SnapDeploy: Build 1277 can only select whole PC instead of partitions.

Why is it only possible to select all te partition when I make a master image. Why isn't it possible to select only the C partition to image.

Could you please alter this option in next builds...

Thanx in Advance
Jeremy Otten
Netherlands

 

Hello Jeremy,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Complete System Deployment Software.

The point is that only the image of the entire hard drive contains MBR, therefore restoring the image of the individual system partition will most likely cause boot problems and require fix MBR operation. Moreover, having only the image of the separate system partition makes bare-metal restore (when the destination hard drive is not formatted and has no partitions) impossible, which contradicts with the main purpose of using Acronis Snap Deploy. Thus this option most likely will not be implemented in the future builds of Acronis Snap Deploy.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Only the entire image contains the MBR? Since when? If the MBR is on C: then how does that affect the D: partition? It does not in most cases!

c:\windows
c:\program files


d:\documents and settings
d:\documents and settings\favorites
d:\documents and settings\my documents
etc...

We (and several other companies) have multi-parition images. Partition 1 (C) is used for the OS and partition 2 (D) is used for Data storage. If the OS becomes corrupt, we can simply overwrite the C: partition only and avoid having to backup data, image, and then restore it (which actually makes mass migrations take up to about 80% longer).

Symantec Ghost is our current solution and has been for almost 9 years. We use PXE and RIS now to deploy our images during our mass migrations. 600 PCs, 10 techs, 3 days...and it works wonderfully. We thought it would be a good idea to check out your deployment package as well.

I think I'm speaking for several others out there when I say that we need to be able to selectively choose and restore a single partition, multiple partitions, and entire drives.

 

First of all, the MBR is not on C:. It resides on the first sector of the hard drive, outside of the partition structure. While the flexibility you refer to is desirable, Alexey is right - to deploy only a single partition is not in keeping with the current purpose of this particular software, which is to deploy images, not restore partitions.

Perhaps in the future, Acronis will combine the capabilities of their software to allow restoring the system partition remotely.