My trial time is running out and I still have many questions.

My trial time is running out and before I make a full commitment I still have a lot of basics I don't fully understand with TI v11. I am finding the manual very bewildering and 'over my head' at times.

XP Pro

1. I have 2 HDs installed and both have multi partitions. When I 'backup' to an external HD, which way is safer - by disk or individual partitions.

2. If I can 'Backup' by disk do you recommend combining the disks in one backup or keep them separate?

3. I have just come across the section in the manual regarding 'Creating Backup Locations'. I have already completed a couple of backups during testing but there was no warning that I needed a 'Backup Location'.

a. Are 'Backup Locations' really necessary?

b. If they are, is it possible to copy my backup files over to the new generated 'Backup Location' or must I start from scratch?


Vista.

4. I carried out a backup on my Vista PC which backed up successfully, but although in the options I selected Automatic for Archive Splitting, expecting to find the backup as a single file, it has split up in 34 separate files of 4.19gb! How can I prevent this from happening?

Sorry if some the the answers are in the forum but I have been trawling for days and I am becoming extremely confused and short of time.

Many thanks

Don Fraser

 

1. Do the entire disk.

2. I don't think it is possible to combine the Backup of two physical drives. In any case don't complicate it .. do each drive seperately.

3. You do not have to use the Backup Locations feature. I'm still using version 9 which doesn't have that so I'm not sure what is its purpose.

4. The external drive is formatted as Fat 32 which can handle a maximum files size of about 4Gb - hence the split.

Look for any message by GroverH and read some of the guides he has in Links at the bottom of his message.

 

Backup Locations are not necessary unless you want ATI to autmatically uniquely name your backups and manage them -- i.e., consolidated incrementals when a specified limit is reached or delete the oldest full backup when a specifed limit is reached.

For example, tyou can create a location and specify a max of ten backu files.
Then you can create a task to back up to that Backup Location, say every night. Each backu file will have the date and time of creation as part of its name. When the 11th backup is created, ATI will automatically delete the oldest backup to keep the number of files at the specified maximum. Once you set it you you pretty much don't have to touch it again. If you don't want ATI doing that autmated deletion, then you don't need to create any Backup Locations.

If you already have backups, you can put them in the newly created Backup Location and ATI should observe the Location's limits--if you copy over 10 files and the limit is 10 then the next time you backup to that Location, the oldest file would be deleted.

ATI will automatically split files only when it has to, when writing to CDs/DVDs or to a disk formatted with FAT/FAT32 (because FAT has a limitation on file size).

Hope that's some help,

It isn't inherently better to backup a full disk than apartition; it depends on your needs. However, if you backup up a n entire disk, you can restore any of the partitions, so that's one way to keep it simple, just do full disks. You can get fancier when you have more experience and feel more comfortable.

 

Thanks DwnNdrty, all points taken onboard.

Jee! Now why didn't I recognise the 4Gb problem? I only had the same problem 6 months ago when I installed another external HD. My brain must be turning into sludge quicker than I hoped!

Don

 

Thanks Shieber, I now understand more about the use of Backup Locations. I have converted my new HD to NFTS format so that problem has gone away. Same suggestion as DwnNdrty to keep the disk together.

Regards

Don

 

You can indeed include more than one disk in a backup, although I'm not sure there would much utility to doing so. Usually only one disk goes bad at a time so one would only need the backup of one on such an occasion and not the other.

The partition to which you are storing the backup cannot/should not be included in the multi-disk backup.

 

I am becoming so frustrated I wish I hadn't heard the name Acronis.

Would you believe, using my Vista PC I carried out a complete backup and verified the data. I had to reboot my PC as windows had done an update and I needed to continue. However on reboot it kept hanging and rebooting repeatedly after about 10 secs into the POST, not enough even to display the start of the windows progress bar. (To be honest, I am not sure if it was the windows update or TI which caused the problem.) I couldn't even select 'safe mode'. I have now switched off auto update!)

Anyway, I tried a full recovery using the boot disk. After many attempts I finally managed to start a full restore of my HD. The time was 15 before midnight so I decided to let the recovery continue during the night. I arose this morning early around 6am to check if the restore worked. Well expecting it to be completed I was flabbergasted to find that it still had 1 day and 4 hours to go!!! I have taken a pic with my camera as evidence.

I aborted the restore as I didn't want to wait 1 day and 4 hours to find it wouldn't boot!

So I have installed a fresh copy of Vista Premium with all the necessary add-ons required. I am only restoring my non- primary partition of 90Gb. Well it has taken 65 mins just to display 2 green bars in the 'Current operation progress' window. So god knows how long this will take.

I am using a brand new external HD 7200rpm so I don't think that is the problem.

Am I expecting too much - do most recoveries take this long?.

Update: It has just displayed 15 hours remaining!!! Which means at this rate it should be finished by 6am tomorrow.......grrr!! Opps, just updated again to now 16 hours remaining. While I am finish this message it has now gone to 17hours - ridiculous!

I feel my best bet is to mount my backup and just copy the files over and where necessary reload the supporting programs.

Regards

Don

Update: 18 hours.... and ....now 19 hours!!. after 1h20mins of recovery time

 

Hello all,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Don Fraser, in this case we recommend you to submit a request for technical support. please provide the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the issue with unacceptable restore time appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

Thank you.

Best Regards,
Alexey Bogomolov