Is Acronis a "strong" product ?

Hi,

having a lot of important information, althought saved on another disk, I would like to be sure to be able to recover in 10/15mn after a complete windows crash(BSOD at start).

For that I would need a reliable backup solution, so, for you can advise me, here
is my general spec :

HDD 40Go (2 partitions)
HDD 80Go (4 partitions)

I am using another product but not quite happy with it, I find it quite annoying to put a floppy disk which can be altered by the time or lost, whilst a CD is a lot more safer (to boot and restore).
So basically I just need to save a backup Image from my C: NTFS partition on my first disk to another partition (FAT32 currently) without rebooting (I saw True image could do that), protecting the destination partition (TI again does
that it seems), and allow me to easily recover from a boot CD with a easy DOS like GUI (or better) without bug or troubles.

I want a strong and reliable product not to bugger me more when i have troubles but to simply save me just in case

Having compared many backup products TI seems to be good, but I would like to know your experience about it.

Does anyone have a screenshot of the screen of the boot CD ?

regards,

gkweb.

 

You don't really need a bootable CD, but its still useful nonetheless. The reason being, TI7 has got a utility called, "Acronis Startup Recovery Manager", that runs before Windows starts. You can call it by hitting F11.

Once thats up, you can select the image to restore.

The ASRM is a proper GUI which replicates the Window feel and look entirely.

For me, my 1.2GB highly-compressed boot image takes under 2 minutes to restore and get my system up and running. Its certainly heck of a lot better than what I was using before, Powerquest's Drive Image 2002.

May I suggest that you keep your images on a separate drive, since if the master fails, you can replace it with another drive and restore the images from there.

Also, I don't have a screenshot of the boot utility, but, its exactly the same window you get when you start up TI. You can choose to create, restore and verify images. Except for "Unplug image" and Tasks, if I remember correctly.

Great stuff and a steal at the time.

Hope that helps!

 

Thanks you Chris for your input !

The "Acronis Startup Recovery Manager" is very what is lacking in other competiting products, If I had this last time I had to recover, It would have saved me a lot time (e.g : "where did I put this *** damn floppy disk ! lol).

So If I understand well, if windows won't start, ASRM will, and will enable you to restore your system ? soons very a nice tool.

If anyone else has something to add, feel free to, I am very interested for now, still looking at $$$ thought, but that's another problem

regards,

gkweb.

 

Hi, gkweb

You should [MUST] make the CD-Bootdisk, [or floppy's] IMHO.

Yes that's it's job! [with SZ]

I do not use it though, Do not like something messing with my MBR.

Then you have no ASRM . [but have Bootdisk, which as ASRM on it]

As .Chris says best to backup Image's to spare HDD. [Please for your peace of mind] It Is Very best of Good Advice.

All the help you need is here [well most] so please keep asking?

Take Care,
TheQuest

PS:- EDIT: The BootDisk as, Create Image, Restore image, Disk Clone, and Add New Disk. [plus ASRM, make SecureZone, Verify Image]

 

It's an OK product, but it will resize your partition's cluster when you run the restore program. TI automatically convert the cluster size to 4K! Drive Image 5.0 is slower, but in my opinion, more robust.

F.

 

Another question, can you from an image just open it with TI and pick up one file to restore somewhere ?

 

Yes you can. Just double-click an image file and a virtual disk will be created. From the virtual disk, you can drag/drop individual files.

Nick

 

I use this program, and it works perfectly!

Very ease to use, great features... Perfect

 

I'm a 'newbie' and had hoped that purchasing this software would save my bacon someday.

Well, that day came and I've had nothing but trouble at every turn with Acronis Ti ( as numerous postings for help around the web and on this forum will testify).

I have since (painstakingly) built my system up to almost the way it was but have lost alot of personal data. I am surrounded by loads of variously labelled CD-R's ( bootable disks, main volumes, disk 1,2,3, etc), all totally useless.

I am now digging around for information on a user friendly imaging software and will try something more popular!

 

I'm afraid I have to agree with Steve T. At times, TI7 has functioned perfectly and at others, has let me down causing several reformats. I think TI7 is a great program and very popular but still very buggy and untrustworthy {for me}. I am also looking for a replacement program that incorporates a bootable CD {not a floppy}.

 

My number one choice right now is Bootit ng. You don't need boot disc to run the program, although you can create boot floppy disc/CD if you want. It is 100% reliable with all of my customers' PCs, probably because it runs outside of windows. If this program is compatible with your BIOS, then it should function as advertised. You have 30 days to try out Bootit ng. $35 will buy a boot loader, partition software, and imaging software. Very powerful software (600KB download).

F.

 

This should make no difference whatsoever with your choice of imaging software. If you have a bootable floppy, then make a bootable CD-R out of it. Problem solved.