My TI 8 Backup / Recovery Experience

Summary: I successfully backed up and restored a disk image on a notebook computer across a network share.

I needed to upgrade my notebook computer hd to same model, same size, but faster speed. The notebook only has room for 1 drive bay, and I don't have an external. So, I needed to access my desktop machine which had an extra drive on it currently utilized for TI backups for it. This would require using TI through the home lan which TI does - correct?

Basically I figured out there was no way to target the notebook from the desktop so I decided to use the TI Recovery Disk on cd in the notebook to target the desktop. I started TI up fine on the notebook, and I needed to use Clone because basically that is what I was doing...cloning the hardrive within it. However Clone will not work because it requires all drives to be mounted local. So turns out I needed to do an image backup and restore. Thought #1: Shouldn't the Clone function also be a network function?

The problem came in when I tried to connect remotely to the drive on the desktop through the network. I tried numerous ways / settings to get TI's connectivity up using what I believe are the correct values and I could NEVER get it to work. For some reason DHCP was also showing up as unavailable so I was manually entering values. I followed recommendations from other forum posts and did a long qualification of the server, share, gave proper permissions, etc but no luck and no DHCP.

Fortunately for me a few months ago as I wandered the internet I came across the BartPe tool on my own. It appeared to me super nifty and so I had set it up and tested it. Bart gave me access to internet, lan, file system, virus scanner, nero, and other things. I had remembered that there was a plug in for Disk Director too, and I figured I could also use it to start True Image. I also noticed that Acronis has a Bart plugin for TI - so I downloaded and installed it too. This came up without a hitch. I messed around with the network some more only to find I still couldn't quite get it to work. Then I remembered that a few months ago when I did my setup I ended up using an ethernet cable rather than the wireless network. So, I plugged that in and Bart connectivity was fully available. I backtracked and restarted the notebook using TI's Recovery Disk and attempted connectivity with the ethernet cable (as opposed to wireless), but still no luck. The whole set up for TI's network is very rudimentary and needs much improvement. Fortunately Bart's abilities in this regard are fairly robust. So here my recommendation is to avoid TI's network capability (or lack thereof) and just use Bart with TI as a plugin.

I booted Bart and loaded TI - found the remote network share and after providing it sharing and access authorization on the desktop side was able to start the Create Image function. TI backed it up without errors - apparently flawlessly as far as I could tell. If there was a verify feature I didn't see this so that is some concern to me as to if TI does a compare of source and target as it processes to insure no lost / corrupt bytes.

After that I removed the old hd from the notebook, and put the new one in. I started Bart and TI back up. Note that here I had been concered that Bart plugins were actually accessing the underlying application on the related hard disk where the app had been installed. The Bart disk I have is only a cd with ~700mb of space, so it just didn't seem right that all these applications would fit on the small Bart cd. However when I put the new drive in the notebook and started TI it worked without a hitch. So, apparently Bart doesn't access these similar to a shortcut, but instead has the full functionality on the small cd. Amazing!

Anyway, Bart and TI came up, network came up, and I started the restore re-building the notebook hard drive on the new disk from the copy stored on the network. That process also went flawlessly as far as I can tell. So at the moment I am very happy .

Recommendations:
1) Acronis really needs to improve this network ability. Perhaps TI 9 (which I don't own) has addressed this already?
2) If #1 hasn't been done, don't even mess with getting TI's network to work. Just use BartPe with a TI plug in.
3) Connect to network using direct ethernet cable, avoid wireless networking.

Observations / Questions:
1) When the notebook with the newly rebuilt hard drive first booted, I was surprised to see that XP SP2 noticed the drive and loaded drivers, but the old drive was 4200rpm and the new is 5200rpm so perhaps it realized something was slightly different and it needed to reload. Wonder if it loaded the correct drivers and correct mode of operation?
2) When the notebook (with recently re-created hd) started up I am wondering if the background desktop image is of lower quality. Seems it appears to have more noise than it use to as I recall from memory, but I'm not positive. May just be my imagination. But thats why I posted that question as a separate thread.

Anyway, that's it and this time TI worked well for me just when I needed it. There are some issues that need to be dealt with but overall I am happy. I think someone less techinically inclined though would have had difficulty especially if they were unable to get networking to work. I also think that the documentation needs to be a little better and more detailed. Basic info is good but there needs to be a reference manual for details of operation such as what the image function actually does, what the check image function actually does and how it does it, etc.

 

Hello planet_bill,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

It probably should. However, none of the currently available Acronis True Image versions allows cloning over the network.

If you want us to change the behaviour of Acronis True Image in any way or add some new features to this product, please feel free to post any of your suggestions in Acronis True Image WISH-LIST thread.

Please be aware that none of the currently available Acronis True Image versions supports wireless network. Please take a look at this previous post of mine for details.

If you encounter any problems with accessing network when your computer is booted from Bootable Rescue CD then please make sure that you use the latest build (2337) of Acronis True Image 9.0 which is available at: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/updates/

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 at:
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/
then log in and use your serial number to register your software.

Please note that you should create new Bootable Rescue CD after installing the update.

If the problem still persists with Bootable Rescue CD created using the latest build (2337) of Acronis True Image 9.0 then please follow the recommendations provided in this FAQ Article.

If none of them helps either then please do the following:

- Boot the computer from Bootable Rescue CD created using the latest build (2337) of Acronis True Image 9.0 once more and press F11 key when the selection screen advising you to select either "Full", "Safe" or "Boot into Windows" option appears;

- After you get the "Linux Kernel Settings" prompt, please remove the "quiet" word, click on the OK button, choose "Full Version" and wait for # prompt to appear;

- Issue the following commands:

asamba dhcp -n
asamba masters

- Write down the output after each of the commands or use a digital camera to make a shots of the output screens;

- Insert a diskette in a floppy disk drive and issue the following commands;

cd tmp
mkdir mntdir
mount /devfs/floppy/0 mntdir
cat /proc/net/dev > mntdir/net.txt
sysinfo > mntdir/sysinfo.txt
umount mntdir

- Collect the net.txt and sysinfo.txt files from the diskette.

Please note that sometimes the sysinfo.txt and net.txt files are not readable from under Windows. In this case please try entering the file name using capital letters (SYSINFO.TXT, NET.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 (the same applies to net.txt).

Please also provide us with the following information:

- Let us know the exact vendor and model of your network card;

- Describe your network structure in detail (e.g. software and hardware vendors and models, connection type, protocols used, etc.);

- Have you received any error messages? What exact error messages? When exactly have you received them?

Please submit a request for technical support. 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.

I'm afraid that we are not eligible to answer this kind of questions, since they are not related to Acronis software.

Please take a look at the replies in another thread you started.

Please feel free to post any of your suggestions in the above mentioned Acronis True Image WISH-LIST thread.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Thanks for the response. My problem is solved right now with BartPe, but if I need to do it again I'll check out your suggestions.

 

planet_bill,

I was interested to read your post as I've restored an image to a laptop in the same way. I just thought I'd mention the Reatogo version of BartPE in case you are using the plain version. He has a TI 8 auto-help plugin as well.

It's a nicer version than the original.

http://www.reatogo.de/