Acronis True Image users with/without problems

I have TI 8 and cannot get it work from booting from the CD. TI is fine if I just want to copy files from the image on my external drive but other than that, it doesn't work. I go to the TI forum and see post after post of one problem after another. What is the point in TI when it is so difficult to use and has problem after problem? I get really tired too of those who are lucky enough to have had no problems protesting to those who have problems that they must be in a tiny minority, ignorant, etc. We are the majority. TI doesn't work for the majority. But then neither does any imaging IMO. What I have learned is never put anything of any importance on a computer because one day you will lose everything and nothing will prevent that from happening.

 

Fair enough. I get tired of those unlucky enough not to be able to get TI to work protesting about how bad the software is. It couldn't be a software or hardware conflict. It couldn't be that the system was due for a reinstall. No the assumption always is that the product is at fault.

Not sure how you manage to conclude that "We are the majority" though. Perhaps the others will be voting later ?

 

Hello Mele20,

It is the very nature of any support forum that the majority of people posting in them are experiencing problems of one sort or another. Why else would they be visiting a support forum in the first place? Clearly, what you see in the TI forum is not representative of the overall picture.

Of those users that do visit these Wilders Security forums and have voted in this poll, 72% of non-Vista TI users have reported that they have no problems against 23% that do. Now, the last time I attended a maths class, 72% percent represented a majority.

As for your Acronis Rescue CD problem, you have already been advised in the TI forum that TI 8.0 is two generations behind the current version (TI 10.0 Home) and is no longer supported. It is therefore unrealistic to expect that the Linux device drivers on the TI 8.0 rescue CD will support each and every variation of newer hardware. Frankly, without the ability to boot into the Linux based rescue environment, you are in for a hard time if you ever need to recover your system in the event of a major disaster. Therefore, if you haven't already done so, you should download the free trial version of TI 10.0 and see how that performs on your hardware.

Regards

 

Tip: Those out there running old ATI versions (or even older builds of the current version!) would be well advised to download the latest Acronis drivers. Just unpack the archive and install the MSI. That will often solve quite a few ATI problems.

 

Thanks Mod.

Well then to keep true to topic theres nothing useful i can offer since i will never touch True Image again but if it's any consolation i don't rudely or otherwise totally discount it's usefulness for those who do get the thing to finish up what it's supposed to be designed to accomplish in the first place without error or issue.

Like many others before AND after me, i eventually always got it to image finally, but restoring is where i discovered it suffered from some critical limitations IMO, and definitely did not produce an expected outcome on my machines starting from several versions back even though that's been a long while now.

Re: Acronis True Image users with/without problems

 

If you're having problems or going to be updating to newer hardware, new drivers can be a big help. If ATI works fine and you plan on using your existing hardware for the forseeable future, there's no reason to get new drivers. Newer isn't always better. Sometimes it's not even as good as what you had previously. For me ATI 8 has always worked, but if I update the drivers, there's no guarantee that it'll continue to work that well. Users might want to back up the existing drivers before installing the new ones, just in case they don't work as well with your system.

This is normal for most any kind of software. Some users swear by a product while others swear at it. If one app worked perfectly for everyone, there'd be no need for competing products. The only thing that's "lucky" is finding a product that both suits the user and works well with their hardware/software on the first try.
Rick

 

Ive used ati 8 to 10 without problems.

 

23% having problems would be unacceptable to anyone considering this software. That means that about 1 out of 4 have problems. If you were running this company, would that be acceptable to you?

 

Hello silver0066,

If those users visiting a Support Forum constituted the product's total world-wide user base then, no, of course that wouldn't be acceptable. However, what you see in the Acronis TI forum isn't the overall picture as most visitors will be looking for additional advice/clarification or a solution to a particular problem (often easily resolved). Very rarely will you see happy chappies posting in an Official Support Forum.

Regards

Menorcaman

 

Hello Menoracaman,

All you have to do is compare the Acronis forums with any other forum on Wilder's, or for that matter anywhere, and you will see the difference in the amount of problems encountered.

I also have had dealings with their support department. I have spent hours getting them files that they requested with no response from them. They have the worst support that I have experienced in 25 years in the business.

 

With respect, I don't thinks that's a valid comparison. You need to take into account the complexity of the software (VERY hardware dependent), the profile of a typical True Image Home user, the popularity of the software and the fact that Wilders Security hosts the Official Acronis Support Forum.

Anyway, we clearly have differing views so let's just agree to disagree and move on.

Regards

 

It has always amazed me just how good Acronis is at "testing" hardware. Memory that is not perfect will soon be exposed. Bad USB cables which work with less demanding software may not be good enough for Acronis. Anyone wanting to stress test a hard drive could do worse than make a large image with a reasonable amount of compression - just watch the hard drive temperatures rise.

 

You touch on a very important point Menorcaman regarding the mention of complexity. Imaging apps unlike any others i've seen have a greater degree of programming complications to deal with then any others.

Everyone is seen this in every Imaging App at some point. It might be unfair to single out Acronis but the reason for that is obviously most users are unaware of the complexities that these type of duplication programs are confronted with, and for that i blame Microsoft more than the vendors.

All i can determine from all this is that Imaging vendors have an enormous job to sort thru endless code structures (many undocumented) fashioned by $M in the first place for preventing duplications of their operating systems. I might be wrong but it looks from this end like they must thru trial and error compile various workarounds just to piece something useful enough for users to turn to in order to restore the whole system and not just sections here and there.

In comparison, rollback apps likely pattern their creations in a manner like a spinoff of System Restore which deals with system/program files and the like whereas an imaging app must drive down to the the very last detail of sectors themselves one at at a time and in a way that they can be preserved enough to return them to their former state without threat of corruption. On the surface, to us users, it can appear from our experiences with other softwares that imaging should be but a simple matter in like manner, but in actual practice for the vendors an image must match exactly after removing the images/files/settings etc. plus the hardware merging has to blend along with them too on the restore process or else $M system makes some rejection happen that can throw the strategy of the imaging program into confusion.

I'm no coder but i do recognize what their up against in a field as sensitive as imaging an entire system.

 

ATI 7 works like a charm with my 98se but I wish there was a way
to continue if I ever need to change hardware.

Just thinking about it OT - Can someone please advise, which part, or parts,
that can break down irretrievably on a computer would stop me being
able to Restore my ATI Image to THAT machine ?

Could it only be a Motherboard breakdown that would constitute a major hardware change that an existing image could not overcome ?

Regards.

 

That would be a definite problem unless you replaced the mobo with an identical one! Another potential problem (which I doubt applies to your Win98 system) could occur if restoring the image from an ATA drive to a SATA drive. Whenever there are major hardware changes between the time of image/clone creation and the time of restoration, the risk of an unsuccessful recovery increases.

From an ATI viewpoint, disk-cloning is probably a superior approach to disk-imaging for those situations. However, even cloning (with ATI) can not assure success when the HALs and boot device drivers are different between the system in which the clone was created and the new system/hardware. That's why it's always a good idea to also have a non-proprietary backup of your data/doc/photo/music files - just in case you have to reinstall your OS and apps.

 

Although a bit late, i'd like to say i am a happy user of ATI 8 which i never upgraded,(glad Herbalist thinks likewise),because ,after some initial problem with my first Image (basically leaving any USB plugged stopped the work of ATI,solved by our Global Moderator) i subsequently had no problem at all and by now i have done some ten Restore operations without a glitch in the last 3 years.

Apart from using ATI 8 i also UDF format DVD+RWs and only make full restoring-imaging, no incremental, obeying the 'keep it simple' principle.

My only foreseeable problem is i went from normal compression to High and now to Max in order to keep the thing to just 1 DVD. Soon the time will come when i wont be able to delete any more items in my HD and,notwithstanding i can use two pcs for storage, i'll either have to use an external HD,(NOT possible for the USB issue) or use two DVD+RWs ,which is something i'd rather avoid for both the KISS principle and the 'dont annoy me' one.
That's why i followed with great interest this thread, hoping to understand better what other options could give,too.

 

A late vote here from a former ATI user without problems. That is, I no longer have ATI problems since I uninstalled True Image from my computer and threw the CD into the garbage.

Yep, no problems here!

 

No problems. Used to create my own though. One big drama was when I moved a back up file to a new location in the pc. When you do a BU don't copy it or transfer it. It's fragile. If you touch it, it''ll corrupt.

Since then.. no problems.

 

Not sure why you had problems moving an image but my experience has been completely different. I have cut and past from an imternal to an external. I have burned them to DVD ....... I have defragmented images ....... no problem. Back up images are, after all, only files - no more and no less fragile than any other files.

 

I've has TI-10 for one week. I'm learning and reading the forum closely. Like all software: NOTHING IS PERFECT. That said this program appears to be user friendly and efficient. My expectations are low... and my hoes are high. I pray that I won't need to use in an emergency. (My systems HD crashed 3 weeks ago and my backupd CD's were bad! (BackUpMyPC with compression set) I came to find out that their compression was a known problem... well not to me!! Anyway, I sent HD out for Data Recovery and was happy to restore a majority of data. SOOOO... I hope that Acronis will be my salvation. I trialed Ghost, Novastor, Yosemite . Acronis impressed me oin the trials... lets hope I made the RIGHT and SAFEST decision for my business.
Here's to success!

 

Maybe he does not need "Backup your Media files". Maybe he can chose them by hand ? Maybe he has them in other locations ? Maybe he is not Microsoft centric and therefore does not use Office and Outlook ? Maybe he does not want to pay the price for updates, that fix buggy software, that he already has payed for ? At least, this is what I would think as first.

Besides, I never heard of a TIHome 9.1. Seems more he has the 9.1 Workstation, which is still the workstation version being offered by Acronis.

You go and buy a car. Right in a curve the steering wheel disconnects from the rest of a car. You crash into a tree. Answer from the car manufacturer: Okay, okay, no problem. We have corrected that issue and you can have the new revision of our car for 40% off (the same 40% off one would get, if he would update regulary, without having a broken car).

C'mon. Let's get serious. This is serious software. Backup software. Commercial, industrial grade (at least one should think they use the same engine for their coorporate offers as well).

 

Huh?

 

only used ATI 10 once,... worked a charm

 

Once!, why not twice or 365 times?