True Image and my laptop

Hi,

I am new to True Image but have been through the documentation and set things up. However, I am unsure about a few things.

1. I store all my back-ups on a external USB drive. This drive is only connected when I create backups or restore (hopefully not too often!). I created the Secure Zone on the USB drive and activated the Acronis Startup Recover Manager. However, when I restart the laptop without the USB drive connected I get a "MBR Error 2" message. The laptop boots fine though.
When I have the USB drive connected I do not get that message but rather the option to start Acronis recovery stuff. Am I doing this the right way, or should I not install the Startup and Recovery Manager and use the recovery CD I created instead if I need to recover something? Or maybe I do not need to use the Secure Zone at all?

2. I work for a software company so I have to run all kinds of weird stuff which sometimes breaks Vista. Up to now I've used Windows built in Restore, but would rather use Acronis for everything. Could I just create a "My Computer" image or a "System State" backup in my Secure Zone, and then reboot with the USB drive connected?

3. I would also like to keep two kinds of backup on the external drive, one being a complete image making it possible to restore everything kind of like the built in full back-up option in Windows Vista Ultimate. I would like to keep a bacup of files for easy restore without having to restore the whole computer. Can I put both kinds of back-ups in the Secure Zone on the USB drive and be sure I can get my laptop back using the My Computer backup image in case of disaster?

I guess my main problem is that I do not really understand what the Secure Zone is for and if it's suited to be located on an external drive. And since it's crucial for me to know that I can easily recover my whole windows partition I need to make sure I am not making a mistake which leaves me dead in the water when bad things happen.

Advice greatly appreciated.

 

Since you have an external drive, personally I wouldn't use the SZ nor the SRM. I would also make the bootable Rescue CD and do all True Image Backups and Recovery with it. It is a little slower than running the process from the installed software, but in my opinion it is less prone to problems to use the CD.

For just data files, I would use Windows Explorer to copy them over to the external drive. If you want to compress them to save space, use the built in WinZip in the OS.

The SZ was most useful when users could only afford one hard drive - the one in the computer. Those days are long gone.

 

Click the first link in my signature and locate the thread on Secure Zone & Startup Manager. That thread discusses a lot about its function.

Should you need to replace a disk, the backup image type which works best is the "disk" image which includes all partitons (both hidden or diagnostic). Be sure your backup procedures includes this type backup for some of your backup images. There has been posting about problems with System State. A restore of the entire system drive only might be more reliable.

If you are looking to have backup copies of assorted files, many of us just use the basic Windows copy function or equivalent; or having a sync program copy additional copies to another drive.

Be sure and test any procedure you want to use so you know it will work when the restore is needed.

 

Thanks! How can I test an image restore? I mean, if it doesn't work I have a non working computer, don't I?

 

For peace of mind, invest in another laptop drive and do a restore to it, keeping the original safely. The drive only has to be large enough to cover the used space on the original drive.