Trial ending question?

When my trial ends, will I no longer be able to restore my disk image or individual
files from my external hard drive to my desktop hard drive? I'm also assuming
I wouldn't be able to boot with the recovery disk if a worst case issue came up?
Thanks in advance,
Mike

 

i dont know if teh trial lets u create a rescue cd but it does, the cd can only be used to restore images iirc.

 

Hello Mike,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

When the trial version expires, you can still boot your computer from the bootable rescue CD and restore your image.

Please find the information on how to use Acronis True Image 9.0 in the respective User's Guide.

Please visit Acronis online store to purchase the full version of the product.

Please also note that we have a flexible system of discounts and the amount of the discount varies depending on the number of copies you want to purchase.

In case you are planning to purchase many copies, please contact our Sales Team at sales@acronis.com.

Thank you.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

Hello Tatyana,

Grateful if you could confirm whether an image of the main "system" partition can be restored via a boot rescue CD created from the trial version of True Image 9. I was under the impression that this was one of capabilities missing from a trial version. That was certainly the case for TI 7 & 8.

EDIT: Perhaps I'm getting confused and that you can't create a main "system" partition from the trial version rescue CD? Either way, I'm thinking there must be some sort of limitation with the trial rescue CD.

Kind regards

 

Hello Menorcaman,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Yes, it can.

In general, the free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.0 that is currently available at our web site has the following limitations:

- When the free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.0 is running from under Windows there are no any limitations except of the 15-days trial period;

- You can only Check and Restore images when the free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.0 is running in rescue mode (when using Bootable Rescue CD or Startup Recovery Manager).

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Hello Alexey,

Thank you very much for the clarification. If I read you correctly, the trial version of TI 9 rescue environment cannot create images, thereby preventing misuse of the trial software. I knew there had to be some protection for Acronis; I just wasn't sure what it was for TI 9 (the last trial version I used was TI 7 ).

Kind regards
Tom

 

I wanted to thank the forum for the quick responses. You answered my questions fully. I decided to make a backup and was pleased with the
action of this software. The only question I have in regards to it is the
following. I put the backup on a new external hard drive with nothing on it.
When I looked at all aspects of it , it showed on Windows defragmenter
that it was 30% fragmented and I should defragment that disk. Why would
this brand new disk be so fragmented? Also did I miss something and should it have been defraged prior to the backup? Last but not least should I defrag it now and if I do will it mess up the restore should I need it?
Thank again for any help. I am adding this to my original post and because the title of it may not get an answer to these questions I may repost a new thread
tomorrow. Thanks to all!

 

I think True Image restored the sector layout from your backup image.

It sounds like you did not run defrag before your backup. That is why, after the restore, it does need to be defragged.

 

Hello Menorcaman,

Yes, your understanding is quite correct.

The free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.0 can not create backups when running in rescue mode.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Hello carp11,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Coud you please clarify whether you have created an image of your internal hard drive saving it to the brand new external disk or cloned your internal hard drive to that external disk?

Please take a look at this FAQ article explaining the difference between Clone Disk and Backup approaches in detail.

Please be aware that in any case defragmenting your external hard drive should not affect the future recovery in any way.

Please also note that we have not heard about such problems before and so we would like to investigate this one with your assistance, if you have time for this of course.

Could you please do the following?

- Re-format your external hard drive;

- Re-create a backup in the same way you've done it before;

- Analyze your external hard drive using Windows Disk Defragmenter and let us know the result.

Please also describe actions taken before the problem appears step-by-step.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Alexey,
The hard drive is a brand new one with nothing on it. I added the new hard drive with the Acronis software. I did not defrag this drive prior to creating
the "image" with Acronis. I used the image format and not the cloning. The hard drive is a Western Digital 160 Gig USB 2, in an external enclosure. I used the image format based on reading your FAQ section on this software. The image
will be used as a backup and as a tool to compare using differential or
incremental backups in the future. I will be happy to do the things with this hard drive as you suggested to try to determine why the drive ended up so defragmented. If I was supposed to defrag before putting anything on it seems
kind of strange. Why would a new, empty hard drive need defraging? I will
get back later today after I reformat etc..
Thanks all for their help,
Mike

 

Hello everyone,

Please accept my sincere apologies for misleading all of you.

I've just been informed that the free trail version limitations have changed recently, so that it can only Restore images when running in rescue mode. Check Archive tool is not available when the free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.0 is running in rescue mode.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Alexey,
Sorry that it has taken so long for me to get back to this forum. I reformated
my external drive and defraged it. I then made an image with Acronis 9. I am going to try to attach the two readouts from the defrag after reformating and the one after making the new image. I guess I can only upload one file at a
time so will send the defrag I did after reformating the drive and before making the new image.
Mike

 

Alexey,
I will attach the other defrag file here. this was taken after I created the
new image. As you can see the disk goes from 0% to 49% defragmented.
I hope you can help with this as the drive works fine when I remove the
image file made with Acronis. I can add files small or large with no defragmentation noticed.
My trial period is over and I've decided to not purchase this product at this time
I feel that it would be useful, but with this amount of defragmentation I'm not
confident that a restore would be good should I need to.
Any help or comments would be appreciated.
Thank you, Mike

 

The fragmentation reported by the Windows tool is not surprising as backup images are not created or written on a file by file basis. This apparent fragmentation is of no operational consequence at all. The Acronis recovery program has no difficulty in correctly reading the backup images and writing them back to your main drive.
A backup archive is basically a record that is written once by TI and only needs to be read once by TI should the need for a restore arise. It follows that running a defrag on your backup drive would literally a waste of time and indeed, because it involves shifting a lot of data around, could introduce corruption.

Xpilot

 

Xpilot,
Thanks for the information. I guess that my one concern about the defragmentation was the time involved to put things back where they belong during a restore. I would assume(I'm not real up on all things involving computers), that it would take more time to restore because of defragmentation? I'm glad for the info on not having to defrag after creating
an image. Thanks again. Mike