basics - tell me the best way to mitigate disaster scenarios?

Lets say mission critical laptop dies because either :

a) hard drive fails or Windows fails badly and needs installed again
b) some other laptop hardware failure

How can you help protect against this with TI? I could try cloning the disk monthly and if disk fault happens, hopefully boot from the external hard drive clone (via USB)? But then again maybe not as Windows XP does not like hardware changes. What about images instead of clones? I'm somewhat confused by the difference between images and cloning. To me an image is something created when you make a clone. But it seems with TI there is some larger distinction.

TKS in advance.

 

Your mission critical backup kit should consist of an external hard drive,probably USB, it can be full sized and a replacement laptop drive.

Make regular images of the laptop drive to the external drive. These could be restored as required to the laptop.
An additional precaution would be to swap out the laptop drive and run a restore to the replacement drive.

You would then have a ready to go spare laptop drive which is known to work and can be installed at a moments notice and be able to take the whole system back in time should this ever be necessary.

Xpilot

 

So images not clones? Shame I could not have a replacement drive as you suggest - modern Sony Vaio's are nearly impossible to get at the drive and replace without breaking something.

 

Also if I take the image route you suggest, should booting into XP work even if the laptop changes (i.e. the super critical one dies, and replacement is diff. machine)

 

Mission Critical suggests at least 3 hardy independent solutions to me.

An exact duplicate of the hardware - another laptop cloned at least weekly.

Imaging on DVDs - stored onsite, offsite & online. Daily to weekly.

Paper copies of critical data. Hourly to weekly.

 

Also with windows xp, you need to have a utility that can change drive letters on a non-booting hard drive.

When restoring xp, drive letters can be changed around causing the restored drive not to boot or hang at the startup screen. In such situation having a utility that can make drive letter changes can save you hours of troubleshooting.

Other people here in the forum always expect the program to work flawlessly everytime, I always plan for the worst which has happened to me a couple of times. My recommendation is to learn the procedures on how to change drive letters. Also investigate getting "paragon justboot corrector" , I use it side by side with True image for worst case scenarios. It can change drive letters in less than 5 minutes. Thats the only problem I have ever ran into using true image that prevented the restored drive from booting.

 

Hello AnyFrickinUserName,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please be aware that there are two approaches available:

Clone Disk - migrates/copies the entire contents of one disk drive to another;

Backup - creates a special archive file for backup and disaster recovery purposes;

Please take a look at this FAQ article explaining the difference between Clone Disk and Backup approaches in more detail.

Actually, Clone Disk approach is usually used to upgrade the hard drive (e.g. install a larger disk), while Backup approach is basically dedicated for the complete data backup and disaster recovery purposes. Since you are interested in backing up your hard drive for the disaster recovery purposes, we would recommend you to follow Backup approach.

Moreover, there are several advantages of creating an image over the disk cloning procedure such as: you can create an image without rebooting your PC, image creation can be scheduled for the particular point in time, Acronis True Image allows you to create incremental and differential images, image archive contains only the actual data and so it has a smaller size, images are ordinary files and so they can be stored on any type of the supported media, etc. However, the final choice is always up to your needs.

As for hardware changes, Acronis solution for restoring of a system to different hardware is Acronis Universal Restore. Acronis Universal Restore technology provides an efficient solution for hardware-independent system restoration by replacing the crucial Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) and mass storage device drivers.

Note that Acronis Universal Restore is a plug-in for corporate versions of Acronis True Image and in your case we would recommend that you use Acronis True Image Echo Workstation.

Acronis Universal Restore is used with image archives and you can find basic instructions on how to use it here. Detailed instructions can be found in the Acronis True Image Echo Workstation User's Guide.

We recommend you to download and install the free trial version of Acronis True Image Echo Workstation to see how the software works on your computer. With the trial version of the product you will be able to fully use the Windows version for 15 days. The bootable rescue media will be limited to restore function.

Please also be aware that the trial version of Acronis Universal Restore is not available on Acronis web site. In order to obtain the trial version of Acronis Universal Restore please contact Acronis Support Team. Explain your wish to obtain the free trial version of Acronis Universal Restore and provide your personal information (full name; phone number along with the area code; company name, if any) along with the link to this thread. We'll provide you with the free trial version of Acronis Universal Restore as soon as possible.

Thank you.
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Marat Setdikov