Is it right to call TI True Image?

Should Acronis True Image really be called that? I ask this question as my understanding of TI is that the backup image it makes of a HD is in fact a file copy and not a sector by sector exact image? Another question slightly off topic - I have Nero 7 on my Desktop which has an application for backing up either files or the entire HD. Has anyone used this application, or know anything about it, and how does it differ if indeed it does differ from TI?

 

A typical restored image is not an "exact clone" of the source. The sector-by-sector feature where the entire partition is copied is an exact clone.

In practical terms, does it really matter. You restore your disk and get all of your data and functionality back. Maybe if you spent a bunch of time optimizing it, you might wish it was in the original state but most people could care less and there is a good chance the layout might be better than when it was imaged.

I'll likely get flack for this but I'm amused by the people who spend hours fooling with their systems to save probably a couple of minutes per day.

 

TI 11 does have an option to do a sector-by-sector backup, if that is what you want.
From p28 of the user guide:

By default the program copies only the hard disk sectors that contain data. However, sometimes it might be useful to make a full sector-by-sector backup. For example, perhaps you deleted some files by mistake and want to make a disk image before trying to undelete them because sometimes un-deleting may create havoc in the file system. To make a sector-by-sector backup, check the Create an image using the sector-by-sector approach box. Please note that this mode increases processing time and usually results in a larger image file because it copies used and unused hard disk sectors.

 

Yes I know all about sector by sector option though I don't think this is included in TI 10. I was simply making the observation is the title of the product not quite in keeping with what it actually does?

I notice no one seems to have any experience of Nero 7 imaging backup?

 

Nero is running under Windows.
Under Windows it is tricky to make an image/backup from the bootpartition where Win is running.

I have heard about two companies who can cope with it:
- TrueImage (Acronis)
- Ghost (Symantec)

From Nero I've never heard...

Is this an evidence for you?

 

I didn't think Nero did an image in the sense that TI and Ghost do. It does make backups but I don't think it captures open files. I may be wrong since I have never tried it.

If it doesn't do images in the sense that TI and Ghost do it is also very unlikely your backup speeds will be anything like >1GB/min. Even TI's files and folders backup is slower than its imaging because it uses the file system.

 

There are instructions for making a boot disc for Nero and the GUI looks very very similar to Acronis - enclosed is a brief discription of the types of backup jobs - sounds pretty familiar to me!

 

Hi,
I personnally tried to make a system backup with Nero 7 and later with Nero 8 and I never succeeded.It does crash somewhere along the process.

On the Nero French official Forum, I was told by many that it just does not work and that no one has ever succeeded.

 

Should Nero be called Nero, after all, it's merely for the sake of a very bad pun? ;-)

The Nero backup program is not designed to handle system files, jsut nonsystem files. IT won't back up your entiere disk or enable you to restore a system harddrive after a crash.

Re a sector by sector exact copy, I guess the questin is "true to what?". I can't imagine why anyone would want to copy empty sectors. Also, can't see good reasons for not being able to move from one size hdisk to another -- after all, it's the logical bits that really count, not the magnetized iron dust. While most folks want a restoration's data to have perfect fidelity to the original, fidelity to the physical layout is rarely a concern. I'm sure there must be some very specialized circumstances where one would want to do that, but I doubt it's a large enough market to support a commercial program or, for that matter, vaery many practical purposes.

 

I tried Nero 8. It crashed my whole system. XP pro sp2

 

Empty sectors are useless but if I had a HD that was in poor shape I might want to make as faithful a copy of it as possible before attempting data recovery tools. If a sector-by-sector copy is made it implies that there is no interpretation and reformatting of the contents based on an interpretation of a possibly faulty structure which should result in a more faithful copy.

Naturally if you keep your archives up to date and chuck a drive that starts giving read errors then you are much less likely to get into the above (leaky) boat anyway!

 

An imaging product doesn't have to copy unused sectors to work on a sector-wise basis. Early products like DriveImage ignored unallocated sectors and throwaway OS workfiles, but faithfully restored allocated sectors to their original location.