Will True Image 9 do this? Help!

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by smallpotato, Apr 28, 2006.

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  1. smallpotato

    smallpotato Registered Member

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    I just bought True Image 9, a DVD burner, a few dual layer DVDs. I would like to burn one pristine image of XP with all the updates/drivers/etc. software to only one DVD disc. I have used 7.5 GB of my 30 GB HDD with XP,apps, etc. Only one partition on my system. This is my clean install/coreload.

    Can I make a (hopefully bootable) image on DVD disc of just my operating system/apps/etc. (7.5GB) and not the blank/unused space (30GB) using TI 9? It looks like True Image wants to burn a 30GB image according to the summary screen before an image is created. Also, TI balked and gave me a warning about burning an image to the same partition as my OS was on when run from Windows. When I tried to create a full image after booting using the actual True Image software CD it errored and said I couldn't create the image on the same partition. Maybe I should have more than one logical partition?

    All I want to do is have a saved pristine image of just the meat and not the empty space. I need to be able to boot up into this pristine image once it's restored. I could experiment using trial and error but that is costly. I'm not sure I understand whether the Files and Folders backup method or the Full Disc/Image backup method is the one that will work for me. I'm thinking full disc/image but I don't know and can't just burn trial discs like a madman.

    What I don't want to do is just burn images of non-bootable backup files to a formatted DVD/CD and then have to reinstall Windows XP, updates, software, etc. ad nauseum.

    I registered with Acronis though haven't received a response back yet. It may take a couple days/a week. Or my hotmail email may just be slow. Dunno. Either way, I can't let my brother use my system as last time he hosed my machine with spyaxe/zlob. Any/all help assistance is Much appreciated as my brother keeps asking to use my pyooter and I really don't look forward to wiping the HDD and reloading again, and again, and again...
     
  2. Chutsman

    Chutsman Registered Member

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    There a whole thread on doing just this ... search for "Creating A Bootable DVD ....".
     
  3. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    See the thread Chutsman provided but the short answers to your questions are:

    The size TI shows is the partition size. An image only contains the "in-use" sectors so will be the compressed size of the amount of used space in your partition.

    Normally, a partition is created outside itself, that is, it is created on another drive, a different partition, or removable media. When time comes to restore it cannot be on the same partition because it will be overwritten. However, it has been posted that you can indeed write the backup on the same partition by ignoring the warning. Then you can copy it to DVD or wherever. Note that if you are copying to CD or DVD you have to set the split size of the image files to fit on the media.

    Having a second partition when using an imaging program is a very good idea. Ideally a second drive is preferred such that if the main drive fails the backup drive is still good but a second partition lets you work with backups easily and you can always copy an image when desired to a dvd for extra security. Backing up and restoring from a HD is a lot faster than optical media.

    To be able to restore a HD to its state when backed up you want an image backup. Restore the image and off you go. Files and Folders are best for data-only backups IMO. An image backup bypasses the file system so it is much faster than a files and folders backup. With B3567 an image backup also backs up the MBR. Previous versions required a whole-disk backup to capture the MBR.

    Even though the image files burned to DVD are not bootable, this does not mean you have to re-install windows and TI to recover. You make the recovery CD which is a bootable CD containing the TI program. You boot the CD, start TI, select your image and restore it.

    When you create your recovery CD make sure it boots, TI runs and you can see and select your backups. Verify one as well; this is a reasonable test but the best one is to actually do a restore.

    HTH explain the basic operation.
     
  4. smallpotato

    smallpotato Registered Member

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    Thanks a bunch seekforever & Chutsman! I will go ahead and try making the image first to my one and only existing partition ignoring the warning message from Windows, then I'll try burning that image to one D/L DVD. I figure I shouldn't need any more as one D/L DVD holds 8.5GB and the entire used HDD space for the OS/etc. is 7.5GB. I'm thinking of using No Compression (i.e. not the default TI Normal Compression) option as my total used HDD space is 7.5GB. I wonder what the difference in image size/compatibility would be.

    Files and Folders Backup doesn't seem like what I want as I need to have the entire working/non-polluted system files/MBR/etc. I'm thinking I should possibly divide my existing one partition with some on-the-fly tool like Partition Magic. I haven't needed/had the necessity to partition HDD's since Win98SE as space/cluster size really hasn't been an issue in years. Any recommendations of programs that will repartition on-the-fly?

    I'm planning on zeroing out my HDD using the HDD diagnostics floppy, reformat it, booting to the Acronis CD or a Recovery disc, and then restoring the image. Once I've done that I'll comb through everything and make sure it's 1000% like it was before reimaging. I'll try that first before making one disc a bootable. Thanks again guys!
     
  5. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    Before you wipe anything make sure you can at LEAST verify the image with TI and then mount it and make sure you can see various files and folders. This will give you some confidence the image is good. Also copy the image from the D/L DVD back to C and make sure you can verify it with TI. THis will give assurance the D/L property isn't causing any problem (I guess I just don't trust some things yet). You might want to do the copy before the mounting since it will probably result in faster mounting.

    On a typical C drive Normal Compression results in an image roughly 60% in size of the non-compressed image but this can vary. If you have a lot of mpeg, zip, jpg already compressed files you will gain nothing by compressing them.
     
  6. bVolk

    bVolk Registered Member

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    I did what you are thinking of just a couple of days ago.

    - I created a fresh disk image of the system disk with C: partition
    - Started a partition restore of C: (Disk1 and MBR unticked) to the system disk
    - In the proper step of the Recovery Wizard, I reduced the size of the partition to be restored
    - Let the restoration Proceed
    - The result was a smaller new C: and some unallocated space
    - With Windows Disk Management tool, I created partition D: in the unallocated space, leaving the last 8 MB still unallocated (for system use, I'm told). This free space eventually defaulted to the previously noted 7.844 MB.

    That simple and without additional software.
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2006
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