Newbie needs help!!!

Hi, I'm sure this has been answered a lot of times but I'm really confused as to how to image and restore files. I have Acronis Ver 6 and I'm thinking of upgrading to Ver 8 but I need some answers first. I have been able to successfully image my "C" partition and the other partition "I" of the physical hard drive to a external USB 2 hard drive. I'm lost as to how I can take that external file and replace my present c and I drive with the imaged C and I drive. I need to replace the old C drive as it is beginning to show signs of going bad. I have my original Win XP pro disc, but I'm trying to save me the trouble of reloading the operating system and all of the associated programs. I hope I have made my self clear. If not, I will be glad to give more details. Thanks Watty 32

 

You know, that's why they make help files. Not to be rude, but that's the whole purpose of this software, they discuss this in very easy to understand terms if you would just 'open' the manual.

 

You may be better off getting version 8.0 before attempting to restore an image since you are using a substantially earlier version than the current one and there are likely to have been many improvements since version 6.0 and a better chance of a successful restore. However I am not sure if version 8.0 of True Image will restore version 6.0 images.

If I were in your situation I would make an image of the way things currently are (using version 8.0 if you decide to purchase it) and save it to the USB disk just in case the image you want to restore is corrupted and you wind up with no functioning operating system on your computer.

I would then copy the image you want to restore to your second drive as there is less chance of things going wrong when restoring an image from an internal drive and I don't know if version 6 worked without problems if attempting to restore from a USB drive. Once you have copied the image of C drive you want to restore to your second drive probably called D drive reboot with the Acronis boot CD in your CD Rom drive.

When you boot into Acronis using the boot CD follow the steps starting with clicking on 'Restore image'. You will be asked to point to the image that you want to restore so you find it on D drive and highlight it. Then enter any password you used and then you will be asked if you want the image verified before it is restored. I usually click no but if you want to be doubly certain the image is OK you can click yes and the whole process will take a bit longer.

You will then have to choose the partition or drive to restore which should be C drive as you are restoring the main drive your operating system is on. You will then be asked to choose the destination drive that the image will be restored to and you should pick C drive but don't worry as if you pick the wrong drive you will get a message saying you can’t restore the image to the drive as it that contains the image and so you pick again choosing the remaining drive.

You will then be asked if you want to delete the partitions on the drive and you should say yes because the image you are about to restore will replace the existing partitions and the operating system on C drive. You should then click on 'Proceed' and hopefully the image will be restored.

After the image has been restored you should be more confident about restoring the image of your second drive starting with copying and pasting the image of the drive drive from the USB disk to C drive (you can't have it on the same drive as will be restored) and then restore drive D going through the same steps as you did to restore C drive.

 

Hello watty32,

Thank you for choosing Acronis System Restore Software.

Acronis True Image 8.0 will certainly work with images create with previous versions of the software and you may upgrade without any risk. Please do not forget to register your new version at our site, update it to the latest (800) build and create new Acronis Bootable CD.

Please note that in case you want to restore the image to a different hard disk you need to restore the image of the whole drive (not a single partition), otherwise your new drive may be unbootable because the MBR is included only into the image of the whole disk.

As for the actual restoration process, mareke has described it clearly and I have nothing to add. However, I would recommend that you read User's Guide before doing anything.

Thank you.
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Ilya Toytman