True Image Won't Restore

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by 4ln75Z5a, Apr 7, 2009.

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  1. bbarry

    bbarry Registered Member

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    Just curious has to why Acronis must send us bootable discs or make us download later versions of the program JUST to make ATI work like it should? Why do you put a product on the market and take our money if it ain't going to work as advertised?
     
  2. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    It's because of the PITA Linux recovery environment's poor support of the numerous PC devices. I don't know how they determine which drivers get included in the initial distribution but it obviously doesn't work with everything and newer hardware is usually the bigger problem.

    The other issue is that it is very difficult to test every PC hardware configuration on the market. If that is a goal, switch to a MAC and this is one of the prime reasons why the MAC lovers get to say "they always work".

    In many cases the best Acronis can do is to respond to a reported problem with a new CD .iso and then put the fix into future versions. This certainly isn't the ideal way to do business since many people only find out there is a problem when they need to do a restore of the active partition or to a new HD and the Linux environment is required. I wish they would put in giant red letters on the box, the help file, the user-guide, this site, their site and where ever else: "You Don't Know If It Will Restore Until You Do a Test Restore with the CD!". BTW, a test restore applies to any backup program. Doing sucessful image creations and validations strictly under Windows without at least doing the same with the rescue CD does not make the grade. I can't blame people for thinking they did the right thing after all it did exactly what the term "validation" means.

    Even though I have had excellent results with my use of various TI versions as an imaging program (including a SATA LG DVD drive), I would not recommend it to any of my casual PC user friends because of the risk of the Linux recovery envronment. I can't believe that it is cheaper for Acronis to maintain this Achilles Heel than to license the use of VistaPE. The savings in support cost would at least partially offset the PE cost, the customer's would be happier, and Acronis could even charge a bit more for the product.
     
  3. bbarry

    bbarry Registered Member

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    Thanks again for a thorough explanation of what goes on in the wacky world of Acronis. Only this time I got a little confused as to whether you were fussing at the users or at Acronis (or both). IMHO, one needs only to read the postings on this site to realize that something is wrong with the product, the manner in which it is advertised, and the tech support provided.

    And while it so happens that I did just purchase an iMAC, that is not the solution to making ATI a better product.

    Which brings me to my next point. It appears that you made some very good recommendations for how Acronis could improve ATI.....and I have seen other posters do the same. Yet the problems continue......:thumbd:
     
  4. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    As you say, the recommendations have been made before, at least several versions ago but there is no indication of movement away from the Linux issue. It would be interesting to know if this is because of some dyed-in-the-wool Linux promoter in Acronis or it is strictly a bean-counter decision where they look at the very low up-front cost of Linux and then compare it with the cost of MS licensing. The other costs of supporting Linux may well not be factored into the equation. The other thing is that the financial people do not like support of any type because to them it always looks like a dead loss on the books since the revenue in-take is very low for non-maintenance contract support.

    I wasn't blaming the users of TI in my post. If anybody considers themselves a "computer person" then I do think they should know you have to test things and not assume they work. That's as far as it goes and I do blame Acronis for not being more bold about asserting the need to test since this product is marketed to people who don't know the difference between a partition and a file. In fact, a lot of computer users these days scarcely know what a file is, how to find it and anything else - it always goes to the programs default storage area so why bother. In some ways I can't argue with that since the PC is now like your automatic washing machine or car. You don't have to know the principles of fuel-injection and hydraulics to drive a car. This makes a clear statement of testing even more compelling but it can also be a shot in the foot for marketing. 'Acronis tells me to make some CD and do a test restore, whatever that is, and Product X beside it states no such requirement.'.

    I can't argue with the poor support statements but I don't think it is a totally black picture. Some people have posted great luck with it and the Live Chat method seems to be the best one and IIRC this is a fairly new initiative by Acronis. I also don't think Acronis is alone in the weak support category, I've had poor responses from vendors for products costing much more than a copy of TI.
     
  5. bbarry

    bbarry Registered Member

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    I consider myself a computer person - certainly not as knowledgeable as posters like you, Mudcrab, GroverH, et al - but I use many applications successfully, I know the difference between files and partitions, I have virtual PC's running on both of my computers, I can swap hardware inside my tower case, I know how to run two OS's in dual mode, etc.

    But let's talk about testing. I DID test ATI 10 - I used it to generate and validate backups weekly over the course of a couple of years. Never a problem, never a hiccup. If ATI was going to have trouble with my PC configuration and not work thereon, then it should have told me so during the image backup process - NOT wait until I needed to restore. And fact is, I did a successful backup/validation a week before my hard drive crashed, and the only configuration change I made was to install a new drive. And yes, the very same Seagate external drive upon which I did my backup is the very same external drive that ATI 10 would not recognize during restore. That's just crappy R&D and testing on the part of Acronis, and should not be blamed on Linux.

    So that's my problem with Acronis' way of doing business. They don't tell me that they have a problem with my configuration until it's time to do a restore. That's like Chevy telling me I better go bump something to test my airbags so that I will know they work if I ever need them.

    But I totally agree with you. Until they get it right, Acronis needs to put a warning label on their box and website, to wit: "Just because our product generates and validates an image backup doesn't imply that it will do a succesful restore on the very same computer....so users beware. And the side effects of using our product are as follows......"
     
  6. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    To be clear, did you use the TI boot CD for this or just run it in Windows? Did you do a test restore at any time before you really needed it?
     
  7. bbarry

    bbarry Registered Member

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    I ran it in Windows so that I could take advantage of the automatic scheduling feature of TI. In auto mode, I did a weekly backup to both an external drive and an internal drive on another LAN computer. Having to use the TI boot CD everytime I wanted to do a backup would sorta negate the ability to do automatic backups, wouldn't it? Or am I missing your point?

    If I hadn't wanted the auto backup feature, I would have stuck with the image backup/restore capability of Vista Ultimate and saved my money. BUT I purposely bought TI to do automatic backups.......so why are you even suggesting that I should have used the boot CD for backup/validation?

    No, I did not do a test restore before I needed it. I don't test the air bags in my Chevy truck either. I just have faith that they will work when needed....my assurance is looking down at the steering wheel and seeing the words "Air Bag" imprinted. My assurance with TI was frequently doing successful backups/validations.

    But I see now that was false assurance. You are implying that, indeed, my problems with TI were caused by the fact that I didn't do periodic test restores using the boot CD. In a similar fashion, I guess I should go into Vista and delete my boot folder and bootmgr file, just to practice reinstating them in case they ever do get deleted or corrupted. Just not my thing. I should not be faulted for not exhaustively testing TI in a restore mode. If it had been a free Beta version, maybe.

    To be clear, in my humble opinion, TI is a faulty product, it does not work as advertised, and in a critical situation it may not work at all. And if you look at many of the replies provided by Acronis Tech Support, they go something like "Send me your serial number by PM and I will send you an ISO or disc that just might work". My question is - why won't the disk I paid $49 for work?
     
  8. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    The reason that I suggest that you should do at least a create/validation with the TI boot disk is that it is not the same stuff as Windows. It does not use the same drivers or anything else much for that matter. You don't have to do this each time, numerous times or even once in a while but it should be done at least once to demonstrate the Linux stuff works on your machine. If you did something like add a PCI disk controller then you would be wise to re-do the test.

    No, I don't fault you for thinking that all was well, I blame Acronis for not making it crystal clear that a test of the Linux recovery environment should/must be done. This is also mentioned in my post above. This is the reason many people have a recovery problem even though their Windows validation was OK.

    OTOH, and maybe it's because I've worked with computers for 40+ years, I can't see why anybody would use any backup program without giving thought to "maybe we should really see if we can get the data back". I also don't use the next version of my spreadsheet program without doing a comparison of the new and previous results.
     
  9. dwalby

    dwalby Registered Member

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    BBarry,

    I understand your frustration and I'm not disagreeing with your sentiment, but the reality of this situation is this:

    If your computer encounters severe problems that cause your system environment to be corrupted, its a shitload of work to bring it back into a good state again. Acronis is one of several imaging tools available to make that process much, much easier, but its not perfect, and neither are the competitors products. But using the imaging tools available is still better than the alternative, even with their shortcomings.

    That being said, its prudent to put the tool through its paces once, just to make sure it will work as advertised. You can claim the mfr should make sure you don't actually need to do that, but that's just being naive in my opinion. There are too many variables to be able to market a perfectly reliable software product to do this job, its just not possible. So after taking the first step to purchase a product like this, the wise user will make sure it works before putting any faith whatsoever in it. That may not be totally fair, but its reality. I have a $70k car that fails more often than I think it should as well, so I don't expect perfection from a $49 s/w product either.

    And regarding a few references to Ghost in this thread, here's my 2 cents. I had used it to simply backup copy some data files, didn't even use the imaging feature. It would determine which files had changed since the last backup and only copy the changed files, which made things simple. Then I had a minor issue with my external HD (destination for the backups) that I decided to repair by reformatting the drive. Guess what, when the next Ghost backup ran it told me all the files were up to date, no need to copy anything over to the destination drive. WHAT!! It didn't even check the destination to see if the copied versions of the files were still there. It only checked its own records to see that the source files hadn't changed, and no matter what I did it refused to copy them over again to the re-formatted drive. Did a web search and found numerous complaints about this, because the same 'feature' prevents you from doing a redundant backup to two or more destination drives. So after seeing that happen, and reading a lot of bitching about Ghost on various websites I didn't even want to see what trouble the imaging feature would get me into, and I uninstalled it. It was free from Fry's on rebate anyway, so nothing lost, and I got what I paid for.
     
  10. 4ln75Z5a

    4ln75Z5a Registered Member

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    Why should I send you anything? Why not fix the problem and release it to the public? Your support is horrible, and judging by the comments made after you made your post, people agree. I'm not using TI anymore. I'm back to using Norton Ghost because at least I can count on it regardless of the platform or hardware configuration on which it's installed. I've NEVER had a problem with Ghost. Some have apparently, but I have used it on MANY MANY PCs with many configurations without ONE SINGLE ISSUE. Like I said, I work in the PC field, and I used it for years.

    I agree that if Linux is causing you this many problems to conform your software, you should switch to using a different programming language.

    Shame on you for your poor tech support. I had the same problem with Disk Director and having you to change the software to work on a SIMPLE system.

    If your software doesn't work on all systems, you should make it VERY clear in your advertisements. Something like: "This software may not work on your system."

    No thanks.
     
  11. bbarry

    bbarry Registered Member

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    Well, this dialog could go on forever, so I will concede the fact that I should have done a test restore using the TI boot CD. Even though I never got a prior warning.

    But I contend that I would not have HAD to practice a restore if Acronis had done a good job with the product they sold me, instead of expecting me to purchase a later version just to do complete the second half of the equation (the restore).

    So as regards the backup/restore capabilities of TI, I was not smart and Acronis was not honest.......
     
  12. 4ln75Z5a

    4ln75Z5a Registered Member

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    WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU DO A TEST RESTORE? What happens if the restore fails? You lose all your data as the drive is formatted and the partitions are recreated. Why would you risk losing your data by doing a test? What if the test failed? Then you lose your data. Yes, you could say the same thing would happen if your hard drive crashed, but the point is: TI promises safe and reliable backups. Testing is not only unsafe, but ridiculous. Do you know how absurd that sounds? The only way to test it is to put a new hard drive in your system (an identical drive) and run the test. That is not only time consuming but costs money. When a company promises something and you purchase their product based on that promise, you should be able to trust it.
     
  13. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    This is such a good point!

    TI installs the Linux Rescue environment on your hard drive so that you can restore the boot partition without inserting the Rescue CD. It would be a relatively simple matter to add a step to the installation or on first running the program to reboot into the Linux environment and validate a small test backup file included with the program. A failure to validate the file could produce a warning message with details on what to do next before or after rebooting into Windows to complete the installation.

    A message to perform a validation in the Linux environment after the first backup would also be simple. Under validation options, one could be to do the validation in the "rescue" environment.

    Obviously, these precautions would flag many problems for new users of TI. Now, I wonder if Acronis wants to know about these before the customer tries a restore? :oops:
     
  14. bbarry

    bbarry Registered Member

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    We are getting off subject here, but I'll bite. I have a $35k truck that has never failed me, so does that prove I know how to buy/drive vehicles and you know how to buy/test software?

    Just curious. How would you feel if the auto shop told you that the failures were due to your negligence, i.e., that you didn't drive/test your car correctly even though you followed the owner's manual? And that the ONLY way to now get your car fixed was to buy a later model costing another $70k? That's what Acronis did to me (and it looks like to other customers). And if the next image software screws me like Acronis did, I will be just as disappointed in them.
     
  15. bbarry

    bbarry Registered Member

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    Kudos, John. You obviously sense the frustration of users like me, while concurrently understanding TI well enough to know how to solve these problems BEFORE the user needs to do a critical restore.

    I've taken a pretty good beating on this thread for not understanding the short comings of Linux and not doing test restores on a periodic basis. When I bought TI, I didn't know that it was programmed in Linux, nor did I know the importance of testing, testing, testing..... I don't like doing all that software testing - that's why I don't download beta software. I wait until the product goes on the market, then I hope it will perform as advertised. I don't mind a little hiccup occassionally, but for TI to absolutely refuse to do a critical restore without a product upgrade.....not good.

    Unfortunately, I am pretty certain that Acronis Tech Support is not going to pick up on and implement your solutions. They are clueless as to what's going on out there in the real world - THEIR solution is "we will send you another CD in hopes that works".
     
  16. NBAustin

    NBAustin Registered Member

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    "True Image Won't Restore"

    No, it won't...at all. I've been screwing with this for THREE days, and it seems that the ONLY way I can get my data back is to use the safe version which will take me ANOTHER 3-4 days to restore IF it actually works.

    Even the new TIH 2009 boot disk won't work, nor does the restore in the Windows GUI work either.

    This is totally UNACCEPTABLE.

    I want my $50 back, and I don't care how long ago I bought it. It was advertised to WORK WITH VISTA AND IT DOES NOT.

    Restore does NOT WORK as advertised.
     
  17. dwalby

    dwalby Registered Member

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    The car analogy was simply to suggest that no product is without defects, regardless of price.

    I'm not defending Acronis in this discussion, they are certainly not blameless, I'm just simply making a few logical arguments about reality.

    We paid a few dollars for a convenience product that operates in a very complex environment, and is therefore prone to many different failure modes. Using the "time is money" reasoning, at the time of purchase I chose to spend a few more dollars on a new hard drive, for two reasons: 1) I was due for a bigger drive capacity anyway, and 2) I could test out Acronis on a "throwaway" disk, thereby not risking any of my original system in the process. Then I could either request my money back from Acronis because their newly purchased product failed to perform, or I'd know for sure that the product did in fact perform. Compared to the total hell I'd be facing when the feces hit the rotary device and the product didn't perform when I really needed it to, this was a little money and a little time invested for a very large amount of peace of mind. I knew in advance how risky this activity is, so I made sure I knew where I stood capability wise very early in the game. I'm generally more skeptical than others, so I understand many people would not take this extra step I chose to take and do not consider them negligent for not doing so. But I also believe that anyone who fully understands what they're up against doing a restore operation is going to be skeptical until they see the proof. So if you're savvy enough to be doing backups, you should also be savvy enough to understand how the whole process can go wrong. Also, using that same mindset, I don't use any of the Acronis automation features that seem to be bug-infested because I just don't need more of their problems to solve.

    I fully agree that Acronis should be more forthright in suggesting these potential hazards be resolved by the user ASAP after installing the product, that would be more responsible of them. While you may feel taken advantage of, or otherwise maligned by Acronis, if I understand it correctly, you were just asked to upgrade to the next version that was compatible with Vista. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me, but I think you were possibly misled about the OS compatibility of the first version you bought as well, which sucks. If you search the web for the few other imaging systems on the market, you'll find just as many disappointed users of their products as well. I will at least give Acronis credit for hosting this forum, I've learned a lot from people here, and there's a lot of quick first-hand information available here that's infinitely better than using tech support.
     
  18. bbarry

    bbarry Registered Member

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    Well, kudos to you for purchasing the extra hard drive and going through all those extra steps to ensure that you minimized the risk associated with using Acronis. But how did you have the foresight to know that the automation features were bug-infested? No one told me that.....it was not written on my box.

    And no, you did not understand me correctly. The version I purchased (TI 10) WAS advertised to work with Vista (visit their website). I was advised to upgrade simply to see if TI 2009 would do my restore, since TI 10 wouldn't. So their gimmic is....buy this version to do your backups, and then come buy an upgrade when it's time to restore. Really, I'm not so stupid as to purchase a product not advertised to work with my OS Vista.

    And no, I don't give Acronis much credit for hosting this forum, because they don't listen to nor appreciate the many frustrations of their users. Their cold and calculated response is typically "We will send you another CD to see if maybe that one will work". Why don't they just fix the CDs that they are selling for $49?

    But I certainly agree with you about the technical expertise of many members of this forum. I've already suggested that Acronis fire their R&D, testing, and tech support staffs........then hire some of the people from this forum.

    And you never did answer my question about your troublesome car. How WOULD you feel it the auto shop continually blamed you and suggested that the solution would be to fork over another $70k for an upgrade? Probably about as unhappy as I am with Acronis.
     
  19. dwalby

    dwalby Registered Member

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    I found this forum and listened to peoples complaints, just like I'm listening to yours now.


    I stand corrected, that does suck. And just to clarify, I never suggested you bought the wrong version, I thought maybe you were told a particular version would work with Vista when in fact it really didn't. That would also suck.

    My version (TI11) worked on the first try with Vista without having to buy a 2009 upgrade, so maybe its not really a gimmick, but just bad luck on your part.


    I don't work there, I don't know.


    First of all your analogy is ludicrous, so it doesn't warrant a response. But now that I think of it, they never told me that parts may fail over time, causing me to have to pay more money just to keep the car operating properly, those bastards!!! How was I to know, nobody told me that....it was not written on my owners manual.

    I'm not trying to pick a fight with you BBarry, you have a legitimate gripe, but in the big picture its a cheap product that isn't worth getting all worked up about.
     
  20. NBAustin

    NBAustin Registered Member

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    "the big picture its a cheap product that isn't worth getting all worked up about."

    No, it IS worth getting worked up over when your data has more or less been hijacked by a company that will NOT support their products properly, and don't respond to the needs of customers who have PAID MONEY for the product that does NOT work as advertised.

    YOU can do restores. Good for you. We CAN'T, and its ACRONIS' FAULT.
     
  21. bbarry

    bbarry Registered Member

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    That's another mistake I made, not finding this forum in time. But I went a couple of years doing two weekly backups and validations.......each ending with the message "completed successfully". So I had no reason to suspect that I needed to seek out a forum for help with my Acronis product. In fact, at that point I would have rated TI 10 as a 10. Lesson learned.......

    And I don't consider us fighting. You have your opinion and I have mine. But you obviously have a much better approach to and understanding of image backups and restores than I do.
     
  22. NBAustin

    NBAustin Registered Member

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    "But I went a couple of years doing two weekly backups and validations.......each ending with the message "completed successfully". So I had no reason to suspect ...."

    Same here.

    REPUTABLE software companies will release updates to older versions to comply with new OS, hardware...etc, and not just stop supporting a product without warning which is exactly what has happened in my case with TIH 10.

    Its bad business, its not right, and Acronis should be held responsible and made to make things right.
     
  23. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    You might appreciate this approach.

    Download and install the free TI 2009 Trial version and create the Rescue CD. I suggest that it would be best to do this on a machine that can be easily restored or is just for testing because in some cases uninstalling the TI 2009 Trial can be difficult.

    Once you have the TI 2009 Rescue CD, test it for restoring your backups. Most users have found this CD will restore backups made all the way back to TI 8. Since it is a new version of the Rescue CD, it has all the latest drivers for compatibility with newer systems and functions better with Vista restores.
     
  24. NBAustin

    NBAustin Registered Member

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    "Most users have found this CD will restore backups made all the way back to TI 8."

    Nope. Doesn't work. Garbage software + no support + no updates/patches = Acronis Con Job
     
  25. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    Thanks

    OK, to be fair, the statements made were that it's important to do a test of the restore environment to be sure it works. In most cases, all that's necessary is to boot from the Rescue CD and confirm that all your hard drives can be seen and then to validate one backup while booted from the Rescue CD.

    If you change hardware (a new backup drive, new computer, other major hardware change), it's wise to repeat the above test. If the hardware doesn't change, there's no need to test repeatedly. Would it be a good idea to repeat this test on an annual basis? Sure, but that's mostly because sometimes changes are made, and we forget we made them.

    If you want to have even higher proof of success, you do need to actually do a restore, preferably to a different hard drive to protect against a failure. However, I've never seen a system fail to restore if the backup could be validated after booting from the Rescue CD.

    I feel that Acronis doesn't state this clearly enough or provide an automated test procedure. As a result, some customers get stuck when they need to do their first restore. Acronis should do more to avoid that happening.
     
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