OK, time for a rant...

Thanks to the few who gave an honest shot at helping me with the issues I have with Acronis TI10. The careful observer will note that Acronis support didn't even bother with my issue, but they had plenty of time to answer softball questions from those new to imaging in general (please, no offense intended to the new imagers, that's not the point).

I bought TI10 after having read fantastic reviews about the program from two sites. They both complained at length about the horrible tech support from the "N" (S) company, but in re-reading their "reviews" I came to discover that the issues they had with the other product were based on things that had NOTHING to do with the other product, but silly (nice term for STUPID) things they had running on their systems that would interfere with ANY imageing.

One major complaint they had was "no indication that the image was corrupt" after having discovered a corrupt image in a time of need (again, due to their silly stuff running), reading deeper, of course they weren't verifying the images with that product, but somehow magically "remembered" to turn on verify for Acronis, something they could have just as easily done for the other product. So, the other product was bad-mouthed to the hilt, the other company's support was read the riot act for not being able to figure out their problem (because they never told them about the silly stuff), and, to sum it up, you'd have to be an idiot to use that other product, Acronis was "the only way to go".

Anyway, I bought it with the highest of expectation, then the problems started. Much is made here about "making sure you have the latest version, earlier version has problems". OK, fine. I understand there is a lot that needs to be done to made sure stuff works in the hugely diverse world of PC computing. People think Macs are "flawless", well of course Macs have 2 things going for them: Closed systems for one, and so very little other software available to interfere with the Apple sanctioned setup. (OK, lots of people run OS 9.x and OS 10 both because of compatibility issues, but I digress). Anyway, back to the "latest version"...

Exactly how many versions does it take to get imaging right? The whole concept of imaging is to make a direct copy of the drive's contents and save it for later in case of dire need. This is a big deal in the Windows environment as so much is going on at any one time it can be a problem to catch everything in a snap-shot state that will work later on, I get it. The early imaging programs handled this in the easiest way possible, boot to DOS, copy the chunks of to another location (preserving key structures for restore), DONE. A much bigger task under Windows, again, I understand. BUT, if I install the other program from 2005 and ask it to update, it gets ONE SINGLE UPDATE that relates not to imaging, not to imaging under Windows, but in how to find alternate updates in the case the main site is unavailable.

Lastly, the sysinfo dump logs. If you have a problem with Acronis products, you are casually requested to provide sysinfo logs as if it's just another chunk of data. BS, sysinfo logs are, in the wrong hands, loosely equivalent to providing your bank account numbers, your banks routing numbers, and of course your SS number for good measure.

OK, so now that I've done a "review", what have I learned? I learned that if I had a problem with "silly" software running on my system that I didn't tell the other company about, that they might get so frustrated with my whining that they tell me straight out they can't help, even if I review stuff "for a living". Well, my experience here is, aside from the generous contributions by dedicated users, support can't deal with my issue because it's so much easier to deal with having to explain how to read a manual or how to interpret what is meant by what is contained in said manual. Besides, any response from support would have been a platitude in one form or another, and of course a request not for the pertinent parts of my sysinfo that have even the slightest possibility of interferring with an image process, but a complete roadmap to my machine.

To the dedicated users, I congratulate you on your willingness to hang in there through all the revisions, and of course your willingness to help other users in place of the support team. I've alway felt a great deal of reward in helping people too, so I know what makes you "tick" as it were.

For the record, the other product does have some issues if you choose to use their entire suite, especially the AV product. Bloat-ware is the key phrase, not neccessarily the size of the install, but how full and sluggish even a killer machine can be when having their stuff running. So, that other company offers one product and one product alone that makes sense for me, and I'm somewhat sorry to have to admit, is the absolute pinnacle of imaging for Windows systems. I REALLY REALLY wanted TI-10 to blow them off the map, but it's definitely not going to happen any time soon.

Finally, to those who tried to help, thank you sincerely. I broke down last night and begrudingly installed the other software (man I wanted to avoid that, not because it was bad in any way, but because I wanted TI-10 to be my new favorite, I wanted a change since I've been using that software since the Bits days!). Anyway, I did a ton of images since then using the other software, imaging C to E, D to E, C+D to E, C to D to E (trying to get huge images to see if boundaries were an issue) and not one single failure to verify. I'm glad I tried it since I would have spent the next few weeks trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with my damn system (that IS the way I would have felt) but now I can just get back to working, knowing my work will be preserved, and if an emergency arises, I've got it covered with 100% (OK, 99.99997%) confidence.

Varmint

 

So are you saying that the latest version of Ghost works as advertised?

 

May the force be with you.

I stay hooked on Acronis True Image Enterprise Server, not the same problems.

Jaycee, who likes to read long posts, but cant figure out the other product?

 

Varmint,

Out of interest, which version of the G app are you using?

 

Folks, this is the Acronis Support forum. There are other subforums on this site if you wish to discuss competing products. Thanks in advance.

Blue