Is it really worth the hastle.....

After downloading Acronis True Image.. i find it giving an error on trying to create a boot cd... Then i poke my nose into the forum and see thousands of posts needing help..

So... I uninstall this rubbish and find the dowloaded file and highlight it then press DEL!!! problem solved.

People must be crazy to rely on this pice of software

thanks but no thanks


tinku

 

k
bye

 

Ever looked at a Microsoft Windows forum or a Microsoft Office forum or a Quicken forum? I guess you don't use any of those either.

Bye, bye.

 

Let us know how your clean install goes when your hard drive dies and how much time it takes.

 

There are a lot of posts here advising people not to use Secure Zone and Startup Recovery Manager, unless they have no other disk to backup their images to. As a newbie, it would be nice to know if that advice is considered gospel, that we should use another drive to backup to and not to risk Secure Zone, or if Secure Zone and Startup Recovery Manager really are okay.

In my case, the first thing I did after installing TI was to activate Startup Recovery Manager, which created a Secure Zone that wiped out my entire system rendering it unbootable. I wish I had seen these forums before I followed TI's user manual and activated that feature. What I'd like to know, for when I get my system working again and again install TI, is should I avoid using Startup Recovery Manager and Secure Zone?

My plan was to write images to an external USB 2.0 hard drive. But when I read through the TI manual, it made it sound like the safest thing to do was to activate Startup Recovery Manager.

 

I'm relatively new to PCS in general and extremely new to imaging. I've used the startup mgr and the secure zone four times without a glitch. Personally i think it makes the recovery process very easy. Everyone's configuration is different so what works for one person might fail for another. Acronis will try to make it work for you. You may have to put in considerable work yourself engaging in dialogue with acronis Support. Remember on a support forum you're going to hear from a high percentage of people who have issues. That's what the forums are for. Education as well. I read so many troubled posts that I'm still apprehensive when restoring a image. Human nature i guess.

 

The main reason why a 2nd physical HDD is preferable is redundancy. If your only HDD (containing the Secure Zone) collapses, so does the Secure Zone and your image(s).

 

"People must be crazy to rely on this pice of software"

I guess I'm one of the crazy people.

I tried Norton Ghost but it failed to do what I wanted it to AND I would have had to work in DOS (yuk!) to succeed (maybe) with it.

I bought TrueImage 8 and was immediately rewarded with a simple, straightforward cloning procedure that REALLY worked and I did it under Windows XP.

TrueImage isn't perfect but it earned my respect as the easiest to use cloning and imaging that program I could find under a hundred bucks and it didn't require an MIS degree to use.

These forums are scary but most of the horror stories are because users seem to have underlying problems that they blame on TrueImage.

The outstanding level of responsive tech support enjoyed in this forum far outweighs TrueImage's real or imagined shortcomings. Try Norton Ghost and you'll see what I mean. The 'Ghost' must stand for their tech support department.

 

Oh, I absolutely understand why a second HD is preferable. I'm already sold on that.

My question is, if I have a second HD to which I will image my C-drive, is there any reason I should activate Startup Recovery Manager and create a Secure Zone? Or is that officially a poor substitute for an external HD, and if we have an external HD we shouldn't bother with Secure Zone at all? What is the official word from Acronis?

 

LOL, I must be the craziest of them all! I like to switch RAID strip sizes all the time depending on what I am doing so I rely on True Image to make the backup, then wipe the RAID config, recreate the new RAID array and then reload using the secure zone and startup recover manager which is always enabled on my other RAID controller. Never failed me. I love True Image. Crazy you say? I think not.

 

I am not competent enough to make many judgments regarding these issues.

But I am an average user. I have 5 years using computers, and except for the last few months that time has been surfing and finding information of interest to me.

I would like to back up my complete system, but I tried Acronis and it did not work correctly, or I did not know how to use it.

I need a utility, or whatever it is called, that I can read the instructions and "cookbook" the process to a successful conclusion. I do not have any idea what all the entries are that are shown when one gets into trouble.

So while I would like to do back ups, I am convinced that it is too much trouble to do it, and fear that it will put my computer out of service if things go wrong.

Maybe someday there will be programs that will be useful to someone like me, but that time has not arrived in the back up realm evidently.

I realize that the people here will help to the extent that they are capable, (and there are brilliant people here) and in time things will work out, but it is not worth thata much hassle. I don't have anything on my computer that if I were to lose it there would be much heartburn.

Just an average guy commenting.
Thanks for listening.
Jerry

 

JerryM, with your attitude (nice, honest, etc.) I think you'll find plenty of people here willing to try and get you going. What was it you tried unsuccessfully?

 

nonsense! it works perfect in whatever situation

 

Are you joking or are you serious? I'm honestly asking, as I have no idea whether you are serious or not. Clearly it doesn't work perfectly in every situation, as my experience shows. But I want to know whether the consensus, or the official Acronis position, is that we should use Startup Recovery Manager, or whether we should avoid it if we have instead an external drive to image to.

 

In principle, there is nothing wrong with the idea of a Secure Zone as it protects your images from other Windows applications, viruses etc. However, as has been said already, it's not a good idea to create it on the same drive as your system partition. If that drive fails then the SZ and your image goes with it. You can use the SZ without activating the Startup Recovery manager.

IMHO the main problems come with the Startup Recovery Manager (SRM). It is known to be incompatiple with certain, non-Acronis, HD utilities that modify the system disk Master Boot Record (MBR). Also some systems are shipped with non standard MBRs (for multi-boot diagnostic purposes) that could be destroyed when activating the SRM. In addition, creating a SZ on a removable drive and activating the SRM will probably cause TI to fall over if the drive is left switched off or disconnected.

Search this forum for "zone" and see for yourselves how many problems there have been. The consensus of opinion seems to be to use the SZ if need be but only activate the SRM if you have no other method of booting into the Linux based rescue mode.

Regards

 

Thank you.

So, I should image to my external USB drive. Are you suggesting that there's a benefit to creating a Secure Zone on that USB drive? Or can I just have TI write the images of my main drive onto that USB drive?

You say to "activate the SRM if you have no other method of booting into the Linux based rescue mode". If I don't use SRM, and I need to restore from an image, wouldn'tI just boot from the TI installation CD? Or is there some other preferred method for restoring?

 

If you use your USB drive purely for backup purposes and remove it afterwards for safe keeping then I feel there is no point in creating a SZ on it. If you're not in the habit of disconnecting the external drive then it's up to you to decide whether the benefit (security) outweighs the disadvantage (inability to copy or burn the image files elsewhere).

Some systems, particularly ultra-light laptops, are supplied without either a CD or floppy drive (and would normally have a single HD). I believe these are the sort of systems the SZ/SRM was really designed for.

Regards

 

The USB drive is primarily for backups, and is usually disconnected. I connect it when I want to make a backup, or sometimes to transport files to another location.

So you seem to be saying that I'd have more flexibility if I did not create a SZ. Without a SZ, I could write images of my main drive onto the USB HD, and then also make copies of those images to put onto another drive or write to a CD to have multiple backups for more safety?

I see.

Thanks for that.

 

Yes indeed and, as you always disconnect your external drive after a backup session, removing the SZ would only marginally increase your image's vulnerability to viruses etc.

Regards

 

Thanks very much for that. When I get my system restored, I will use Create Image and Restore Image, but not Secure Zone!

 

IMO it doesn't get any simpler than creating a folder called Backups in my 2nd physical HDD and image weekly (full image) to that folder. I usually keep the last 3 images as there is ample room there, so when I create a new image, the oldest one gets deleted. I always do the same: reboot with the bootable media in the CD-ROM drive and create the image with Normal compression. Then verify it, thenreboot (take the media out), and I'm back in Windows. I had to restore images twice, and both times the procedure was as simple as the creation of the images and highly successful.

 

If I remember correctly it had something with the order that I did things. I did not understand the instructions, and I think it had to do with the secure zone. I decided that I did not have the expertise to work with it when considering the problems others more skilled were having.

Thanks, and I know that everyone here will help if one just ask.

Jerry

 

Why do you boot from the Recovery disk? I thought one of the benefits of True Image was that it could create an image, and write that image to an external drive, while you are in Windows normally. What is the advantage of rebooting from the Recovery CD prior to imaging?

 

Well, I'm going with the original question. Is it really worth the hassle? If you check my post in here re: Never had a good TI then you'll know how negatively I feel about this product. I'm going back to Drive Image.

 

Just my personal preference. I see no point in risking a power outage or whatever in Windows whilst imaging, when simply booting once a week from the bootable media saves me that risk, and it only takes ~5 minutes from reboot to back in Windows in my system. Never had a problem so far, and I predict it will continue that way.