Need few startup hints beyond what the manual says.

New user, eager to learn, need quick advice, please.

I just started on a trial v10 version. Never had Acronis before.
I need few initial pointers and procedures to get me started. I did read the manual, but several things aren't clear yet.

Background: I just reinstalled XP home, updated to SP2. Office Pro as well. Several security programs. The computer is clean at the moment. Practically no data yet.

I made a bootable CD, checkmarked both Full and Safe in order to be able to get back to this state. Which would I be using (I'll reread the manual, so the answer here is not vital at the moment).
Are my expectations correct? Or is this a good time to make an image? I think I'm asking what's on that CD.
On a new Maxtor one touch III drive (USB2) I intend to do an image, and latter be adding data.

I have no intention of using Restrospect which comes with the drive. Is there anything I have to do on the drive or the computer to disable it?

To keep confusion down, I want Acronis TI to be the only backup utility (plus some drag and drop).
The reason I ask about the specifics of Maxtor is this thread:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=152229&highlight=maxtor

Do I have to/should I partition the Maxtor drive? It's 200gig. My laptop has 60gig.

For recovery, when do I use the rescue CD I made and when the image from Maxtor?

When making an image, should it be done from safe mode? Or normal Windows mode? Should the firewall, antivirus, antispyware etc be disabled or can they continue to run in the background? What is the impact of running applications (ZoneAlarm etc) on the image that's being made?

When images are dated, is the date format year-month-day (I hope, for sorting purposes)?

 

“Which would I be using”
Safe should only be used if the FULL option gives you grief.

“I think I'm asking what's on that CD”
Only what’s need to launch the program; none of your data, if that’s what you’re asking.

“Is there anything I have to do on the drive or the computer to disable it?”
Retrospect does have some services you may want to set to Manual, or just uninstall the whole thing.

“Do I have to/should I partition the Maxtor drive?”
No need to unless you want to; TI does not require it.

“when do I use the rescue CD I made and when the image from Maxtor”
The CD only contains the TI program. You use it when you cannot boot into Windows.

“When making an image … yada yada yada …”
I make all my backup images from within Windows and shut down nothing to do so. Never had a problem.

“When images are dated”
The images are just files like any other and will be displayed in Explorer as such.

 

If you need the CD at all, you should use Full unless you hit problems.

Backup from Windows. Don't stop anything, just make sure you verify after backing up. Restore from windows when it lets you (non system partitions). Also, make sure you verify before restoring.

F.

 

You should check the file system on the Maxtor, it is probably Fat32, if it is you should be aware that any images you make will be split into approximately 4gb chunks, this is a restriction of the file system.
As you are using XP you can use the convert command from a dos prompt to convert the drive to NTFS, type convert into the Help search box to learn how to use the command.

 

Or you can keep the disk in FAT32, as in recovery CD they seems to be some performance issues with USB NTFS disks.
You'll see later if you have problems!

 

No problem with my Seagate

 

Thank you all. That clarifies few things nicely. Even though the manual looks like a masterpiece, the devil is in the details.

Question to TheWeaz: by "never had any problem" doing image live, can I assume that you actually restored the entire image successfully? As I'm still on trial version, this is a good time to ask about the recovery part which is the only thing that counts.

Question to como and jaycee: I know how to change to NTFS, and I intended to do just that before kicking in the Acronis TI system. Can you, please, elaborate. Is the performace of NTFS-USB2 an Acronis problem or the computer problem?

 

"you actually restored the entire image successfully?"

Many times.

 

It appears that when booted from the Acronis rescue disk (the recommended way to carry out a restore) that some USB external drives are not recognised correctly. If you do a search on external drives on this forum you will find that this is the exception.

The rescue disk is Linux based which causes problems with some hardware configurations. Also if you start a restore from Windows the computer will reboot into a Linux environment.

 

“Also if you start a restore from Windows the computer will reboot into a Linux environment.”

That being the case, why would the rescue disk be “the recommended way to carry out a restore”? Like I mentioned, I’ve preformed restores many times and always initiated them while in Windows.

 

Doing this is fine ...
But however, Act8192, you really should create the Recovery Boot-CD, and test from that as well. This allows you to Restore your computer in case REAL Disaster strikes, and you can't boot into Windows.

NOTE:: With the Trial Edition, you can not "Restore" an Image file from the Recovery Boot-CD. You'll need to buy the Full version.

Oh, and I would Reformat the External to NTFS. This will avoid the FAT32 4gb file size limit issue. Reformating the External will also get rid of the "Retrospect".

 

Hi starsfan09,

I'm afraid you've got that the wrong way around. The bootable rescue CD created via the Trial version of TI can "Restore" images but cannot "Create" them.

Regards

 

I do intend to pay real money.
Yesterday I started building secure zone and it ended up on BSOD I'll have to check after work how things are there. BSOD was about some driver trying to write to memory spot that couldn't be written. I'll be back with trouble report after reading the event log and/or after it repeats.

Thanks for all the thoughts, keep'm up, every tidbit clarifies, please just a bit longer - anything to get me started for real.

 

You're right. I had it backwards.
But if you think of it like this, it may sound better. If a new user is trying out Acronis for the first time, and is using the Trial version...they wouldn't have any TI Images. And since you can't create them, ...you can't Restore them.

Being serious, I think Acronis should at least allow the user to Create, and Restore an Image at 2 times with the Trial. Or put a 10 day countdown in the software. This would let the user Fully try out the software to Test for compatibility.
Oh well, they may think about doing this 5 years from now.

 

Hi starsfan09

I thought they could do a full create restore cycle, as the Windows version is only time limited. They can create any partitions they want under windows (for 15 days), restore system ones under Linux (indefinitely) and restore non system ones under Windows (for 15 days).

Is that right ?
F.

 

The Maxtor drive appears to be NTFS. So says XP properties and Everest. I exposed hidden files and there are none other than System Volume. They might be very hidden, I don't know how to tell. I think that Retrospect stuff gets installed if you use their CD which I did not. BTW, it says to read chapter 2 for this and that. There is no manual included (One Touch III), probably is on the CD It was recognized, by name, immediately. No problems.

So this is a good time to make a real Secure Zone?
Oh, there are 6 or so Acronis errors in the event log from my trial run yesterday on the C drive. Is there a collection agency for those?

Is there a yearly update fee for patches or once I buy it's mine forever?

 

Acronis welcome screen says it's "fully functional" in Trial, which is why I'm trying, counting on longevity.

 

1. Ti v10 build 4871. Problem while working with external drive
Running from normal WindowsXP-sp2 environment, the validation failed.
Error E70020
Image corrupted, hex70020
Tag=hex82db9339b70c0c3afc
I tried twice, failed on both ocassions.

Disconnected RJ45
Then I turned of the firewall, antivirus and anti-all of that stuff. Zone Alarm Security Suite.
Rebooted, created second image, it's about 100 bytes smaller than the first.
This one verified.

Is this a coincidence or a bit of interference with real-time applications after all?
I really must know the environment that it'll work in.

2. The GUI is wonderful. The logs are very good - is there a way to send an error message to clipboard to avoid transcription errors?

3. Considering I still haven't bought it (9 days to go), what is safe to try now? Reformat C drive and recover? Kinda scary.

 

Hello act8192,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for the delayed response.

Please note the updates within the same version of the product is free of charge. To get access to updates you should first register your software. After that you will be able to download the latest build from "Product Update" section of your account.

Please also note that Acronis Secure Zone was designed for those users who does not have a dedicated backup storage. If you have external hard drive you can store images created with Acronis True Image 9.0 Home there. I would recommend that you have a look at this thread to know more about Acronis Secure Zone. Also this FAQ article explaining the reason why we do not recommend creating Acronis Secure Zone on a detachable drive can be useful.

As for the issue with corrupt backup archive, could you please do the following?

- Disable "the firewall, antivirus and anti-all of that stuff. Zone Alarm Security Suite" temporary and then validate the image that was reported as corrupted;

- Create a new image archive, store it to the local hard drive instead of the external USB hard drive and then validate this image when Acronis True Image 10.0 Home is running from under Windows.

Please create Acronis Report and Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post. Please keep your external USB hard drive connected while creating Acronis Report.

Then submit a request for technical support with the subject indicating that you want to contact Aleksandr Isakov. 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 a solution.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

Hello and thank you for your response.

Just using the trial version and getting tremendous help from this forum has totally resolved my TI and computer problems - RAM errors - see this:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=154230

FYI: Three trials using v10 so far tell me that it is possible to get good backups with the firewall and "everything anti-" on, though I normally disconnect them as well as RJ45 in order to have fewer open files on the system. Backups and Images to external work. Rescue CD works, USB mode works, TI reads the data back in and 20min later the computer is restored from scratch.

Nice product. I particularily like the tremendous amount of feedback the GUI provides. And of course the key feature - backups.

 

So, am I to take it that one must disconnect the RJ45, and disable the firewalls and anti-virus Software before starting the backup process?

Regards

 

No that is not necessary. I backup to a networked drive using an RJ45 cable at home and always run with firewalls and anti-virus software running.

 

No. At the end of the thread referred to by act8192 (see link in post #20) he states that bad RAM has been confirmed. Disabling the background processes he actually made TI avoid the defective upper memory locations, obtaining that way a valid image.

With good RAM one does not need to disable anything, I never do. Several users have reported of even using the computer normally while the imaging is under way.

Addendum: In fact, disabling processes in cases such as this one may even turn out to be counterproductive. That would prevent the defective RAM to show up in good time (on creating images) only to find it blocking the restore later on, perhaps leaving one with a deleted system partition. Namely, the restore process appears to be the most RAM intensive and the first one to fail due to bad memory locations.

 

She

Since I started this thread asking for hints, here's another question - how can I tell whether on installing the real version I did a typical or complete installation? I just can't recall and wonder if I have that BartPE thingie whatever that is. I've sucessfully restored from USB drive after booting through a CD I made after installation. It ran Linux I think. Does that mean I have that BartPE thing? If not, is there a way to add it in now? And what would I do with it? Step by step please. Thank you.

 

I have noticed that some users with systems which have never exhibited any backup/restore problems disable processes before backup as a matter of routine. It makes me wonder what the point of running ATI from Windows is if you have to do this. There should be no need to touch anything, especially on workstations.

F.