Can you count on this software?

As a user of Drive Image (now Norton Ghost 9) for nearly a decade, I have to say that my limited experience with True Image has been less than confidence-inspiring. A coworker of mine swore by TI 8 until he needed to do a full recovery and found that he couldn't see the drive containing his image. Yes, he should have checked in advance.

Now, I am playing with the 15-day trial of TI 9 Home. I made some images (full and incremental) in the Secure Zone. I then tried to plug one. Any one. I got "specified archive cannot be plugged" for EVERY archive. I clicked "Help" and I then got "Help Topic 100,303 not found." Then SUDDENLY I could plug in any of the archives. Later, I went back and tried again and I couldn't plug ANY archive. Got the same error when I clicked Help. But I still could not plug any. I had to repeat this several times and finally through dumb luck it began to work again.

<snip>
Thanks.

edited to remove editorialization detracting from the support issue at hand - Detox

 

There are a few items that seem to make True Image get the hiccups: Usb hubs/devices and wireless items - keyboard, mouse.

Also as your co-worker found, you cannot rely on the "Image Created Successfully" or "Clone Created Successfully" messages at the end of the respective procedures. You MUST actually do a Restore or try the Clone, until you are confident your Images will Restore corrrectly or the Clone will work.

I don't know how well TI 9 Home works as I've stopped at ver 9 build 2302 which works for what I need.

 

After owning Acronis True Image for a couple of years and backing up faithfully, I took it off my computer a couple of days ago.

I found that it is not reliable when you need it most. I had 14 verified backups on my various hard drives and 12 of them were "corrupt" and unusable according to the program when I needed to salvage a file.

I had the same experience with their backups stored to DVD but attributed that to bad media at the time. These were created by backing up to my internal hard drives and copying the images to DVD.

Now, I am back to using Norton Ghost 9 even though I do not care much for Symantec Products. This one has never faied to complete a restoration of any kind.

If a program of this type is unreliable, it is of no value and it looks like a lot of people are having the same problems that I encountered. None of these problems should be happening unless this product is a beta version that was sold before completion.

 

DCM, what version and build were you using? If as you state, you've had it for a couple of years, most likely it was outdated. And if you never actually did a Restore and tested it, then ......

 

Hi there Chutsman,

Whilst Build 2302 works for your current needs, it has a number of major bugs which could well trip you up if you ever decide to expand your requirements. If I were you I would try Build 2337, which seems to be the most stable version of TI 9. After all, you can always fall back to a previous image if you find it worse than your current installation .

All the best
Tom

 

My versions of Acronis were never "outdated". Even if they were though, they should operate properly or never be released from their Beta versions.

I was running Version 8 and it was updated as quickly as every update came out. It was never out of date for more than a few days.

I tried the trial Version 9 and had the same results as with Version 8. In reading all the posts on this forum, it is obvious that I am not the only person having similar problems with the program.

I tested my images regularly and more often than not, they tested OK. If they did not test OK, then they were deleted immediately and re-run.

Different story when it came time to restore anything though.

The first time I had a problem was when I needed to fully restore my C: drive. The only image that would work was one that was over six months old. The rest were either "corrupt" or had some other problem that would stop the progress and not allow use of the images.

I had to use the six month old image and bring everything up to date manually. No other cholce. I had depended on Acronis and found that to be a big mistake.

<snip>


edited to remove alternative software "plug" - Detox

 

Well, that's "the way the cookie crumbles" ... and as I said in post #2 you MUST test the Restore feature till you are confident it will work.

 

I am still using Version 8 (build 937). While I did experience problems with my usb mouse / usb keyboard, I have found the program up to now to be very stable re restoring backups which I have done a few times.

At least technical support did take the time and trouble to resolve my mouse keyboard problem, which is no longer a issue. While there is an argument that perhaps it should have been sorted out earlier, reading 'round different forums by no means every Company offers the same degree of support that Acronis does. I will stick with Acronis TI because of this...

Howard

 

Funny, I've had the opposite experience. I've had one too many "spooky" problems with another backup product if you get my drift.... Worked when I tested it, but often not when I needed it. The final straw was when I had to go back 6 months to find a backup that worked. Then tuns out the backups that couldn't restore could be "plugged into" so I could get my mail files restored to get more or less back where I was. But I was fuming. That's when I got Acronis.

The only time I've had trouble with Acronis backups was when I had problems with the disk. Chkdsk every so often has seemed to prevent any problems. Much faster also, and the incrementals are great for when you're installing stuff and want an easy backout in case of problems. V8 was rock solid for me.

9 I'm having an issue where the incrementals are as large as the original backup. I'm going through chkdisk, the latest acronis drivers, etc like I've seen posted a million times here, already trying the latest v9 release. See what happens. This is the first time I've noticed that issue. I'm aware of the defragmentation issue, and start with a fresh backup anytime after I defrag.

Randy

 

Hello bmgoodman,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

Could you please verify the image integrity by means of Check Archive tool in Acronis True Image 9.0 Home?

If the image is not corrupted, please make a screen shot of the Device Tree application:

- Download and unpack the Device Tree application;

- Run the application;

- Completely unfold the \Driver\Disk and \Driver\FtDisk branches;

- Move the margin to the left in order to see all the items;

- Make a screen shot;

Could you please also reproduce the problem and collect Acronis True Image log which can be saved from Tools -> Show Log -> Diskette icon?

Please create Acronis Report and Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

Please submit a request for technical support using Ask a question before you purchase Acronis software link. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution as soon as possible.

Thank you.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

Well, I'm a firm believer of "if it ain't broke .... ". So until I find a reason to upgrade you can always find me under the 2302 Build