Two things Acronis needs to do to take over where PowerQuest Drive Image left off

I'm looking for someone from Acronis to post opinions in this thread:


Ever since Symantec bought, then promptly killed PowerQuest Drive Image a few years ago, I could not understand why Acronis couldn't fill the void left by Drive Image 2002.

1. I use Windows XP as most people here, but I have a multi boot that includes Windows 9x/Me.
Instead of bothering with boot Floppies/CDs and struggling to set the right boot order, I reboot from Windows XP into Windows 9x/Me in seconds and just reimage my Windows XP partition from there.

2. I quickly double click on Drive Image 2002 > Restore Image > Finish.

THAT'S IT!


So:
1. Drive Imaging is a different kind of software, it needs to be supported by previous versions of Windows not because we use them but so that we can image newer Windows versions FROM THEM.

How hard is it to include basic image save/restore from Windows 9x/Me?


2. Version 8 supports Windows 9x/Me but it cannot be used "in seconds" like Drive Image 2002.

How hard is it to
1. Set the partition to be imaged
2. Set the image file to be used in options

ONCE then simply from then on Start the program > Reimage?


Here's how & why reimaging from other operating systems is the quickest way to reimage:

When you choose which operating system should boot on your multi boot machine, boot.ini file is modified. Simply saving such modified boot.ini files, each in their own folder, gets you into other operating systems in seconds.


For example here's a pic of a how to reboot into Windows Me from XP in seconds using a shortcut to folder C:\@Me which contains a boot.ini file which sets the default operating system. So copying boot.ini to C:\ and overwriting existing boot.ini file then restarting the computer boots into Windows Me very quickly.

So it's double click on shortcut > click once on boot.ini > Copy > Up > Paste > Yes

and then ALL YOU NEED is Drive Image software that can Start > Reimage and you can reimage your Windows XP in two minutes or less, I mean you could say it's faster to do that then to diagnose what's wrong with your Windows XP .

 

Well that's not really true. PowerQuest released Drive Image 7 as the successor to Drive Image 2002. Symantec renamed Drive Image 7 as Ghost 9.

Acronis True Image has hot imaging which is "slowly" making the DOS programs like Drive Image 2002 less popular.

 

Windows 98 isn't supported by even Microsoft anymore. If anyone is still Windows 98, I really recommend them to move on to XP. It's a much better OS than 98. The NTFS filing structure is more secure, and stable.

I do admit that Acronis is on the verge of being the industry leader in Drive Imaging, but however; there are a couple of things they need to hammer out first. The biggest problem of course...is repairing major bugs.

 

Hello c627627,

Have you got a problem with using a version of one of the Acronis True Image products ? If you have this is the proper forum for help and support.

What exactly is the purpose of your post ? If it does not concern advice, problem solving or hand holding through some aspects of True Image I expect a moderator will be along soon to kick this thread into touch.

Xpilot

 

Yes, DI2002 could make an image of your XP disk this way since it is now seen as a data disk rather than a system disk. However, people using this method have to have a license for Win9x/ME and that's the rub. Don't think MS will condone a company like Acronis distributing it to people who don't have it. That is the reason the BartPE plugin is distributed but you build your own bootable BartPE environment using your Windows XP installation disk to build it.

Now every user will have a multi-boot system, easy for you but not for a lot of people. I personally don't want one.

Acronis' technology lets you create images while working in Windows. It's Achilles heal is the Linux recovery environment which I am sure we are blessed with because it can be provided with little or no licensing fees.

 

Let's say I wish to reimage my Windows XP partition from my Windows Vista partition:

Why can't I set this process in options ONCE, and then simply use a two click process: Start the program > Reimage

That's my most important question for Acronis developers.


As for the other question, the big picture is: I don't wish to see Windows XP compatibility killed just like Windows 9x/Me compatibility was. I'm not sure what you mean by "license" as companies still release software as Windows 9x through XP compatible today.

So all right, Acronis doesn't have to have full program support for earlier versions of Windows but instead of stopping the installation process when earlier Windows version is detected, why doesn't it install just the basic save/restore program?


Kind of like Drive Image 2002 floppy, it has a nice graphic interface and with 1 MB of code it saves and restores partitions.

 

I don't use it but see if Schedule Task will do what you want. You can create a backup task and run it when you want to manually.

I misunderstood your Win9X/ME stuff, I thought you were advocating using it as a recovery environment. Win9X/ME is a dead environment; if you are a developer you don't want to have to worry about compatibility ad infinitum. Yes, they could give you the boot disk to save and restore but the better solution is to use an older version that matches the old OS. The basic Windows Save/Restore program relies on tight links to the OS to be able to hot image.

You could install TI10 on a newer machine, create the boot disk, remove TI from the newer machine, and use the disk on a Win9X machine. Sooner or later the obsolete hardware will probably get you.

 

See, you can't because version 8 Acronis image files are not compatible with version 9 and above image files .

Either way, Windows 9x/Me was just used as an example. The entire image file incompatibility between older & newer True Image programs effectively kept many people away from Acronis but now we have a new operating system coming up and Windows XP will be the old one.


So:
We should be able to start True Image and with one or two clicks image a specific partition from a specific image file.

Also, not dropping Windows XP support of future versions is what this is really about.


Selecting all the options all the time, each & every time you image shouldn't be done through some sort of a Scheduled Task when the program could simply retain the settings used previously, just like Drive Image 2002 does.

 

Who says TI8 image files are incompatible with TI9 and presumably TI10. The file formats of TI8 and TI9 up to build 3567 are the same and TI9 can read them just fine. At build 3567 the engine and image file format changed. However that and subsequent builds could still read the old TI8 and TI9 formats and I presume TI10 can too since there has been no mention of format change or problems. In other words, it is backwards compatible.

I don't know why you seem to think XP support is about to be dropped. Acronis just dropped W98 support in this release so it doesn't look like they are in a rush to do so. W2K is still supported. Maybe you'd like some DOS 6.3 support too (which it will do via the Recovery CD which is the TI equivalent of the DI2002 boot floppies)?

I also don't see why you make such a big deal out of doing an image with a couple of clicks. If you run through the create wizard all of the previous selections are there except for perhaps the filename. So it takes a few clicks to start a task that is likely to run over 5 minutes or more.

 

When I tried True Image Home 9.0, it could not read image files made with Acronis True Image 8.0 and then I thought I also read that this was because version 9 was incompatible with version 8 files.

In other words, files could be read with version 8 but not with version 9 on my Windows XP system.


To tell you the truth, it's just as well that version 10 dropped support for earlier versions of Windows because I could only get version 9 to work under Windows XP anyway.



But let's say this discussion is about Windows XP/Vista now because we'll go on a tangent about old things that are done & gone:


Speed is important because Windows is and will be very buggy. So when it's starts acting up, I reimage in two minutes using Drive Image 2002 and would like to do the same with Acronis software.

Once again:

Rebooting to another operating system on the same machine is the quickest way to reimage another OS partition, right?

Then what happens:

Option a: Drive Image 2002 > Restore > Finish
and I'm back into fresh Windows XP in two minutes.

or

Option b:

01. True Image >
02. Restore Image >
03. Next
04. Browse & Browse & Browse & Browse to *.tib files
05. Next
06. Verify? Yes or No?
07. Next
08. Select partition to restore
09. Next
10. Select destination partition
11. Next
12. Wait for dismount messages
13. Select Restore partition type

14. Next
15. Select a file system
16. Next
17. Specify size and location

18. Next
19. Please choose drive letter for restored partition
20. Next
21. Check File system Yes or No?
22. Next
23. You can restore another partition or hard disk drive from the image archive. Do you want to choose another partition or hard disk drive?

WHAT?! At this 23rd step, anyone who has successfully used Drive Image 2002 would ask themselves why bother with Acronis? But all right:

24. Next
25. Acronis True Image is ready to proceed with restoring your data from the image archive.

Proceed!

Maybe Im missing something here, 25 steps each & every time?

Why not do this once, then Start > Restore > Proceed.

 

Since this seems to be a "Drive Image" thread I'll take it out of the Acronis support forum now.

 

Powerquest Drive Image 2002 was & still is a classic. I use drive image all the time.
I simply select the image i want to restore from within win xp & it does the rest.
Thats why i can never get used to acronis true image & having to keep selecting the
options over & over.It gets on my wick. I do not know if Drive image will work with vista but if it can
then i will be so happy. Long live drive image 2002

 

Now about Acronis True Image.

I first found True image about 7 years ago at that time not to many people had heard of it. True image was the very first disk image software i found that could backup windows without the need to reboot !!!.powerquest came along
much later
True image was the very first disk image software i found that could mount the image to a virtual disk!!! no more messing around with an Image Explorer.extracting the files. just mount the image then copy and paste.!!!
True image was the first i found that would let me resize the partition
before i restored it. Others needed another app for that.!!
Added to that the option to recover the system by pressing F11 on
the keyboard made this one "special" It's no Wonder that many now
regard Acronis True Image as the #1 disk image software.
Acronis Were Bold to give their software away as a gift, while the others
held on to there's like grim death.
I congratulate Acronis For the remarkable achievements made with True image.