TI 10 HOME - TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY?

All I want is to do a complete image backup of my PC and be able to recover everything should my system get corrupted.

Basic XP2 system with 80GB HD with 100GB external backup drive.

I understand TI10 has issues backing up outlook files so my concept of backing up "everything" is out of the window that aside, what are your experiences using TI10 so far?

Thanks,
John

 

The problem TI 10 has with Outlook Express files is only when you try to back them up as a separate backup. If you do a whole disk Image, everything will be included in the backup including your OE and the email.

I don't use TI 10 since version 9 does what I need.

 

Thanks for reply.

so is there a way to test if a backup image can be restored successfully? reason is that i see some posts of corrupted images/archives so it just questions the stability of this product.

 

I would suggest that such problems eventually boil down to hardware or driver short comings. However that said one needs to be certain that the program works for you on your hardware.
The only way that I know to test with 100% certainty and no risk of loss is to restore to a spare hard drive.

Xpilot

 

I guess it depends if backups are being used as archives for use at some point in the future. If so, just because a restoration works today it does not mean it is going to restore tomorrow. I personally don't see this game as ever being 100% guaranteed.

F.

 

Cheer up Foghorne! Have you got the morning after the night before New Year Blues ?

Your comment about a restore working one day and not on another could be valid but with a very low probability of it ever happening. It does not really apply to the way I run my system as I always have two generations of main hard drives ready to go.

However when one restores to a spare or in my case an exchangable hard drive there is no risk at all ie. 100 % safe. Were a restore to fail it would be no big deal because the original drive would go back and the reason for failure could then be found and corrected. One has a working system at all times.

Happy New Year

Xpilot

 

Happy New Year Xpilot

I agree with all you write above. I think I am discussing something different to your own scenario, namely a case where one has archives, and where any one might need to be called on at some time in the future. It would be time and cost prohibitive to hold each of these in restored form on a separate disk drive - so I think we are safe to say we are taling about different things.

You are right that the probablility of corruption after a successful restoration is low - however I was gutted to find out that for no known reason the partition table on my external USB drive corrupted a few months ago. I used some disk recovery software to get some of my images back, and although they were mountable, they no longer verified. Luckily I had made secondary backups of one or two key ones.

F.

 

Happy New Year everybody!

Your USB experience is a bummer alright and unfortunately with the low-prices on 300GB and larger drives now, it is real easy to see a USB external as a great place to put backups forever. The unfortunate part is that it is now single-point of failure for all the backups on it. On the other side of the coin, the low price means that it isn't onerous to have more than one and setup a rotation system.

My PCs each have a second internal HD for backups and the backups written there can then be copied elsewhere such as a USB drive, other networked PC or even DVD (my media of last resort).

Just to be on the safe side, or perhaps the anal retentive side, last night I gave my friend a set of DVD backups (created by the 2-step method) to keep at his house. I told him the only reason I should ever have to come and get them it is because all my PC stuff was stolen or the house burned down!

Glad your experience wasn't as bad as it might have been.

 

It works.

I've restored before.... not by choice!

Be aware that if you back up to a network folder or anywhere OTHER THAN the "secure zone" that the current TI 10 build DOES NOT properly enforce the limits you set on resource consumption.

This sucks, but they know about it and claim to be fixing it in the next build, which is said to be "coming soon".