A Little Help for a Novice User?

Recently a virus took over my computer and I had to format the hard drive to get rid of it. Then I had to painstakingly reinstall all my software, get it all up and running, etc. It was truly a pain in the butt and so afterwards I immediately sought out some kind of softwear that I could use to just restore my hard drive next time I have to format it (though I hope I never have to again) so I could just have all my stuff back the way it was, without having to reinstall anything, etc.

It looks like True Image is going to be that software, but having just checked it out- I'm really, really confused. It's great that you can do so many things with the software, but really the only thing I want to do right now is back up my hard drive in a way so that if I did have to reformat, I could just reinstall True Image, find the backup- and everything would be back the way it was.

There seems to be several different methods for backing stuff up, but are any of them as simple as I just outlined? Or am I simplifying things way too much?

If anyone can shed some light on this- it would be greatly appreciated.

Many many thanks for any help anyone can provide.

Cheers,

nrfuller

 

With True Image I set up 2 scheduled FULL backups to run on alternate days. (should a BU fail I have it email me) I just performed a full restore last week, (used the BU to transfer my system to a new Disk, the procedure would be the same in the case of a catastrope like a virus) No need to reinstall the OS or to install Acronis TI, I used the bootable Rescue CD and was able to restore the BU of my choice from a USB drive directly onto the new blank raw disk.
It doesn't get much simpler than that. By creating 2 full backups (full backups over write the last of the same name) alternating It becomes maintainence free, and if by chance a BU fails I have the last BU to rely on!

 

Hi nrfuller,

Actually, it's a little simpler than that. You simply boot from the True Image boot CD, find the image and restore it. You won't even need to reformat the drive.

 

Hello nrfuller,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

In addition to the above posted suggestions we would also recommend you to read Acronis True Image 9.0 User's Guide in order to learn more on how to use this software.

You may also find Acronis True Image 9.0 FAQ page helpful.

If you have any further questions concerning Acronis software, please feel free to submit a request for technical support or post any of them on this forum. We will certainly try to help you in resolving any issues.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Thanks everyone for all the great info, I really appreciate it.

I'm still trying to decide which program to go with but I must admit I'm leaning heavily towards True Image at this point. Seems like it does everything I'm gonna need and several other things as well.

The funny thing about this program is that though I hope it works- I really hope I never need to use it..

Thanks again!