True Image and Deep Freeze

I have been using Acronis True Image for years without problem and intend to continue to use it as my ultimate safety.

Have just bought and installed DeepFreeze which works very well.

My only concern is when it comes to making an image of C: with DeepFreeze installed. The book says DeepFreeze must be in a Thawed state - fair enough
but then says "set Flag" .

I have just made an Acronis system image from within windows with DeepFreeze in thawed mode but did NOT set the flag. Image made no problem and restored no problem. system still working.

So does anyone know what all this flag business is about ? Does it really only matter if the image is to be deployed to another machine ?

Next test is to install FD-ISR and install Deep Freeze within a snap shot. If it works then image the lot.

any thoughts ?

 

An alternative would be to make the image after booting from the TI Recovery CD. In that case, I wouldn't think it would matter what state DeepFreeze was in.

Sorry, I've used DeepFreeze, but not recently, and I haven't a clue about the flag.

 

Thanks

I had this reply from Faronics:

The Clone flag is used to treat the Disk as a Raw device for
one reboot to insure that any Hardware re-enumeration is done
correctly. When making an image, you should always first thaw
Deep Freeze by using the Boot Thawed option. You would set
the Clone Flag just before you shut down the computer to make
the image. You want to insure that after the Clone Flag is
set, the computer does not reboot back to the hard drive
before the computer is imaged.


I then asked about Hardware -re-enumeration and explained that I had successfully made and restored an image with Deep Freze with Acronis to the same machine.

The reply was:


Hardware Re-Enumeration just means that when Windows XP reboots it checks to insure that all hardware on the system has drivers and will try to load new ones if it detects new hardware.

Normally the Clone Flag is used to insure that the Hard Drive is a RAW device so that all hardware can be detected and processed properly. Normally if you are always restoring to the same hardware it should not be a problem not using the Clone Flag but it is not recommended.


I ave read elsewhere that Deep Freeze needs to be in thawed mode when being imaged and I guess I will set the Flag as advised

But I would still like to understand what this means

 

I think it means that some things need to be taken on faith.

Seriously, if it's not a big hassle, I'd do it just for the one time that it might matter.

Again, since there is the concern about the system rebooting instead of running the image backup, using the TI Recovery CD should be a viable alternative with no concerns about freezing, thawing or flags.