Newbie needs help please

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by Corvette, Jul 31, 2006.

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  1. Corvette

    Corvette Registered Member

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    Hi
    I have Acronis True Image Home Ver. 9

    I would like to clone my C: drive operating system and all files onto a USB external drive.

    I have read the instructions but I must admit I am condfused. :rolleyes:

    The way I read it is, if I attempt to "clone" my primary drive I need to install a new one. I just want the external drive with operating system and all the files and settings and info to be available in case my primary C: drive should crash & burn.

    This happened to me a few years ago and caused me all kind of problems getting all my software installed and all my "settings" back to where they were before the crash.

    Please help this newbie, if I am reading the instructions incorrectly. :rolleyes:
    I want to keep my primary drive and also have a clone of it, thats the bottom line.
    Any help is appreciated.
     
  2. thomasjk

    thomasjk Registered Member

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    You want to choose the Backup option. This will allow you to create an image of your primary drive to your external drive. Cloning is used to copy the existing drive to a larger replacement drive.
     
  3. Corvette

    Corvette Registered Member

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    Hi Tom

    Thank you for the quick response I appreciate it. :thumb:

    I do have one additional question that I hope you can answer.

    I also am really not sure what steps to take to do an incremental backup. :doubt:

    I realize that I can set up a scheduled backup but I prefer to do it when I feel it is necessary, such as when I save something to my primary C: drive that I want to make sure I do not lose. Can you provide any help on this?

    This is the first backup software I have ever owned and some of the terminalogy is confusing to me, sorry if these are silly questions. :oops:

    My primary C: drive is 120 gigs and my externalUSB backup drive is 160 gig, does this make any difference?
     
  4. thomasjk

    thomasjk Registered Member

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    By default any image creation after the original will be an "incremental backup" unless you tell TI to create a full image. Incremental backups create an image that includes just the changes from the original. It will be a separate file but is linked to the original. I suggest you download and read the users guide at: http://download.acronis.com/pdf/TrueImage9.0_ug.en.pdf.

    The size of your external drive makes no difference in the creation of backups with the following exception. Most external drives are formatted FAT32 which has a file size limitation of 4GB. TI will automatically break up your backup image into 4GB chunks if needed. You will then have multiple files for a sigle backup job. I recommend you format the external drive as NTFS before making any backup images.
     
  5. Corvette

    Corvette Registered Member

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    Hi Tom,

    Once again I thank you for your helpful assistance, it is appreciated.

    I have already created a "bootable rescue media disk" and done a "backup" on the external drive, but I am not sure if it is formatted for Fat 32 or NTFS.o_O

    Can I assume that I can reformat the external drive for NTFS and redo the back up or would that not be the wise approacho_O :doubt:

    Thank you for your help and have a great day.
     
  6. thomasjk

    thomasjk Registered Member

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    If you open MY Computer and click on the external drive in the lower right corner under Details you will see the file system for the drive. Choosing to redo it is up to you. The advantage of using NTFS is the file sizes allowed. If your image size is greater than 4GB TI will break it into chunks on FAT32 file systems. Each backup is then multiple files. NTFS does not have the 4GB max file size limitation.
    See this link for a comparison: http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm
     
  7. Corvette

    Corvette Registered Member

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    Hi Tom,

    I hope you don't think I am bugging you, but I am very appreciative of your help and thank you for your patience. I just checked my external USB drive and you were correct, it is FAT 32 not NTFS. My primary C: drive is 120 gigs and I have about 60 gigs of stuff on it.

    I am willing to redo the full backup, but is there anything special I have to do beofre I format for NTFS? :doubt: :doubt: Also would I need to make a new bootable rescue disk if I formated to NTFS?
    Thanks again and I hope not to bother you anymore.
     
  8. thomasjk

    thomasjk Registered Member

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    If you look at your external hard drive you will see multiple .TIB files from your original backup. You may want to burn them to DVD before reformatting, just in case. You don't need to build a new bootable Rescue disk. I assume you have verified that you can see your external drive when booted from the Rescue CD? If not you should do that. The TI 9.0 rescue environment is Linux based and some folks have reported issues with not being able to see some external hard drives. (Its a linux driver issue usually).
     
  9. Christopher_NC

    Christopher_NC Registered Member

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    Hi Corvette,

    Just in case you still aren't clear on the file format issue, there is no reason not to continue using your external USB hard drive as is. True Image can restore Archives from your external USB FAT32 hard drive to your internal NTFS hard drive. Some users opt to use NTFS for external HDs, others prefer FAT32. I have both (on separate partitions) on my external USB HD, and use FAT32 so that I can easily burn the 4 GB files to DVD.

    So, don't feel as though you have to make any change. Do so only if you want to. FAT32 does offer some additional compatibility with other operating systems, which may or may not be important to you.
     
  10. Corvette

    Corvette Registered Member

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    Hi Tom & Chris

    Thanks for the response, I appreciate it.

    I am so sorry to sound so dumb, but Tom you said " I assume you have verified that you can see your external drive when booted from the Rescue CD? If not you should do that". Again let me appologize for my stupidity, but I put the Rescue CD in my cd drive and this is what I see on the CD

    Boot Menu
    bootwiz
    f11.cfg
    kernel
    mouse
    ramdisk
    splash.run

    Can you tell me what are the steps I need to take to verify that I can see my files on my external USB drive?

    When I click on "MY COMPUTER" I can see the following files on the external USB drive: full Backup C: drive numbers 1 thru 12"

    I seem to get more confused by the minute, sorry to keep asking what are probably simple questions to you.

    I look forward to hearing from you.
     
  11. thomasjk

    thomasjk Registered Member

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    Corvette, to use the rescue CD you have to boot from it. You will need to change the boot order on your machine so that the CDROM is the first bootable device. When the Rescue CD boots up you will see a menu with 3 choices. Select Full and after TI starts browse to your external drive.
    If you haven't yet read the users guide, I suggest that you do it before going any further.
    http://download.acronis.com/pdf/TrueImage9.0_ug.en.pdf.
     
  12. Christopher_NC

    Christopher_NC Registered Member

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    Well, the only dumb questions are the ones you don't ask, but needed to. What you are showing us is just how much is taken for granted by so many who use computers every day and have become so familiar with the terminology that we forget how to talk with the rest of the world.

    You are quite right, if you put the Boot CD into your CD drive, and look at the contents with Windows Explorer, you will see those files (I haven't checked my boot CD, but those sound right.) And they won't boot from Windows. Nor tell you what to do next.
    http://www.techterms.org/definition/bootdisk

    To use the True Image (TI) Boot Disk (CD or DVD) as a rescue option, you'll want to place it in your CD/DVD drive, and then Restart your computer. Most times, your computer will be set to check the CD/DVD drive for any bootable disks before it checks the hard drives for the boot files written on the 1st tracks of your hard drive, known here as the MBR, or Master Boot Record. If your BIOS (which is the Basic Input/Output System built into your computer's "motherboard" - the main circuit board in your computer) is set to boot from CD, you should see Acronis Loader starting up rather than your familiar Windows splash screen, after BIOS loads. If not, you can go into your BIOS and change the boot order to include boot from CD. That's another story.
    http://www.techterms.org/definition/bios

    Once Acronis Loader runs, by loading a small, efficient operating system called Linux into your computer's RAM memory (this temporary operating system "OS" does not get written to your hard drive, but runs from memory,
    http://www.techterms.org/definition/memory
    so that it can work even after a hard drive failure, one of the great things about True Image), you will have the option of starting a Linux mode version of True Image, in one of two modes, either full, or safe mode. Full is the best choice, if it works on your system, as it will load drivers
    http://www.techterms.org/definition/driver
    that should recognize your various hardware: mouse, keyboard, monitor, CD and DVD "optical" drives, internal hard drives, and external USB hard drive(s). I say should, because, in some cases, that doesn't happen, and you'll need to explore various options to help make the Boot Mode work with your system. For anyone reading this that wonders where to find such help, one place to look is on the sticky at the top of this Forum, titled:

    There, you will find a heading called:
    Which describes some of the steps involved in working around Boot Mode Problems. More info can also be found by searching these forums, using specific terms for problems you may encounter, or by contacting Acronis support.

    Let's assume that all works fine, and your Boot Disk loads, and runs. Once you have True Image running, you can use it to Verify an Image, which means that True Image will check a particular backup Archive file that you have already created, and tell you if it is valid. It doesn't check every file, rather it checks to see that certain values correspond with those written at the time the archive was created. You can also restore an image in Boot Mode, or, particular files. If you want to just test things out, you might, for example, create an archive of one program, say Acronis True Image, and then try restoring that file to a new location. This is not the same as restoring your system drive (the partition or drive that contains your primary operating system) but it will tell you, at least, that you are able to access your drives, read from them and write to them, and use the various components of your system in Boot Mode.

    If all goes well, you can then test creating a full backup of your system in boot mode. Depending on how many programs you have, of course, this may take awhile. Don't be discouraged if at first the estimated time of completion is quite long...unless you have a huge hard drive filled with data, most times the actual time will adjust fairly quickly, and complete in due course. If you check Validate upon completion, True Image will verify that the archive it just created is valid.

    This is most of what is involved in testing your boot mode disk. You cannot "Mount an Image" in Boot Mode. This is only available while running True Image in Windows, and means that the image of a drive or partition you select will be "mounted" (a Linux term) or temporarily set up as a virtual drive , that you can access in Windows Explorer, just as you would any other drive. If you set it as Read Only (safer to start) you will be able to read, and copy, any files you wish, from your virtual drive, which is another way to see if you have, indeed, copied what you thought you were copying when you created a backup image.

    As you become more familiar with using Acronis True Image, you may want to continue to test things in boot mode, and see what results you have using it. The best time to find out if something isn't working is before you need it. If you can't use your cordless USB mouse in boot mode, or see a RAID hard drive, http://www.techterms.org/definition/raid
    or even access an external USB hard drive (which I couldn't do when I started posting here not too long ago), you'll have time to solve things. Then, when you really need it, in a situation where Windows won't load, or your hard drive has failed, you will be familiar enough, hopefully, to put in the boot CD and find your way around, locate the archive you have created, restore your system partition, or restore your complete drive to a new hard drive.

    By the way, in Boot Mode, your drive letters may be different from the ones you see in Windows. So, you might want to know the size of your partitions before you go into boot mode, or, at least the order of them, so you can find your way around. If your CD drive is called the E:drive in Windows, it may appear as the D:drive in Linux Boot Mode. I'll let someone else explain why.

    There's more to learn, but, hang in there. The True Image User manual does have lots of useful information in it, once you get the hang of things, and understand enough of this to know that booting a CD doesn't mean what many of us would like to do with some of the DVD's we've burned with Acronis direct-to-dvd. Don't try that yet. It's not ready for prime time, as Menorcaman has said so aptly.

    Good luck! And stay curious. You aren't the only one who doesn't know how to edit a boot code.
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2006
  13. Corvette

    Corvette Registered Member

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    Hi Chris

    Again I must say thank you for your detailed explanation and your patience.

    I will try the booting from the CD steps you have suggested tonight when I get home and hopefully I will not have any more questions.

    I noticed you are from North Carolina, I am located in South Carolina but have a son who lives in the Queen City of Charlotte.

    Thanks again for all your help.:thumb: :thumb:
     
  14. Corvette

    Corvette Registered Member

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    Hi Chris

    Before I go I forgot, "SURPRISE" I do have another question I hope you can answer.

    I have already made a full backup to my external USB drive,but was unaware that it was a FAT 32 drive not NTFS.

    I think I would prefer to have one large backup file on the USB drive than many small files, if I understand correctly there is less chance for a problem when and if you need to restore.

    Can I just go into my USB drive and delete all files there and reformat the USB drive for NTFS and then do another full backup or will this cause me a problem? o_O :doubt:

    Thanks for your patience and above all your help.
     
  15. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Hi Corvette,

    As a "newbie" to True Image, you could probably gain a lot of benefit from checking out this link that Texcritter posted today:

    http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/company/inpress/2006/06-15-1ati.html

    Four nicely illustrated web pages covering most things you need to know about True Image 9.0 Home, from initial installation right through to cloning a hard drive.

    Regards
     
  16. thomasjk

    thomasjk Registered Member

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    Yes you can delete the files and do another full backup. You may want to burn them to DVDRWs' just to be safe.
     
  17. Nosmas

    Nosmas Registered Member

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    Having just bought a copy of TI v9.0 I am of course another newbie and want to know as much as possible about the software and how it works beforeI start to use it. I can therefore thoroughly recommend the link given above by Minorcaman as a useful supplement to the very well written User Guide that comes on the Acronis TI CD.

    One problem though if you are using MS Internet Explorer and want to print Barry Little's article to read off line, it doesn't have a 'printer friendly' version. If you click on File > Print Preview you will see that the right hand side of the page is chopped off. One way round this is to click on the Page Setup button on the preview page and change the paper orientation from portrait to landscape, but this does produce a rather hefty 31 pages just for Part 1 alone!

    I think a better way is to go to the author's website http://www.barrys-rigs-n-reviews.com/reviews/2006/utilities/ti90/ti90_1.htm and if you perform the same adjustments i.e. File > Print Preview > Page Setup > Landscape you will find that Parts 1 - 3 only take 8 pages each and Part 4 is 10 pages. Set your printer to duplex (double-sided) printing and you will not use too much paper! Admittedly the screen shot images are rather too small to read but at least they give some guidance to the accompanying text. If you add the Part 1 URL to your Favorites list you can always go on line and view any particular image full size on your monitor.
     
  18. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Nosmas,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

    Thank you for letting us know about this issue. This issue has been forwarded to our Web Team.

    Thank you again for contacting Acronis.
    --
    Aleksandr Isakov
     
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