially an unfamiliar OS during the critical stage of a system restore.

What if you run Acronis Startup Recovery Manager directly from the Acronis Source CD? Does it still munge the MBR?

By itself, this is reason enough to cleanup the wish list.

There are a number of postings requesting SATA support, whuch led me to believe that SATA was not supported.

Again, there were missstatments, or I misunderstood, the wish list.

What is needed is a moderated wish list that summarizes what has been requested and what requests have been fulfilled or are have plans in the works.

As currently structured the wish list topic is confusing as it appears to request items that are already implemented.

 

Hello Howard,

As concerns Acronis Bootable CD, please note that it is easy to use it even if you have never seen Linux. Actually, you won't see the difference in Acronis True Image under Windows and in stand-alone mode.

The MBR is rewritten always when you activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. It cannot be avoided because this option should be written in MBR. However, it doesn't affect the ability to boot your operating system.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman