Acronis TrueImage

This thread is about Acronis TrueImage.

TrueImage (TI) is a program with which you can make a full backup image of your entire hard-disk(s) or only some partitions. And in case your system might become corrupted for some reason, you can completely restore it from that backup image.

There are other well-known programs out there with which you can do that too, like Norton Ghost from Symantec and DriveImage (DI) from PowerQuest.
But this thread is about TrueImage.
I think it is a real newbie friendly program.

Website:
http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/

You can find a link to the Helpfile in pdf-format at that site.

Product tour with screenshots and description of the steps for making a backup or restoring an image:
http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/screenshots.html

I thought about making screenshots for you, but I can’t do it better than at that site.


Supported operating systems:
Windows 95 / 98 / Me / NT / 2000 / XP
Supported partitions:
FAT16/32, NTFS, Linux Ext2, Ext3, ReiserFS, and Linux SWAP.
Special sector-by-sector support for other partitions and corrupted file systems.
Supported storage devices (disk image destinations):
- hard disk drives
- network drives
- CD-R(W)
- DVD-R(W), DVD+R(W)(*)
- ZIP, Jazz and other removable media
- IDE, SCSI, IEEE 1394 (FireWire), USB 1.0 / 2.0, PC card storage devices.
(*) — requires third-party DVD recording software installed.

When you first install TrueImage, it asks you whether you want to make bootable floppies (4) or CD-ROM with its Bootable Rescue Media Builder. I would strongly advise you to do so. You might need them to be able to restore a backup image.
I would also advise you to write-protect your floppies after having made them.
Make sure (as far as possible) that your system is free of nasties like viruses, Trojans and spyware before you make those bootable floppies.

Acronis frequently publishes an update for TrueImage.
You can find the latest build-numbers and dates here:
http://www.acronis.com/support/updates/
You can download a newer version from that site.
No need to uninstall a previous build-version: the install-process of the update will easily guide you through it.
When you have installed a newer build-version, I would advise you to make new bootable floppies.

The backup process makes an image, bit for bit, of your hard-disk.
But only sectors of your hard-disk that contains data, will be backed up.
That means that, when you have for example a 60 GB hard-disk with 20 GB containing data, only those 20 GB will be backed up.

Before I make a backup image, I run a full system scan with AV, AT and anti-spyware program, and then I do a quick scandisk and a defrag.

As you have seen above, you can directly write a backup to CD-R.
TI gives you the possibility to split up a backup into parts so they fit on a CD-R.
Generally speaking it might be advised to first make a backup to a second hard-disk (if you have the money for that), or to a separate dedicated partition, and after that to write it to CD-R.
Generally speaking making the backup first to HD goes faster, and in doing it that way you avoid possible problems with respect to compatibilities of CD-burners etc.
But don’t forget, when you first make the backup to HD, to split it up into parts of about the size of a CD-R (TI will guide you through that process).
After you have split the backup up into more than one part, I would highly advise you to make notes about the time-sequence in which TI made the parts. When you have to restore an image, you will have to start with the last one (see my example below).

TI lets you choose a name of your backup.
I myself like to do it this way: partition followed by date.
For example: C030425 for a backup of partition C made at 03-04-25 (April 25, 2003).
When you have split-up the backup into more than one part, TI will put a number at the end of the file-name.

For an image of more than one file it is for example something like this:
(name, date, time, size)
C0304251.tib 25-4-03 08:54 599 994 880
C0304252.tib 25-4-03 09:01 599 994 880
C0304253.tib 25-4-03 09:08 599 994 880
C0304254.tib 25-4-03 09:15 599 994 880
C0304255.tib 25-4-03 09:19 244 368 384

So in this case ALL files automatically get a number from TI at the end of the file-name.
For restoring you have to start with the file that was made as last; as you can see at the times, that is: C0304255.tib

For an image of only one file it is like this: F030425.tib
Again: that name was chosen by me (partition followed by date).

Now let’s say that your last backup is made in April, and that in June you need or want to restore it.
Since your last backup in April you might have installed new programs, patches from Microsoft etc.
And after restoring your backup you might want to install again some of these programs and patches.
How do you know which changes you have made since that time?
For that reason I would advise you to keep somehow a separate log-file in which you write down your changes; you might like to do that on paper.

It could also be possible that you want to put back for example your emails received/sent since April, and your new favourites.
In that case you have to make a separate backup of them before you restore your backup image from April.
But keep in mind, in case you needed to restore your backup image due to a severe virus-infection, that these emails and favourites might also have been infected by that virus.

Off topic note:
To make such backups of your OE-emails and IE-favourites you could use for example a program called ExpressAssist (not from Acronis).
Website of ExpressAssist:
http://www.ajsystems.com/ea7.html
A very good site in this respect is:
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/

 

I would like to thank my fellow-mods/admins for their suggestions, and the posters at the DSLR-software-forum who frequently post about TI:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/sware

 

FanJ.

I have Acronis True Image.
I can vouch for it being "newbie" friendly!
It has to be if I can operate it!

 

Acronis True Image 6.0 FAQ:

http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/faq.html

There are several topics discussed there.
I guess that I don’t need to list them here, you can read them at that site.
I list a few topics:

- Windows XP:
Quote:
Acronis True Image 6.0 can be installed and ran in Windows XP — that is, it creates disk/partition images and restores any partition or disk (as well as separate files and folders). Unlike other programs, Acronis True Image 6.0 lets you create an image of any disk or partition without rebooting your PC. You can restore any partition under Windows XP except a system partition. System partition restoration, however, can be started in Windows XP. In this case Acronis True Image 6.0 reboots your PC, runs itself before Windows loads, performs restoration, and boots Windows XP upon completion.
End quote.

- Shared drives and folders in Windows NT-2000-XP.

- Easy CD Creator v4-v5.

- NTFS partitions and bootable disc.

- Roxio GoBack.

 

At the moment TrueImage does not have an image verification option build in it.
Probably it will be build in in the next version; we have to wait for that.
(thanks to DP and others at the DSLR-software-forum for mentioning that).

 

yup this product kick but i love it

 

I wrote that TrueImage does not have a build-in option for verifying your backup image.

However, Acronis has a stand-alone tool on their website that performs that job.
The tool is called CheckImage.
The direct download link is:

http://www.acronis.com/files/support/CheckImage.exe

I have not yet used that tool myself, so at the moment I cannot tell you much about it.
I hope to use it somewhere in the coming days or weeks, so maybe I can tell you then more about it.

Once again I would like to thank DP who posted the link at the DSLR-software-forum:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,6859549~root=sware~mode=flat

 

I am going to ask Acronis a few questions.
I will let you know their reply; they have a good email-support.
Three questions:

1.
I installed build 335 today.
After the installation I made the bootable floppies with their Bootable Rescue Media Builder.
As I told you that takes 4 floppies.
As you can see in the first screenshot, it told me indeed to prepare 4 floppies.

 

However, after the fourth floppy was made, I was asked to insert a fifth floppy.
I tried it two times; both times with clean formatted floppies.
Well, certainly not a big problem as it seems to me, but nevertheless.

 

2.
As far as I remember, for the last several times in which there was a build-version-update, the Acronis site told every time that the changes were something like:

Changes:

Fixed incompatibility with Yamaha CD writers
Fixed incompatibility with Highpoint ATA RAID controllers (stripe only).

I am wondering whether that was right, or that by mistake an old change-text was put on the server.


3.
I will ask Acronis also whether they would like to tell us a bit more about that CheckImage-utility:
what does it exactly and how does it work.
For example: does it calculate a checksum for the original files and the imaged files in some way and then compare those, or does it work in another way?


Well, I'll try to keep you informed

 

Hi,

I've got an answer from Acronis (within 10 hours in the weekend (a night included): great!!!).

1.
Build 335 of Acronis True Image requires indeed 5 floppies.

2.
Some features and fixes that were added:

-Added ability to save images to rescue CDs.
-Fixed incompatibility with Yamaha CD writers
-Fixed incompatibility with Highpoint ATA RAID controllers (stripe only)

3.
CheckImage verifys image archives (it's integrity).

 

In case you would like to know:

Acronis True Image uses a Linux kernel with it's own drivers when being started via rescue media.

Seen on this thread at DSLR-software-forum:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,6887582~root=sware~mode=flat

 

Hi all,

My postings in this thread are in serial form.
I hope that that doesn't make it all too confusing......

 

I wrote that updating to a newer build is very easy, and that you don’t need to uninstall a previous build.
I will show you now part of a screenshot about it.

Let’s suppose that you have TI build 335 installed on your system.
And you have just downloaded build 337 from the Acronis site.
The file that you have downloaded, is always named (for the English version):
TI60_u_en.exe

Note:
I am talking here about version 6.0 of TI.

Now you double-click on that file TI60_u_en.exe
You will see a screen coming up; part of that screen you see in my screenshot.
The update-file has detected that you have already TrueImage installed on your system.
And the box “Repair/Upgrade Acronis True Image” is checked.
All you now have to do, is to go on with the process, and your new build will be installed.
After the update-installation process is finished, you will (most probably) be asked to reboot your system.
And that’s it.
Don’t forget to make new bootable rescue floppies or CD-ROM.

 

Hi,

About the required number of bootable floppies:

I wrote that the process of making bootable floppies tells you to prepare 4 floppies, while in fact the latest build needs 5 floppies.

Acronis told me that they will fix this number (as told to prepare) in the nearest future.

It takes 5 floppies !

 

Thanks to Snoopy2 at DSLR-software-forum in this thread:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,7077366~root=sware~mode=flat

As Snoopy2 wrote: "Slick TrueImage shortcut" :

Left click "My Computer", then Right click the drive you want to image and a window pops up...select "Create Image" and VOILA! TrueImage comes up immediately with the drive already selected for imaging.

 

It is fixed in the newest version 341.

 

Thanks Smokey

 

Using the TrueImage CheckImage Utility

Thanks to dp at DSLR-software-forum:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,7154157~root=sware~mode=flat

This is for those of you who split up their images and then store them on another harddrive.

Quote from DP:
I store my images on another hard drive and I wasn't sure if I had to check each volume separately or not so I asked Acronis.

If all the volumes reside in the same directory then selecting any one of them will check the entire image.

Of course, if checking CD images then you have to swap out each CD

-end quote-

 

Hello Fan J:
I have Drive Image and it doesn't work with Iomega Zip 750 USB Drive. It sets up alright but when it boots into Dos it doesn't recconize ( in my case) the H drive.
How does Acronis TrueImage work with Iomega Zip 750 USB Drive ? Has anyone created an image on zip drives. I read where it is compatable with Zip Disks but havn't seen to much information on it.
Regards
Tim
PS Oh by the way Fan J, great work. I wish Drive Image had some kind of display like you created because it does create a perfect image which I've used too many times thanks to Windows ME.

 

Hi Tim,

I myself don't have an USB ZIP 750 drive, so from own experience I cannot tell you much about it.

But I have an external USB 2.0 harddisk (Maxtor).
That drive is connected to a Sitecom USB 2.0 card in my PC.
I run Windows 98 SE.
I let TrueImage write directly the backup image to that USB drive:
goes perfect
And while making that image, I split it up in parts of about 600 MB so I can -if I would wish to do so- later burn them onto CD-ROM.

When I want to restore a backup image, I first copy it to a partition (that I created for that purpose) on an internal harddisc, and from there I restore the image.

Because it works with my external USB drive, I guess it also works with your USB ZIP 750 drive.
(You could try the trial version to be sure).

I hope this helped you a bit.
Cheers, Jan.

 

About restoring from an external USB 2 or firewire harddisk:


It might be not completely clear whether you can restore a backup image from an external USB 2 or firewire harddisk.
Acronis states clearly that you can make a backup to such an external drive, but -depending on how you read it- you could have asked yourself "Can I also restore from such an external drive?".

The answer is YES.

1-
About making a backup to an external USB 2 drive:
I myself do it every time: no problem.

2-
About restoring from an external USB 2 drive:
I just restored my C drive from an external USB 2 harddisk (Maxtor), using TrueImage (build 345) running from its bootable floppies (TI uses then its own Linux kernel).
No problem!

3-
About restoring from an external firewire drive:
Others have posted that restoring from an external firewire drive is also no problem.
See:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,7358514~root=sware~mode=flat

 

How do you know which version of TrueImage you are using?

There are two ways:

1.

Go to:
C:\Program Files\Acronis\TrueImage\TrueImage.exe
or where you have installed it.
Right click that TrueImage.exe
Then properties, then version, and you will see the version.


2.

(Thanks to Fedorov999 at DSLR-Software-forum).
Run TrueImage, and click the Control menu (top-left corner) on the first screen, there is an "About" option in there which shows you which version you have installed.

See the following two screenshots.
First screenshot:

 

Second screenshot:

 

Hi Fanj,

As always great work on the post . I have a few questions pertaining to Acronis ans maybe you can help me to understand. First off I am a real newbie to alot of things and am working real hard to understand. I recently posted about a product called Nero 5.5 that I recieved with a new CD-RW I bought. I thought this would give me a opportunity
to create a back up or a rstore of my HDD (20Gig Maxtor).

Well.. it seems Nero wasnt really designed well for this type of back up as it defaults on a HDD back up to a bit by bit process which you have referd to earlier in this posting. With a bit by bit process on a 20 gig HDD it would require 31 CD's as LowWaterMark, Phantom and myself found out by doing the math

You say Acronis willl only back up the data on the drive, not the whole drive (60 gig HDD, 20 gig used ..so only 20 gig goes to the back up.) is this correct? Is this with a partition? I am not sure I am following. You see I have a 20 gig HDD with only 5 gigs used and no partitions and I want to create a back up/ image of the exsisting data with out useing 31 CD's!!!!

Will Acronis create this back up for me with out useing the whole 20 gigs? I became familiar with Acronis about 2 weeks ago as ROOT has suggested it in a post of his and I wanted to read about it and find out cost to purchase it.

I belive cost via on line is about 44.95 right now... but I dont see anywhere on the site that I can per say trial the product for a time to determine if it is what I need. Can this product be trialed?

Hope I have not been to non discript or vauge with my post.

Very Best Regards,
FireDancer