Newbie: question about set up

I have one internal hard drive partitioned into:
-C Drive: 40 gb (16 gb free)
-D Drive: 190 gb (60 gb free)

My goal is to have the option to restore at boot (I guess by pressing F11) just in case something happens to my OS.

I created an Acronis Safe Zone on my C Drive and attempted to back up, but I got an error saying disk is full. How much room do I need?

If I put the Acronis Safe Zone on my D-Drive, will I be able to boot to it? Do I have to delete the one I already created?

Please advise. (I have the latest version).

Thanks,
Jeff

 

Hi Jeff,

Under normal compression the image will take about 60% of the space used on any partition, more if a great part of your files is in a compressed format already.

Considering the numbers you gave above, you could only backup partition C, storing the image on D. But to have the MBR included in the image (to be sure the disk will be bootable after restore), you must create an image of the entire disk and you have no space left to store it. Not to mention that it's unsecure to keep the image of the system partition on the same drive.

The solution is an external HD, since your images will be to large for DVDs.

Addendum: I had a laptop in my mind, but if your machine is a desktop, than a second internal drive will be a cheaper and less problematic option.

 

Thanks BVolk for your reply. I do have a desktop.

If I get an external hard drive and put everything on that, can I boot from my external hard drive if my C-Drive goes down? (Would I need to go to BIOS to do this?)

Thanks again,
Jeff

 

You will keep your image stored on the second drive (I would recommend an internal one - some externals are incompatible with TI). That drive won't be bootable, just a storage place for image files.

If your OS crashes, you just restore the image to the system disk. If the system drive breaks down, you replace the broken drive with a new one and restore the image to the new drive. In both instances you get a bootable main drive again, with the old contents on it (OS, applications and files - everything). To be able to perform a restoration of the system disk when needed, you should first create a bootable Rescue CD using the Create Bootable Rescue Media tool in TI.

Having a second drive to store the backups, you won't need Secure Zone.