My experience with TI9.0 Home (Trial) 3567/3625

After 8 days of getting to know TI9.0 Home, I managed to backup & restore the HDD content in my notebook PC.

1. Initially, I have problem with the BootCD which doesn't recognise my DVD-Drive.
(link to thread: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=131282)

2. With the ISOLinux version of BootCD that the support team gave me, this problem is resolved.

3. My HDD is 80GB with only about 9GB used. With 2 DVD+RW discs, I backup the whole HDD into them. After compression it is about 6.2GB. (Backup process runs under Windows XP Home, with a number of background tasks. McAfee Internet Security Suite, SpySweeper, MSN, Advanced System Optimizer's Memory Optimizer, and a number of utilities provided by DELL).

4. After that I rebooted the system using the BootCD and created a 15GB Secure Zone from the HDD. I did another HDD Backup to the secure zone and verify the backup.

5. I rebooted the system to go back to WinXP. Made some changes to some files and rebooted with the BootCD.

6. With the preparation for the worst, I perform a recovery from the backup made into the secure zone. After about 20 mins, the recovery completed successfully and I reboot back to WinXP.

7. The changes has been restored and WinXP functions normally.

8. I rebooted with the BootCD again in an attempt to restore from the 2 DVDs that I've stored the previous backup.

9. Since the HDD partition has been changed, I selected the recovery to resize according to the HDD partition. That's where the problem comes in and as warned by TI9.0. I have been prompted to change discs very frequently until I give up. Afraid that the DVD drive's mechanical parts will fail before the recovery completes.

10. Reboot back to WinXP, erased that 2 DVD discs, and perform another backup directly to the discs.

11. Reboot with the BootCD again and attempt to recover using these 2 DVDs. Since partition is the same as backup, Recovery seems to be easier. First disc inserted is disc 2, prompted for disc 1 shortly after, prompt for disc 2 again, prompt for disc 1, recovery and prompt for disc 2 to continue. Recovery completes successful and WinXP managed to boot up normally. However, the whole process of recovery using DVDs is much much longer. It took me ~1 hours 45 minutes.

12. I am lucky that the recovery content only about 9GB. If it is much more than this, it will probably take much longer.

13. I am satisfied with what Acronis TI9.0 Home (Trial) provides and I believe that it fulfilled my requirements.

However, I have 2 more queries before I purchase this product.

(a) By downloading the Trial version, I am unable to bypass the registration dialog box. Always telling me that it failed to register the product and to try again later. I am certain that the product is not attempting to connect to the internet because McAfee does not detect any network attempts by the product. Will the Actual product have this problem?

(b) I am using the ISOLinux as provided by the Support Team because the the BootCD created by the product cannot recognise my DVD drive. Does that mean that I will be stucked with ISOLinux? I will not get to enjoy the new features of later builds(if any)? I hope that TI9.0 Home will include support for my DVD drive in the mainstream builds?

 

Hello zzzz73,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

I'm really glad to hear that you are satisfied with the work of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home. We will certainly do our best in order to provide you with the good and reliable software in the future as well.

No, the installation of the full version of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home does not require Internet connection. As far as I undersant you were able to test Acronis True Image 9.0 Home. If you still have this issue please let us know and we will provide you with link without registration screen.

Please note that our Development Team include new drivers to each new build of Acronis True Image. I may assume that the drivers for your DVD drive was not included into the latest build (3633) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home for some reasons. I may recommend you to contact Acronis Support Team once again. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Please also note that creating/restoring images directly on CD-R/RW or DVD+R/RW might take considerably more time than it would on a hard disk. It is related with difference between hard drives and CD/DVD discs read/write speed.


Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

I have the latest version ot Ti9.0 (3567). It is the paid version not the Trial version. I was able to backup and recover to an external 2.0 USB Hard Drive without any problems. I noticed it was 3 times as fast doning it in Windows XP as using the backup recovery disk. I was able to backup to DVD + disks using both Windows XP and the recovery disk. The problem was that the recovery disk would not recognize my DVD drive when trying to recover. This is a mystery since it would write on the drive but later would not read it back from the recovery disk. I would recommed anyone using this software to use it only on external USB hard drives for both backup and recovery. Also back it up while you are in windows rather using the recovery disk as it is much faster. I have never had any trouble backing it up while windows is open. Don't even try using DVD's to backup as you are wasting your time. It will back up to the DVD's but you won't be able to recover it.

 

Hello computergeek2,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are very sorry for the delay with the response.

1. If by "the recovery disk would not recognize my DVD drive when trying to recover" you mean that your DVD drive is not shown in the list of the available storage devices when Acronis True Image 9.0 Home is operating in Linux based Acronis Rescue Environment, i.e. when using the 'Full' version of Bootable Rescue CD or Acronis Startup Recovery Manager, then, first of all, please download and install the latest build (3633) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home which is available in the Product Updates section of your account at Acronis web site.

You can find the full version name and build number by going to Help -> About... menu in the main program window.

To get access to updates you should create an account then log in and use your serial number to register the software.

Please uninstall any previously installed build by following Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs -> Acronis True Image, prior to installing build 3633.

Please create new Bootable Rescue CD after installing the update, boot your PC from this CD and see if the problem still persists.

If the problem still persists with Bootable Rescue CD created using the latest build (3633) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home then please create Linux system information (sysinfo.txt) as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

Please note that sometimes the sysinfo.txt file is not readable from under Windows. In this case please try entering the file name using capital letters (SYSINFO.TXT) or follow the instructions provided in this previous post of mine.

If you do not have a floppy drive then please take a look at this previous post of mine explaining how to save the sysinfo.txt file to USB flash drive.

Please also let us know the exact vendor and model of your DVD drive.

Please submit a request for technical support. Provide the sysinfo.txt file and information collected in 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.

2. If by "the recovery disk would not recognize my DVD drive when trying to recover" you mean that no backups ('.tib' files) are shown on DVD when Acronis True Image 9.0 Home is operating in Linux based Acronis Rescue Environment, i.e. when using the 'Full' version of Bootable Rescue CD or Acronis Startup Recovery Manager, then most likely you used DVD+R or DVD-R to store your image. This problem is known and will be fixed in the next build of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home which is expected to be released within the next few weeks (see this thread for further details). We are very sorry for your inconvenience.

If that's not the case then please provide us with the more detailed information on the problem:

- What do you mean exactly by "the recovery disk would not recognize my DVD drive when trying to recover"?

- What type and brand of DVD media do you use?

- What is the exact vendor and model of your DVD drive?

- Create Linux system information (sysinfo.txt) as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

Then please submit a request for technical support. Provide the files and information collected in 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.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov