Backup to Seagate external hard drive and Secure Zone?

I purchased Acronis True Image 9.0 Home. How do I backup to Seagate external hard drive? Where is the option to select Seagate external hard drive? If the information is in the 81 page User's Manual or in the Sticky Please Read Before you Post or in the forum threads, I did not find it or I might not have understood what I read.

Also, if the Acronis Secure Zone is created on the internal hard drive, how much space does the Secure Zone use? My C drive capacity is 74.4GG with 35.96GB used space and 38.56GB free space. I don't want Secure Zone to take up a lot of space on the hard drive.

 

You should be able to select the drive in the fourth window of the Create Backup Wizard titled “Backup Archive Location”.

“how much space does the Secure Zone use?”
However much you give it.

 

TheWeaz,

Thank you so much for your helpful response. I will try to backup to the external hard drive this weekend.

 

How can I prevent the Secure Zone being created on the internal hard drive?

Do I need the Secure Zone if I am backing up to an external hard drive?

Should I use Acronis True Image 9.0 or 10.0? Since I just purchased 9.0, I was offered 10.0 which I downloaded but did not install 10.0 yet. Can I have both 9.0 and 10.0 on my computer?

 

You do not HAVE to make a SZ. It is not installed by default so there is no need to prevent it.
No, you don't need a SZ on the external. In fact IMHO, the SZ feature has outlived its usefulness. Is anyone going to accidentally erase your backup file on the external? I doubt it. SZs were useful when most systems had one hard drive and external drives were a distant thought.
Try version 9 first and make sure it works for you. Be sure to create the bootable TI Rescue CD and do all your Backups, Restores (or Recovery) and Cloning with it. Version 10 is still too new ... let others find the bugs first. Oh make sure that your version 9 is the latest build (3677).

 

Ralphie, thank you for your reply. Yes, I have the current build. I created the bootable disc and did a full backup of the hard drive to the external hard drive.

I have 7 backup.tib on the external hard drive and it took 63 minutes for the backup. Is this normal? Also, how do I see the files in the folders in the backup.tib?

I have two portable external hard drives. I was going to do a full backup to one of the external hard drive and then the following week do a full backup to the other external hard drive and so on. But, if I can't see what's in the Acronis .tib backup on the external hard drive, I'm going to drag my data files to the other external hard drive and do all my full backups on one external hard drive.

I can't believe how fast the external hard drive is. I have been backing my data files to DVDs and it takes a long time.

I find the Acronis True Image to be difficult to learn, and I appreciate the help given by you and TheWeaz. I've been reading the forum threads and sometimes the more I read, the more confusing it gets.

 

The reason you have 7 backup files is that your external drive is formatted as FAT 32. Your 36 gigs took 63 minutes - I'm not sure if that is too long or not. There is a way to "look" into the Images at your files, but I've never done it though I've seen other forum members talk about it. I believe it's called mounting the image.
As you've found out backing up to DVDs is painfully slow. If you want to store the backups to DVD, do what is referred to in the forum as the 2-step method. You already did the first step, now use your burner software to burn those backup files to DVD.
Personally I use the simple features of True Image - all via the bootable CD: Backup (or Imaging), Restore (or Recovery) and Cloning. That's it. I never make incrementals or differentials, nor do I do scheduled backups. And I don't have a need to peek at files in my backups.
For backing up individual files I simply use Windows Explorer to copy those files to my external drive. If I want to compress them, I use the built-in WinZip in the OS to do so.

 

Thanks Ralphie, I have not installed the program yet, I’m reading the full manual (that I have printed) and like Kristi I find that TI is awfully complex, perhaps unnecessarily so.

I like what you have written and I’m glad to know that, with an external USB 2.0 drive I do not need to create a Secure Zone, the manual sort of gave me the impression that I had to if I wanted to restore an image correctly. However it does seems that without a SZ, the simple, easier, Snap Restore is not possible.

Ralphie, you say that you do everything (backup, restore, cloning) from the bootable CD, how do you do that? The manual says that the box-CD and the “bootable CD” that you mention are the same, I have the box-CD and I don’t see any facilities on it for doing what you say. Also why don’t you install the program and do those tasks FROM the installed program?

I quite agree with you about data files, why use TI (which seems so complex and risky) just to copy data files, your suggestion to use Windows Explorer and copy them to your external disk makes a lot of sense.

What simple procedure would you suggest to backup a computer with two internal Hardisks (60GB and 40GB)?

 

Hello colorman 042000,

I differ from Ralphie in that I always create backup images while booted in Windows. The only conflicts I have heard about that could be a problem are Go Back and a running SQL database progam.
To my mind the best feature of TI is the ability to do "hot" images. The fact that they can be scheduled to run automatically and unattended with no user intervention if a secondary internal drive is used makes it the gold standard of backup systems. One can continue to use the computer while the imaging runs in the background with no problems but as there is some performance impact I let mine run when I am having lunch

Ralphie would have installed TI to create a current version of the recovery CD. I only use mine, apart from testing, to carry out restores of the main hard drive. All other operations are easier and faster done via the program within Windows.


Xpilot

 

Yeah, what Xpilot said.

 

Thanks Xpilot and TheWeaz, then what would be your suggestion for a very basic, simple, once-a-week procedure to backup a computer with two internal Hardisks (60GB and 40GB) to an external USB 2.0 hard disk?

Xpilot you say: “The fact that they can be scheduled to run automatically and unattended with no user intervention if a secondary *internal* drive is used ...” does this mean that an external hard drive would not be suitable?

When you do a Full System Backup (Image Backup) of a two hard drive computer on an external drive, are the two hard drives imaged separately? If so, then is it possible to restore one (and only one) hard drive image to a *new* formatted hard drive of equal or superior capacity?

I appreciate your suggestions.

 

“does this mean that an external hard drive would not be suitable?”
An external would be fine (I do it all the time). The drive just needs to plugged in and powered on. Many people only power on an external when they want to use it.

“are the two hard drives imaged separately?”
No, not if they are imaged within the same task. You will have one image file that contains both drives. Again, I do this.

“then is it possible to restore one (and only one) hard drive image”
Yep, been there, done that.

 

Thanks again TheWeaz, I have another question...
My system disk is in a removable drawer and I wonder if it is possible to create a new system disk using the following procedure: 1- doing a backup file of the system disk on a removable USB drive, 2- removing the present system-disk-drawer, replacing it with another drawer containing a new hardrive, 3- restoring, re-creating the system disk on that new hard drive from the backup in the USB drive ?

This could be an alternative to cloning and would be more convenient considering my setup.

Thanks for your advice

Andre Dumas

 

That's IS the way to do it if Cloning is not convenient. I use those removable drawers myself.

 

That is the way to go. I have been doing it for some time like that . I differ slightly as I use an internal secondary drive for my images. This is big enough to give an adequate history and it runs much faster in creation and restore modes. The other luxury I have is a third hard drive in a drawer for longer term recoveries.

It may have occured to you that using TI in this way and making a restore before a disaster means that it is no longer necessary to run any validation processes. A completed restore is it's own ultimate validation !


Xpilot