Specific Question Regarding Functionality

I have a 40Gb INTERNAL hard drive partitioned as follows:

One primary partition with o/s & programs.
Two logical drives inside one extended partition for data and other stuff.

Here's What I Would Like To Be Able To Do:

If I do a FULL backup from the PRIMARY partition on this drive, save it to an EXTERNAL USB drive, then the INTERNAL hard drive FAILS COMPLETELY (must be replaced), CAN I restore the FULL backup to a NEW internal HDD from the EXTERNAL USB drive, using a bootable CD (which I would create from Acronis True Image before the backup)

If YES, does the NEW HDD have to partitioned EXACTLY as the original

If NO, please advise a better strategy.

THANKS!

STeve

PS- I'm considering going with Version 8, rather than 9, any comments or recommendations?

 

Hello Jo6Pak,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Yes, you can perform that scenario. Using Acronis True Image you will be able to create a special bootable rescue media(CD or a pack of floppies). If your system fails you will just need to boot from the rescue media and restore the system.
When booted from the bootable media you are able to access any connected hard disks as well as a wide variety of IDE, SCSI, FireWire (IEEE-1394), USB (1.0, 1.1, 2.0) and PC card (PCMCIA) interfaces and devices, including CD-ROM, CD-R(RW), DVD, network, Iomega Zip and Jaz.

Please remember that in order to clone or migrate your Windows system to a different hardware, you should first prepare Windows using Microsoft System Preparation Tool (Sysprep). Please take a look at this FAQ.

If you restore only an image of the system partition on the another hard drive, the new partition must be the same size or larger one.

Please note that after system partition restoration to the different hard drive you need do the following (depending of the operating system you use):

- Boot the computer from Windows 95/98/ME Startup Disk and run "fdisk /mbr" command;

- Boot the computer from Windows 2000/XP Installation CD and run "fixmbr" command in Recovery Console;

Acronis True Image 9.0 has a better hardware support and includes some additional features in compare with Acronis True Image 8.0. We recommend you to download Acronis True Image 9.0 trial version at first in order to see how the program works on your computer.

Thank you.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

Thanks, but I don't use 'trial' software. Please explain your comment:

- Boot the computer from Windows XP Installation CD and run "fixmbr" command in Recovery Console

Why is that necessary and why is it not mentioned in the manual? If it is in the manual and I overlooked it, my apologies.

THANKS!

 

Hello Jo6Pak,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please be aware that when you create an image of a system partition only, it does not include MBR (Master Boot Record). If you restore that image to the new hard drive, you should fix MBR in order to boot your Windows system properly.

Please be aware that we do not guarantee the successful transferring of your operating system to a different hardware. Actually, no one can guarantee this.

Thank you.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

"Please be aware that when you create an image of a system partition only, it does not include MBR (Master Boot Record). If you restore that image to the new hard drive, you should fix MBR in order to boot your Windows system properly."

Even if it is the partition with the system files on it (primary)

"Please be aware that we do not guarantee the successful transferring of your operating system to a different hardware."

But, but, but...I thought that was the whole PURPOSE of this software

Pardon me for saying so, but this entire application appears to require way too many work-arounds...

 

That's because the MBR isn't actually in the system partition, but is on the disk before the beginning of the first partition. Because of this, the MBR is only included in an image if you backup the entire disk i.e. you must check the box beside the disk name.

You will not have any trouble restoring to a new disk drive. This disclaimer from Acronis isn't referring to a new disk drive being installed in the system which was originally imaged, but to a different computer altogether with (probably) a different motherboard, controllers etc.

 

Makes sense, thanks for clearing that up!

 

The first time you use it, whatever it is, it's a trial. ;-)

The trial version of TI is the some prog as the one you buy. When you buy it you get a key that unlocks it past a certain time limit.

sh

 

Right, but from what I've been reading here, I think I'll go with Version 8, if anything...

 

That's not quite correct. The current True Image trial versions have slightly reduced functionality and cannot be 'unlocked'. You need to separately install the full version.