Testing Acronis TI 9.1 WS w\ Universal Restore Option Part I

Hello all, I have been testing Acronis TI Corp WS since v8.0 and was displeased with a large variety of different problems I encountered with the software at the time. I have been using Ghost as my "mission critical" product since the mid 90's, over 10 years. When Acronis came out with TI, being open-minded I decided to try it as I am not loyal to any product by nature. I instead am looking for the best overall solution when imaging PC's. Unfortunately I had problems with imaging remote clients due to authentication problems, boot media created works only on some machines, etc. Those problems never got fixed during version 8 and hopefully these issues are resolved in v9.1.


LET THE GAMES BEGIN................

So I create an image of C:\ on my test machine(s) and verify it. This process goes quickly without a hitch, so far, so good. Uh oh, trouble, my bootable media is not really that bootable as I had to move a copy of the files from the subfolder to the root as well (posted in forum earlier). As a note the bootable CD's will not work in a number of machines due to the nature of Linux compatibility with hardware. Understanding this is why Symantec Livestate Recovery and Ghost 9-10 use a WinPE-based environment which has much better compatibility with both older and newer hardware. As a note Windows is currently more compatible with a larger variety of hardware than Linux is currently. Anyway, I got the disk to be bootable, unfortunately, my system cannot boot the disk as it says "Starting Boot Loader", then "Boot Failure" then boots into Windows leaving me at log-in so at this point I have not been able to find a piece of compatible hardware for the boot CD. For the record I tried the CD in:

1. White Box - Pentium 4, Asus Mobo, 2 GB RAM, 80GB C:\ Drive
2. Dell Dimension 4600
3. Dell Optiplex 170L

I have a Gateway PIII that didn't have the boot failure, however it hung with a blinking cursor never presenting me with any options. The other computers above are SATA except for the Gateway which is IDE-based. I know that others have had issues with SATA as well. As a note users have been having problems with verifying images made with Ghost 9-10 and Livestate Recovery as I have had in some cases so both products are having SATA-related issues, though different in nature. I think imaging from within Windows is some of the reason this occurs. To be fair, why both vendors did not offer you the option of creating images with the bootable media is beyond me. <snip>

I haven't purchased this product, my friend did at his job where I'm helping him test it as I have helped his company in the past with other imaging-related projects. He went Acronis because Symantec wants a 10-license minimum purchase for LiveState Recovery Desktop Suite 6.0 unlike Acronis. This products potential is great, but having this much trouble with Bootable Rescue Media is unacceptable for any release as the Rescue Media is one of the most crucial pieces to this whole package. It doesn't matter if you can make millions of good, verified images. Having bad rescue disks makes the images useless for disaster recovery. I will keep you posted as my friend purchased the Universal Restore option which is why I was anxious to help him test in the first place.

<snip>

If I can get the Rescue Media to work, I will test a Restore and keep y'all posted!!

To Be Continued...................................


edited to remove non-Acronis support issues - Detox

 

Hardware compatibility is not better cause of efforts of Microsoft, neither of Symantec or Norton. Thats one of the disadvantages of using a non-mainstream OS, although it has its advantages (like smaller footprint). But even as Linux user i have to admit the Hardware support in Windows is better, but only cause Vendors make drivers available. On the other hand there are stubborn linux developers who change driver interfaces just because they wont have anything closed source interfacing with the kernel.

 

This is possibly the root (pun intended) of all your problems. The bootable disk is fine when created properly and I have tested it on a variety of sata and pata machine sucessfully here.

 

Actually I have tried the unadjusted .iso disk as well and it fails at similar times. The reason I figured the .iso change worked is because the disk got furthur along in the boot process and others were having similar issues trying to use the Boot CD's. The Backup CD is picky, some hardware it likes, some not. Also I noted from another message adding the Universal Restore options to the disk hurt it's compatibility as disks created without that feature fared better but I still havent seen the restore disk work yet either way so don't spoil it for me...........

As for Windows being more compatible with a larger range of hardware, it is!!!! Facts are facts, go to any Linux forum and read the millions of messages about users trying to use certain hardware types and failing. Programmers, Kernal Developers, whatever. It doesn't matter why Linux is not as compatible, it currently just is?? Kill the programmers, not me. Maybe in the future things will change but right now Windows is far more compatible with hardware then Linux.

 

That's why the 9.1 workstation also includes the BartPE plugin as an install option. You're covered either way - Windows or Linux.

 

UPDATE: I got the restore disk to work. I burned the 1st disk at 8X, apparantly too fast. Burn the .iso at 4X or slower and the boot disk will work out of the box with no errors any more. I have seen similar issues when creating a Windows Installation CD as well so this is not uncommon and shouldn't be frowned upon. Will test restores tomorrow, stay tuned............

 

Ghost and other imaging software can be discussed in the software and services section since they do not constitute Acronis support issues. Comparison discussion posted to this thread has been moved to that section and can be found here.