Newbie to Acronis and not sure where to start... help!

I am new to Acronis and the whole data backup thing. Acronis comes highly recommended, so I am trying it out.

My question is simple - is there a manual or maybe even on this forum for the newbies out there? I have no idea where to start with this and the regular manual is intimidating to say the least. I just need a beginner guide to Acronis and will progress as time goes.

Right now, I need to know how to create a full backup of my system and how to ensure that it's there when I need it and then how to access it when the time comes.

Thank you very much.

 

One of the users here, GroverH, has some beginner's guides in links in his signature ... do a search for his name.

 

Start simply - full backup of the disk you want to backup to a disk you choose as a receipient. Don't need a manual fof this as pressing "Backup" on the opening screen starts the Wizard with simple instructions for the next step.

Secondly check the Acronis site for v11 manual. They have a good one for v10, downloadable as a PDF file.

 

Thanks for the help, I appreciate it.

 

As DwnNdrty pointed out, the guides link below point to both my guides plus other pdf tutorials. Welcome to the forum. Most questions have already been answered. The task is to find those answers. The search link can help.

What is your operating system? Is this desktop or laptop? Brand name of computer? Look at your disk using your Windows Disk Management option. All this has a bearing.

Addendum: Some additional reading material:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=187133#5

 

You know what would be great for newbies like me? Camtasia videos of how to use Acronis properly. The giant PDF from Acronis is so hard to follow - you read this section, that references 5 other sections and end up jumping all around.

Two simple videos would be very useful - one showing how to back your system up and one showing how to restore it when needed.

Perhaps someone here has created these or could consider it for noob's like me that find these pdf's intimidating. I learn best by visually seeing the program being used, not trying to follow a PDF all around.

I think video learning is so commonplace now that a product like Acronis could easily utilize this learning tool to help minimize the support emails from people like me.

 

If the Graphical User Interface (GUI) is done correctly, it should be like a series of still pictures that lead the user into doing the selected procedure. Isn't it like this?

I use only the Rescue CD for Ver. 9 and it has a simple interface. Perhaps Ver 11 is more complicated.

 

Not quite sure what you mean Dwn. My suggestion is to create a video recording the steps that need to be taken to create a backup and one that shows how to use that backup when you need it. I'm sure an experience user could create something like this in a matter of minutes. I'd do it if I knew what I was doing.

 

Hello brownsfan019,

Granted it's not a video, and it refers to TI 9.0 Home, but this fully illustrated pdf tutorial should be more than enough to get you started on the basics of creating and restoring images.

Regards

Menorcaman

 

Thanks Menorcaman, I will take a look at it later. The 124 pages is intimidating, but it appears many are just images so hopefully it will be easy to use. Thank you again for sharing this as I needed something with graphical illustrations. I just learn by seeing, not reading.

 

brownsfan019,
Did you look at my two beginner guides as suggested above? These are very visual and small in number of pages.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=168165

 

I'm a newbie too so I'd like to chime in. I agree with brownsfan. Your pdf's are helpful but I still can't find a straight answer anywhere to the 2 or 3 simple questions I have.

All I want to do is to create one full backup of my hard drive once a week, with 6 incremental backups for the other days. I'm backing up to an external drive. I want to do that for three weeks in a row and then have the next full backup replace the oldest full backup (deleting the old file otherwise my external HD will run out of space) and continue on from there.

To my mind this should not be rocket science. I have made some sucessful backups so I guess I'm safe, but try as I might I cannot see how to create the setup I want and know that it's going to work.

If you can help without pointing me to a manual (I've tried reading it believe me) or the pdf which as far as I could see did not cover the topic of overwriting the oldest back up, you would make me (and brownsfan probably) very happy.

Thanks

Nicole

 

Nicole,
Hopefully someone from Acronis reads these forums and will take our idea and do something about it! In the time that this thread has been sitting here, someone from Acronis could have easily and quickly made some videos. Camtasia Studio is incredibly user friendly. I just don't understand how a software company does not have how-to videos. I just assumed that in the year 2007 this was a given as an easy customer service aspect.

Apparently some companies are still learning that a 100+ page PDF that references all different sections throughout is simply not enough, esp. when it's so quick and easy to make some how-to videos. I mean, when you look at that PDF, you read one section that references 3 other sections, and those sections reference 2 other sections, etc. etc. It's impossible to follow the maze this PDF sends you on trying to figure out how to do something.