advice, on getting acronis true image home 2009

Hello

Just some advice, if i purchase the "acronis true image home 2009"
all i would need is a external hard drive, and then learn how it all works.

My computer crashed the other day, and it had to be repaired, costing a few quid, after he had reinstalled everything.

When i got it back, he had put a backup folder for me , and was to call him out again if things went wrong again.

i was curious about this, and noticed it had the "tib" file extention, so he must have a disk image himself.

I was interested to know how to do this myself, so if i where to buy a external hard drive, and then purcase the "acronis true image home 2009" myself, i would have a complete system backup in the event of a faliure.

So is this all i would need to get me started

 

Yes, that about sums it up. But of course the only way to be 100% sure a recovery of a backup will be successful is to actually do one - preferably to a spare hard drive.

 

There is also free stuff to do it.
Try the AlternativesTo site.

and sometimes full programs are on PC mags , check this months out where you are might be lucky.

 

Hello all,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

crowley, you will be able to backup your system with our software. Furthermore, we would recommend you to get the separate external USB drive and use it for backup storage only.

Could you please clarify your operating system?

Thank you.
--
Alexander Nikolsky

 

Its windows xp pro sp3....................

By this do you mean the external hard drive, plus another usb device like a pen drive for storage only.....

Sorry just finding these things out..

 

Thanks for your reply

It might be a bit beyond me at the moment to do that, but surely if i did everything right, there should be no need to do this.

I know putting in a different hard drive is the best way to know, but if you cannot do this, because you don't know how to just yet, and another possability is i could make things worse by trying.

Doe's this happen to people , that they have made a complete system backup, only for it not to work.


Do you think it will be ok then, to do this without trying it on another hard drive first.

 

It is somewhat foolhardy to put your trust in any backup program, not just TI, and assume that all will be well when you need to use the recovery.

If you successfully backup and validate in Windows you will get the impression all is well. TI, and some others, use a Linux environment for doing the recovery of the image if the active partition is involved (typically C). The Linux drivers included may not work well or at all with certain types of hardware especially newer hardware. Since this is the environment, not Windows, that must do the recovery it is necessary to confirm it works.

You might argue that since the PC repair person restored with TI then it probably works.

I understand your reluctance at not wanting to pop in a new HD and it can be daunting if you haven't done it before - some of us tend to forget that. The next best thing to do is to:

Create and boot up the TI rescue CD and get into the TI program.
Create an archive using the CD version. This will demonstrate that the program can see your disks/partitions/external disk, etc and that the program does appear to work at first glance if it completes successfully.

Now select the Validation wizard and validate the archive using the TI CD. This will demonstrate that the program can find the archive and read it into RAM and reconstruct the numerous checksums which is how TI validates an archive. The reconstructed checksums are compared with the ones placed in the archive when it was written. If only one of the 4000 checksums per GB of archive do not compare perfectly the archive will be declared corrupt. TI does not compare the archive data with the original data which is impossible to do anyway on a live Windows system.

If all of this works then it is extremely probable that you will be able to recover using the TI CD. Not as good as a full test restore but pretty good.

 

Thankyou for providing that information for me, i am just studying the user guide at the moment, to get the feel of how things are done.

Could i try this on the trail version first, to see how things go.

Using the trail version, doe's this mean if you create a full disk image , using the trail version, you will only be able to go back to that point in time, and lose everything after that.

I was going to order the boxed version, but a least i could get the feel of how it works using the trail version first

I have printed your reply out for future reference...

 

The TI trial is setup for the Windows version to allow you to run most, if not all, features for a time limited period. The bootable rescue CD it creates only allows you to restore an already created image only. If it could both create and restore, nobody would have to buy the product!

You can create as many images as you wish during the trial period and if you decide to buy the licensed version it will restore those images. The trial CD will also be able to restore them forever as well. Regardless of version, any data created after the backup is made is obviously not going to be in the backup.

Trying the trial version is highly recommended so you can see how it works both from the user interface perspective and from the hardware support perspective.

 

good information seekforever.

i will probably to that then, i will wait a bit and do a little bit more reading up on it, and post a few more questions first,

one more thing, i do not have a cd dvd drive on this computer, but a freind of mine over the road, has one , so if i need to create a cd, its not a problem

 

Hello crowley,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis True Image

You can use flash drive to create Acronis bootable media. See the following link for step-by-step instructions.

Best regards,
--
Dmitry Nikolaev

 

Hell again, i was slightly put of last time i was thinking about getting acronis
But in the next few days i have the option to buy it.

I do not have a spare hard drive to test it, or nor would i know how....
So i am left with this seconed method above.

So shortly i will download the trail version to get an idea of the interface
I am still completely new in this area, so i am still unsure about most things

I am using windows vista home premium 32 bit now... compared to the desktop that i had windows xp on, though i suppose that makes no difference really.

My main concern is this won't work for me, as i cannot test it fully, and after spending £39 on the product i would want it to work.

Again any advice on what to do, can i test it out on the trial version in some way so i can be sure before i buy it.......

thankyou for your replys