System Drive Image for Snap Restore

I just bought True Image to install on my daughter's laptop. Before doing so, I am reading the documentation, so in this case, I am reading the TI pdf. This paragraph has raised a question for me:

"When performing Snap Restore, the current Acronis True Image Home version always restores the entire system disk. Therefore, if your system disk consists of several partitions, all of them must be included into the image. Any partitions which are missing from the image will be lost."

Since this is a laptop, does that mean that the entire hard drive will be imaged as the "system drive?" If so, where does the Secure Zone go since it sounds as if the Secure Zone will be part of the image? [Having read a little more in the manual, I see that Secure Zone is located in unallocated space. That takes care of of my question on that.]

Further, when you use Snap Restore, is the entire hard drive overwritten with the "system drive" image?

What I am planning on doing is putting the OS in its own partition and data, images, backups, etc. in other partitions. Moreover, I will create an additional partition with a second copy of the OS so that if one gets trashed, the other can be booted using Disk Director.

What I am hoping to hear is that if C is my OS1 partition, I can create a "system drive" image of just that partition such that when using Snap Restore it will restore just the C partition. If Snap Restore will rewrite over the whole hard drive with the "system drive" image, then Snap Restore will not be an option I can use.

It would seem that Snap Restore cannot work like that since every time you change your data, you would have to put a new system drive image in the Secure Zone. Otherwise, all data changes since the creation of the system drive image would be lost in a Snap Restore.

 

Greetings URThere,

I'm sure others will reply with more insight into the pros and cons of using Snap Restore (I've never used it). I will just say that many experienced users choose not to use it. Since you use Disk Director, I'd say you are not likely to end up using Snap Restore. But, each situation is unique. There are built-in limitations to using an automated program like Snap Restore, and you may want to research this further. This forum is an excellent place to search. And, yes, I think part of the problem with Snap Restore is that it does precisely that: overwrite your entire drive. Good if you want to restore things regularly to a certain state, not so good if you have changing data, or any unconventional drive setup.

As for creating a 2nd copy of the OS on your main drive -- if it is Windows XP, that may be challenging. I thought at first that I would do that, but XP has lots of built-in hurdles to creating such a dual boot environment. Even Acronis OS Selector that comes with Disk Director doesn't make this simple. So, be sure you back up everything well, test your boot disks before you start on any new paths, and be ready to restore your system if it becomes unbootable. You may need to fix the Boot.ini and restore the MBR...all discussed at length in these forums.

Here's a link to an article on dual booting XP by Dan Goodell: http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm

Here's a post by Acronis Support with their suggestions on how to create a dual boot Windows XP environment (which I find fairly complex):
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=764299&postcount=3

And you might find some helpful advice in this thread, Unable to Boot after System Restore such as posts #30 & #34 by Tabvla https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=799269#post799269

Regards

 

Hi Christopher,

I don't need to use Snap Restore; since I had just learned about its availability I wanted to understand it before using. The other methods for restoring the partition will work.

As for installing the second OS, Sysprep is only necessary if you take the OS to another computer. I have used a competitor's product to put two OSs on my desktop and my oldest daughter's computer w/o problems. I bought Acronis to see how I liked it compared to the other product.

Thanks for your reply. I will just figure on not using Snap Restore unless I learn something different. I have just started studying TI, and I haven't even looked at the Disk Director manual yet.

Have a good one.

Bill

 

You don't need to install a backup copy of the same OS for the event that the main one fails. When that happens, you will boot from the Rescue CD (you should create one before doing anything else) and restore the image of your system partition (C: drive). That's precisely what True Image is meant to do: return the drive to a previous state after a Windows crash, an infection or an incomplete uninstallation of some software.

You will also be able to transfer all the contents of the present drive to a new (larger) one when the present drive breaks down or becomes full.

 

First I want to say that I had not thought about the license aspect. A question I have is that since the duplicate OSs are hidden from each other there are never two functioning OSs at any one time, so is that violating the license?

Back to what I am doing. The competitor's product that I have been using works similarly. However, these laptops are for my daughters at college. If one OS won't work, the way I set it up, all they have to do is reboot and when the boot manager comes up, select the alternate OS. Really simple for them.

If it is a virus that is causing the problem, and it has gotten into their data, since I have three different ways the data is backed up, I am hoping that at least one method will have most of their recent files saved without the virus. At worst, their very latest work might be bad, but that is what anti-virus programs are supposed to stop in the first place.

When there is time, they can contact me, and we can install a good image on the trashed OS partition.

So far, I have gotten one laptop through one year of college w/o having to use the alternate OS. It was a good year for me.

 

Congratulations !

 

Hello URThere,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

In addition to the above posted replies, I'd also like to clarify some points.

Concerning restoring disk\partition images with Acronis Snap Restore:

1. You can use Acronis Snap Restore to restore images located in Acronis Secure Zone only.

2. If you created an image of a single system partition and afterwards restore this image with Acronis Snap Restore all other partitions persisting on the destination hard drive will be lost. That's why we recommend that you always create an image of the entire hard rive if you plan to use Acronis Snap Restore in the future.

3. Acronis Secure Zone is a special hidden partition and can be accessed by Acronis True Image only. You can either include it into the image or not. The image of the entire hard drive excluding Acronis Secure Zone is still considered the image of the entire hard drive, so there is usually no point in including Acronis Secure Zone in the resulting image archive.

As for the backup strategy you plan to use, it will certainly work. However, Acronis True Image is generally meant to recover system in the following way:

1. One creates an image on a regular basis.

2. In case of the system crash, one boots the computer from Bootable Rescue Media or Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (so-called 'F11 feature' which comes with Acronis Secure Zone) and simply restores the beforehand created image archive.

You can find the detailed instructions on how to use Acronis True Image 9.0 in the respective User's Guide.

You may also find Acronis True Image 9.0 Home FAQ page helpful.

It is also recommended that you take a look at this article providing the illustrated instructions on Acronis True Image 9.0 Home installation and usage.

Please also take a look at Acronis Public Knowledge Base.

If you have any further questions concerning Acronis software, please feel free to submit a request for technical support or post any of them on this forum. We will certainly try to help you in resolving any issues.

Thank you.
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Alexey Popov