this is my first attempt ever to do any ....

Ok so ive now got my brand new Saegate external HDD,
Ive just got my copy of Acronis True image 10 and ive read through
The guides and made an Acronis Bootable Rescue CD.

On my computer it has 3 partitions..

C FAT32 used 17.1GB
Free 61.3GB

D NTFS used 2.21GB
Free 73.2GB

E NTFS used 2.30GB
Free 76.5GB

‘C’ is used for the O/S and applications
‘D’ is used for some past back up items ( old )
‘E’ is used for some Games ( old )

So I would now like to Create an exact copy ‘ C ‘
Ive just noticed that my new Seagate HDD is formatted
In NTFS, and my ‘ C’ drive on the computer is FAT32
Is there any thing I have to do before I make the image copy..?

Un related to my back up attempt the items on both
D & E I can do with out ..? any ideas please
And yes this is my first attempt ever to do any
Sort of backing up …

Thanks

 

1. dont use the secure zone.
2. keep your system partition small (so you can back it up quickly and restore quickly) I would try and keep the total use size to less than 20gb (but preferably less than 9gb) you should only keep the important programs you use everyday there.
3. only do "image" backups of your system partition (they will be automatically bootable ) no need to check the box to backup the mbr. No need to do clones.
4. I only do image backups once a week and don't bother with the incremental backups.
5. When you restore to a new hard drive, make sure that the partition your restoring to is at least 1gb larger than the image partition. Otherwise you might have drive letter change problems. (windows xp).
6. If your OS is windows xp, get yourself a program that can change drive letters on a non-booting hard drive. Eventually you will encounter that problem.
7. remember the larger your system partition, the more likely you'll have problems during the backup and restoration with the computer taking too long or freezing up.


my system windows xp
hard drive 120gb partition 1 C:20gb ntfs system (8gb use)
partition 2 E: data/ programs 100gb ntfs
system partition takes me 7 minutes to backup.
acronis true image 9.0 , paragon justboot corrector (to change drive letters)
With the above configurations and programs I can have a new hard drive installed/restored and running in less than 30 minutes.

 

(1) why FAT32. Personally I would re-install with NTFS or as a second best convert to NTFS
(2) where is your data - my docs etc ? If not on D or E I would move my docs to D to reduce the size of C and to allow a restore of C without loosing
recent data.
(3) agree with jonyjoe81 don't use secure zone. In fact I would argue that you should just make full images and forget any other options available.
(4) you can if you want make other images of D and E to be stored on other drives as long term compressed back up. I prefer making images to traditional backup programs - but others will disagree.

 

Just a few pointers to avoid future problems and get you going.

Give meaningfull names to all your drive partitions including your external drive. This is to avoid any possible confusion when in the Acronis recovery environment.
I suggest that the first backup image should be of the whole of your internal hard drive. Then if there were a problem you could easily get back to square one.
Consider using one of your existing partitions on your HDD for data. To facilitate this My Documents, Emails and other items such as My Pictures could be moved out of the C partition. This would leave C for the OS and applications only with data being on say D. One would use normal Windows tools to do this. There is however no rush to do this as your volumes are still quite small and backups and restores of whole drives would be manageable.
There is no problem or conflict in having C using FAT 32 while the ext.drive uses NTFS. However you might consider converting C to NTFS as this is generally accepted to be a better and more robust file system. You should make your first image before doing the conversion to be on the safe side.

I have been running XP since it first went public and True Image for nearly as long. I also use many partitions and multiple drives. I have never had to change any drive letters on any of them so I do not see the same sort of problems that Joneyjoe81 has encountered.

 

Hi .. Thanks to all for the reply's ... I have a few more questions I hope you can help with ..

If I make an '' image '' backup on a routine basis, is the image stored on the external HDD, re written over in the same position every time..?

as I have 3 partitions on my computer HDD, does that mean I have to make 3 new folders on my new external HDD ..?

The 3 partitions on my computer are as follows...

''C'' .. http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j307/mypenry/ScreenShot1DriveC.jpg

'' D'' http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j307/mypenry/screenShotDriveD.jpg

''E'' http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j307/mypenry/ScreenShotdriveE.jpg

Looking at my computer partitions , does it look like I would benefit by moving
any thing , from where to where ..? and the best way to move some thing..?

as far as I can tell every thing on D & E I can do with out ...

as you can see all this is new to me..

Thanks ... Mypenry

 

In simple terms, an Image is simply a compressed file, similar to a .zip file, except that True Image uses the .tib extension. So if you want to keep previous Images, just name the new image with a name that isn't one of the previous names and they will all co-exist with each other. And you don't even have to put each Image in a separate folder.

 

Thanks for your reply, if I set the Acronis Task Scheduling
to say Creating a Full Backup Image every week, would this
Full Backup Image be automatically written over / on top of the
same external HDD position every time..? or does it
make a completely new image in a new position
each time the shedular is run ..

also ....


Ive made my first Acronis bootable rescue CD
( but not yet made my first '' image '' back up )
is there any way I can try the rescue CD ,
just to make sure it works OK , rather finding
it does not work when I really need it to work ..?

also ..

ive seen this comment ,but don't really understand it....

You have also tested your external hard drive and know that it works on your computer and have setup folders on your external hard drive.

hence my question about setting up new folders on my new external HDD

...........?

Many Thanks ... Mypenry

 

Hello mypenry,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

If you set a task to create a full image to a folder, it will indeed be overwritten every time. However, you can create an Acronis Backup Location instead on your backup drive, which will store several latest backups (you will set the desired number, total size and time stored of images). Please see chapter 7 "Backup location management" of the respective User's Guide for detailed instructions.

You can test your Acronis Bootable Rescue Media by rebooting your computer, setting the boot order in BIOS to boot from CD drive first and booting from Acronis Bootable Rescue Media.

Could you please clarify, what context did you see that comment in?

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

Hi, Many Thanks for your reply and advice, ive now read the users guide
and its made things clearer, my original confusion came from a part of an article
on the internet about Acronis ( Using AcronisTrue Image 10 Home)
which recommends...

Creating External Hard Drive Folders

Your external hard drive should be partitioned and formatted with one large backup partition. Most external hard drives that you buy today will come with one large partition on them and that partition is formatted as FAT32. This permits the external hard drive to be used on all Windows operating systems. If you format it only with NTFS, then you can only attach it to a WinNT/2K/XP/Vista system. It will not work on Win98/Me systems. In this large backup partition, I would create a folder for each of the hard drive partitions that you will be backing up to this external hard drive. So, if your computer has two partitions on it, I would create a separate folder for each of these two partitions. If you have another computer with three partitions that you plan on backing up to the same external hard drive, you should create three more folders on the external hard drive for these partitions. Then, you should save your image files from each of these various partitions and computers in the appropriate folders on the external hard drive. This will help to keep your image files well organized on the external hard drive.

Getting Ready to Create Backup Images

You should now have your software installed and up to date with a bootable rescue media to use in case your operating system is not usable. You have also tested your external hard drive and know that it works on your computer and have setup folders on your external hard drive. You have set your backup options to make doing backups easier. So, now we can start creating backup images of your main hard drive.

While Acronis True Image permits you to backup all of your hard drive at once, I recommend that you backup each partition on your main hard drive separately and save them in their own folders. I would suggest that you backup all of your partitions at approximately the same time and not at different times. This helps to keep your partitions in sync if you should have to restore them later. If you have one partition that only contains your data files, then you can backup that partition more frequently than the other partitions that contain your operating system and application programs.


may be I was just reading the above wrong some how ..?

Thanks ... Mypenry

 

That must be this article.

And no, you're not reading it wrong. I have to say that I disagree with the advice given in the section of the article that you posted. If you're using your external drive only with Windows XP machines then you should format the drive with NTFS. FAT32 has a 4 GB file size limit and if your image files are larger than this they will be broken up into 4 GB chunks to fit the FAT32 filesystem limitations. Besides, NTFS is a more reliable file system than FAT32. Second, I see no need for creating a separate image file for each partition on the disk. If you have a full-disk image you can choose to restore one or more partitions when you do a recovery operation. Finally, why separate folders for each image? They are separate files that can be given unique names.

To each his own, I suppose...

 

Maybe my guides listed below can be of assistance.

My own personal preferences is to store my backup in an assortment of folders.
I create a simple folder called "Acronis TI Backups"
Then, every time I perform a backup, I create a new sub-folder and the name of that sub-folder is the Date; and then assign a unique name to each backup without using spaces or periods in the backup file name.

Sample:
...Acronis TI Backups (folder name)
.......ATI-Aug 12 (sub-folder name)
..........Full-Disk-.tib (backup file name of a full disk backup of all partitions)

or
...Acronis TI Backups (folder name)
.......ATI-Aug 10 (sub-folder name)
..........C_only-.tib (backup file name of only system partition)

Remember, the .tib backup files are simply data files which can be stored in any folder of your creation.

This is one of many ways to perform such chores. Everyone has their own methods and preferences.

 

First many Thanks to all for the replys, as a Novice to Acronis TI , its great to see what options I can use , as it seem's people have diffrent ways to do the same thing, So any one here have a different approach to the ones already shown , so as I am about to attempt to make my first ever Full Backup Image your ideas and comments are Most welcome .

Thanks... Mypenry

 

This is one of the reasons I joined here, to be able to find the information I need to start using my newly aquired external hard drive and my copy of Acronis TI 10.
Hopefully I should now be able to follow the advice given here to achieve my goal