Acronis version and MBR

A request for your insight/knowledge.

I currently use Acronis TrueImage version 8. I have a computer that's a bit more than 4 years old, I believe Acronis 8 came out at the same time.

I use Acronis to make a full image of the harddisk, to an external removable harddisk (USB connection), and restore it when I want to. (For restoring I use the bootable Acronis CD-R). That's all. No incremental upgrades or other stuff. From what I understand my harddisk has one partition and a little space left. I noticed that 'little space' when I did format my harddisk as a (one) plain NTFS partition.

I don't want to upgrade for two reasons: money, and the fact that I'm concerned that I'll run into one or more problems.

I have that BIOS error when using the bootable Acronis disk (My OS is Windows XP) as mentioned in another thread. I can work around it, although it can be annoying.

Both when making an image, and when restoring, I can click on the image I want to restore. I see a harddisk with a number, and the C: (?) drive that is selected when I just select the entire harddisk. No other partitions or space are mentioned.

Does making an image, and restoring one, include the entire MBR ? Keep in mind, I use version 8, and I understand that there is a security issue regarding the MBR.

I'm not sure about that little 'leftover' space, created when I chose the NTFS format (not the fast NTFS format). Does anyone know what it is, does it have any significance ? (A little off topic, what's the difference between the fast NTFS format, and the NTFS format?)

I may upgrade to a newer version when I buy a new computer, there are too many things that can go wrong if I upgrade my Acronis software now, I'll save you the very elaborate explanation.

 

How small is that small partition you talk about? If it is only 7.8 mb in size, that is automatically created whenever you partition your hard drive and the first partition is not an "active primary".

The only way to get rid of it is to make your first partition an active primary, then merge the 7.8 mb partition to it. But that partition won't affect anything on the hard drive, when I encounter them I always merge them with my first partition only because I want my hard drive to be "neat", I don't like unused partitions.

I've never worried too much about the MBR, I don't use version 8.0 (which from what I've read always backups and restores the MBR). If I encounter any MBR problems a Fixmbr/Fixboot will usually fix the problem. The only time I would ever restore or backup a MBR is to restore it back to the same drive it came from.

When I format my hard drives (old or new), I always use the quick NTFS method and have never had any problems. The quick method just erases the pointers to all the data on the hard drive "just like when you delete a file, the file is still there but the space is noted as available for writing", the slow method overwrites all the data.

 

How do I deal (merge, make active partition and such) with partitions under Windows XP Home Edition ? Does WinXP have any commands ?

I'm reluctant to download software.

 

With TI 8, if you select the entire hard drive when making a backup image, the MBR will be included in the image. That means you want to check the box for the drive and not just the box next to C:. In later versions, the MBR appears separately.

When you restore the entire drive, not just the C: partition, the MBR will be written to the hard drive wit TI 8. Of course, if the hard drive is the one you have been using, the MBR already exists, so you can pick just the C: partition and have a successful, bootable restore. On a new, bare hard drive (or if the MBR is damaged) select the entire drive.

When a drive is formatted, there is often a few MB left unused/unallocated because of boundary issues. Just ignore this. It's not a significant space. 7.8MB is 0.02% of a 40 GB drive. Who cares.

However, if this is a partition (not unallocated space) it is probably a diagnostic partition. Dell does this on their hard drives. Pressing Crtl-F11 when booting lets you access the diagnostics. In this case, you want to select the entire drive when you make backup images so that you can restore that diagnostic partition if you need to on a new drive.

 

Thank you.