Directions For Simple Disaster Recovery

I recently converted from Retrospect, which I knew pretty well. I have to admit that everything about Acronis seems very professional; in my case too professional. I downloaded and tried to read through the manual, and also searched all FAQs to find out the steps to perform a backup and disaster recovery, but I can't get a handle on the process since there is so much detail in the manual. My request is:

Where can I find the steps needed to back up my entire disk (including the operating system (XPSP3) and open files to a standalone external disk), and prepare the system to be copied onto a new disk, if my old one fails. I'm not worried about differential or incremental backups, since I plan on doing this once a week, or automated scheduling. Specifically, since I have a number of pcs, all with real Microsoft licenses, do I need my system media. I got to XPSP3 in a number of ways (retail purchase, upgrade from Windows 98 (I think), and OEM), and I don't know if I can come up with the original system disks in each case.

I would greatly appreciate any help that you can provide. Thank you.

 

To skip the verify step and still verify my full backups, I use 3 hard drives as follows:

1. Drive C: - boot drive - to be backed up.
2. Drive D: - drive to contain my backups. (Can be internal or external).
3. Drive 3 - Drive to restore to.

Here is my procedure:

1. Backup full C drive to D drive.
2. Disconnect C drive.
3. Insert Drive 3 into system (or can be external - internal is faster).
4. Boot from Rescue CD.
5. Restore my image from the D drive to the new drive (Drive 3) I inserted,
6. After restore is complete, disconnect D drive.
7. Boot system - it should boot from new drive (Drive 3).
8. If it boots correctly, you have verified your image, you have verified that
you can boot the Rescue CD, and you have verified that you can restore
the image.

Now you can remove the new drive (Drive 3) from the system, reconnect
your original C and D and boot.

You now have a drive (Drive 3) that is ready to insert and boot in the event of a failure of your C drive.

Drives are cheap enough to bew able to do this.

I use removeable drive bays for all 3 drives so that all I have to do is
turn the power switches off on the drives I want to remove.
Don't have to go into the system case.

 

What you describe is basic disaster recovery at which True Image excels. Just stay away from all its bells and whistles and the software will always work for you. The first thing you need after you install the software is to make the bootable Rescue cd. This cd has all the basic features of True Image and is independent of the computer that made it.

After you have this cd you can even uninstall the software.

Next you should read the excellent beginner's guide that you can find in the signature of any message by GroverH.

 

Do a full image backup of "my computer" choose your c: partition. This will backup everything on your c: drive. The finished backup will be in a TIB file. A backup of a "bootable" partition will ALWAYS be bootable when restored.

There is no "simple disaster recovery" unless your prepared for a "restored drive" that won't boot.

Rule 1 . Since you are backing up windows xp. Make sure windows xp never see's the hard drive that it will be restored on. If windows xp see's the drive it will have that hard drives "partition ID" in it's registry. When restored it will induce drive letter problems.
Rule 2. Never bootup the computer with the source and restored drive connected at the same time.
Rule 3. For laptops, it's recommended that the restored drive be installed in the computer when it is restored. Also known as a "reverse clone". This will prevent the "chs geometry" problems.

Get a "boot corrector" (free paragon rescue kit 9.0 express) that will fix almost every problem (drive letter/boot.ini) you will encounter that might prevent xp from booting up. Very useful utility to have for worst case scenario.

 

Thank you for the time and effort involved in your reply. Some additional questions are as follows:

Your procedure is for a "one-time" disaster recovery, which I understand perfectly. I should have elaborated on my scenario. I have ongoing CPU usage, with data changing from week to week (nothing unusual here). I want to make periodic disaster backups on external disks every week. I want to have at least two of then so if 1 doesn't work the other will. Your instructions are for using each disk one time, and I'm sure it will work fine. But if I have two or more backups on the backup disk, it seems I can't use your procedure since I can't designate which of my backup sets to use in recovery (or can I). How can I change the instructions you gave me so I can always have the last backup available to recover from, and when do I produce the rescue CD, after each backup?, only once,? every time I make a change to the system?. Thanks again.

 

At the risk of being repetitive, I'm repeatin my response to an earlier reply. Once again, I want to thank you for your efforts on my behalf:
**************************************************
Thank you for the time and effort involved in your reply. Some additional questions are as follows:

Your procedure is for a "one-time" disaster recovery, which I understand perfectly. I should have elaborated on my scenario. I have ongoing CPU usage, with data changing from week to week (nothing unusual here). I want to make periodic disaster backups on external disks every week. I want to have at least two of then so if 1 doesn't work the other will. Your instructions are for using each disk one time, and I'm sure it will work fine. But if I have two or more backups on the backup disk, it seems I can't use your procedure since I can't designate which of my backup sets to use in recovery (or can I). How can I change the instructions you gave me so I can always have the last backup available to recover from, and when do I produce the rescue CD, after each backup?, only once,? every time I make a change to the system?. Thanks again.
*******************************************************

One additional matter. My desktop can certainly write my recovery CD, but my laptop cannot. How can I produce the bootable cd for my laptop in the scenario repeated above?
Thank you once again.

 

The Rescue CD is not tied to any one computer. The one from the desktop will work on the laptop.

 

Once again, I know I posted this response to other replies in this thread. I've got to learn how to respond to the group, rather than each one individually. But that aside, thank you also for your response, and here is my own response to the initial replies:

Thank you for the time and effort involved in your reply. Some additional questions are as follows:

Your procedure is for a "one-time" disaster recovery, which I understand perfectly. I should have elaborated on my scenario. I have ongoing CPU usage, with data changing from week to week (nothing unusual here). I want to make periodic disaster backups on external disks every week. I want to have at least two of then so if 1 doesn't work the other will. Your instructions are for using each disk one time, and I'm sure it will work fine. But if I have two or more backups on the backup disk, it seems I can't use your procedure since I can't designate which of my backup sets to use in recovery (or can I). How can I change the instructions you gave me so I can always have the last backup available to recover from, and when do I produce the rescue CD, after each backup?, only once,? every time I make a change to the system?. Thanks again. And, to be even more repetitive, how do I make a rescue CD on my laptop, which can't write CDs or DVDs, and how often must the rescue CD be used? Thanks for your patience.