There is a new version, 7.0 for sale which includes incremental backups, sheduling, & a few other new capabilities. You can find info at www.acronis.com


fred

Has anybody upgraded or tried v7.0 yet? The additional features appear to be an excellent addition.

Thanks.

~Justin

I purchased the update and have it installed. I am running a full image right now across my LAN to a second PC but have not tried any of the other features yet. The interface inside the program is a lot different from what it use to look like.

The upgrade is a simple install/repair over the existing program. When the install begins you will be asked to type in the serial number that is provided to get the install to continue. Once the upgrade is finished you will have to reboot the PC and then you can use the new program.




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Is it any faster than Version 6.0?

Fred

Thanks for the reply Ranger Bob.

I just upgraded to v7.0. No problem on installation. The interface is a bit different, although still quite easy to use. The speed for full backup was roughly the same. Personally, I do like the additional free options, particularly for "incremental" and built-in "task scheduler", which I will be using.

The only hiccup I noticed was that when I went to make bootables (I do both the floppies and the CD). In both cases, upon completion of the 5th floppy and the completion of the CD burn (where the disk did eject), the closing window "hangs." I was still able to click on Finish, so no biggie, but interesting that it happened for making both bootables. In the back of my mind, I admit that I wonder if this might result in corrupted bootables. :-(

~Justin

>Is it any faster than Version 6.0?
>
>Fred

Lets just say the backup I am running right now is going to take over 2 hours over my network so I am afraid it might be slower. :)

This might not be a good test because I have always done the backup to my local hard drive in the past and then moved it to my other PC. This type of backup usually ran in about 45 minutes so I am going do this type of backup when the current one finishes to see how it looks.




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Thanks for your impressions of the backup speed Ranger Bob & Justin. I use 6.0 but my 10 GB full backups took in excess of 2 hours to a second 7200 rpm HD on the same system to be backed up. I also network backup my laptop to the desktop with a 100mbps transfer, but save far less (under 2 GB) in about 45 min.

Sounds like nothing much has been done to improve backup speed, except to provide for incremental backups which, when used correctly,can save significant time. There is a certain simplicity, however, in doing full backups in that when the chips are down, restoration of you system is not complex, calling for multiple steps.

I'll think on this awhile, although I really like Acronis' support to their customers a lot. Perhaps there will be fixes for some of the things you guys identified as a problem.

Thanks very much.
Fred

P.S. I see that a copy of Acronis Recovery Expert is free if you update prior to Dec 25th. I received an email from Acronis as a owner of True Image 6.0 saying that.

FZBar.

I should note that I have backed up 14+Gig to an external hard drive, 7200rpm drive, 2MB cache, in a little over 1 hour using "normal" (as labeled) compression.

I guess what I am asking is.. What level of compression do you normally use? Possibly with greater compression, more speed?

As memory serves me they changed from a sliding compression bar in v6 to a button selection for compression in v7, but it's tantamount to the same.

~Justin

Justin - I'm sorry. I should have said what speed processor I have since compression is very computationally intensive. I'm running an old K6-2 533 MHz processor & I also used Level 1 compression.

That's why I was asking what people thought about the relative speed on their machines between version 6 & 7. It's all relative to your own system.

Hope that answers your question.

Fred

I am running the test right now to write the backup to my local hard drive. It should take about 27 minutes according to the program. It is backing up around 20 gigs of data and the file size will be around 13 gigs using normal compression. I am running a 3 GHz CPU with 1 gig of RAM. I have noticed that running it on the local drive has really impacted the reaction speed on my display and cursor. I had to shut down a couple of programs to get it to work better. I had never had this problem with version 6.




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Ranger Bob, are you writing to the same hard drive as you're backing up, just to a separate partition? If so, that could slow it down more than writing to a separate HD. It sounds, though, that you've done the same procedure with TI 6.0, so my explanation probably isn't valid.

Fred

>Ranger Bob, are you writing to the same hard drive as you're
>backing up, just to a separate partition? If so, that could
>slow it down more than writing to a separate HD. It sounds,
>though, that you've done the same procedure with TI 6.0, so my
>explanation probably isn't valid.
>
>Fred

No I was doing exactly what I had been doing in version 6 without any problems. The problem got so bad I had to end up terminating just about everything I was running. I checked my Windows Task/Performance and the CPU was running at a 100% almost the whole time the backup was being taken. Once the backup finished it dropped back to around 1% which is what it normally runs at.

The actual size of the backup was larger than the program reported it would be so I ended up a backup file size around 19 gigs.




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Pilgrim - I read the manual that was downloadable from the web site & I believe you are correct. TI 7.0 creates a hidden partition if you wish in which the image (s) are stored. You can control how big you allow it to be & you can delete it if you wish.

Ranger Bob - your experience gives me some concerns given the old processor I'm running. The only thing I can think of is that "normal" compression is more than what used to be designated as "1" in TI 6.0. I don't know how to find out, though. Perhaps you can elaborate on this.

Fred

>Pilgrim - I read the manual that was downloadable from the
>web site & I believe you are correct. TI 7.0 creates a hidden
>partition if you wish in which the image (s) are stored. You
>can control how big you allow it to be & you can delete it if
>you wish.
>
>Ranger Bob - your experience gives me some concerns given the
>old processor I'm running. The only thing I can think of is
>that "normal" compression is more than what used to be
>designated as "1" in TI 6.0. I don't know how to find out,
>though. Perhaps you can elaborate on this.
>
>Fred

Normal compression was the default setting so I did not change it. I had always used the default setting in version 6 so I don't know if this setting is any different than the old setting or not. It did run about twice as fast as it had run in version 6 but I could not do anything else while it was running. :)

I will install it on my old Gateway and make a backup to see how it runs on it and check out the size difference if any in the backup file.




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Ranger Bob - Will be looking for your experimental answers.

In the meanwhile, I might as well support Acronis by buying TI 7.0 anyway. There are so few companies that actually pay attention to what their users say & provide the kind of help Acronis has provided me on TI 6.0.

Will check back when a large download completes on my dial up access.

Fred

Installed Acronis True Image 7.0 over 6.0 a full backup is quicker now under 7.0.

0S = XP Home
P4 2.4 MHz
1024 MB PC2100 Ram

TV Man 436 163
:-)

Finally found the " Check Image" problem that I was having with TI 7
I knew by reading the manual to restore an image you had to install the last disk made, first. Due to my stupidity I kept trying to check image by installing the first disk, each time I did it would give a corrupted disk. So this afternoon I tried installing the last disk first, worked like a charm. Maybe this will keep someone else from making the same mistake I was making.
Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas.

Bravo Hugo. That's great news. I would have made the same error had I tried to restore from CD's. I don't recall reading anywhere that you had to insert the last disk first.

Acronis should put a note in the restore instruction while someone is actually doing a Restore to remind them to put the last disk in first.

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year.

Fred

:clap:

EDIT: I went back to the TI 7.0 pdf file & read the fact that you have to insert the last CD first. Kind of obscure though. I think they should do better on this one. The program should notify you to do so if it doesn't now.

I too am currently using True Image 6.0 and have been extremely satisfied with both the application and support from Acronis. Before I make the decision to upgrade to Version 7.0, I have a question which hopefully some of you other TI 7.0 users might be able to answer.

Does the "Secure Zone" create a new partition on an existing HD? Currently I have 1 main partition on my 40 gig HD that contains everything. So will "Secure Zone" create a new partition for me where you can create and store the backup image and also resize it as the need arises?

Jeff
simul iustus et peccator

Copy and pasted from the 7.0 manual:

"Acronis Secure Zone is a special, hidden system partition for storing disk and partition images. Ordinary applications can’t access it, for image security purposes.
If you create a zone, it will be listed after all PC disks available for image creation and restoration.
The Acronis Secure Zone is primarily meant to be used with Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (see below). It can be used to store both images and data.
The zone is primarily made to manually or automatically create and restore disk images safely. Therefore it is always available for image creation as long as there is space for it. If there is not enough space, older images will be deleted to create space.
This means you can automatically create disk images easily on a schedule (see Chapter 9)., and you won’t be bothered by zone overflow issues.
The Acronis Secure Zone can still be filled completely when creating incremental images (see "Incremental images"). This happens because the program can't delete the first (complete) image, since it might be required for restoration. Thus, you should periodically check zone free space when creating incremental images, to increase it, if necessary, or re-create base images.
We do not recommend that you create alternating incremental images. If you need to create incremental images of several disks (partitions), you should combine these operations into a single operation.
Acronis Secure Zone can be located on any local disk. It is created at the expense of unallocated space, if available, or at the expense of partition free space. A PC can have only one secure zone. To create a zone on another disk, you must first delete any existing zone.
You can store a disk (partition) image on the same disk (partition) if there's enough space for it, but you should not keep your primary images on the same partition or disk. You should burn images to removable media, such as a CD, DVD or Zip disks, another hard disk or a network drive. The only reason to create an image on the
same partition (except for creating an image in the Acronis Secure Zone) is to use the image as a local, secondary backup. This backup could be used to restore damaged files. (Remember, if your disk becomes physically damaged, an image stored on the same partition will be inaccessible.)
When you click Manage Acronis Secure Zone in the menu, the program searches for the zone on all local drives. If a zone is found, the wizard will offer to delete or resize it. If there is no zone, you’ll be prompted to create it.
Before you create the zone, estimate its size. To do this, start image creation and select disks and partitions to image into the zone. At the compression level stage, you will see estimated image size. Multiply this by 1.5. If you plan to install additional applications or create incremental images, increase the zone size.

This boot manager is required for Acronis Secure Zone to work. If the boot manager is absent, the zone creation wizard will be run (see above). The restoration manager will be installed during this procedure as well.
If there is Acronis Secure Zone on your PC, the boot manager will be activated immediately."


LOL. I sincerly hope all that doesn't confuse matters even more,
Acadia

Acadia,

Thanks for including that section of the Manual. I tried to view/download the .pdf file yesterday but it wouldn't work for some reason. Anyway, it appears to be straight forward, at least in regard to the "Secure Zone" creation and usage. But it did raise a question re: incremental backups. I was thinking and also hoping that what they mean by "incremental", is that the program would scan your HD at a scheduled time, find those items which had been changed during the interim period and ADD them to what they call the "Base Image", thus eliminating the necessity of having to do full backups all the time. Put another way, I am wondering if the "incremental backups" work in like manner when you update an existing folder with new/changed files???

Any comments on this?

Jeff
simul iustus et peccator

>Acadia,
>
>Thanks for including that section of the Manual. I tried to
>view/download the .pdf file yesterday but it wouldn't work for
>some reason. Anyway, it appears to be straight forward, at
>least in regard to the "Secure Zone" creation and usage. But
>it did raise a question re: incremental backups. I was
>thinking and also hoping that what they mean by "incremental",
>is that the program would scan your HD at a scheduled time,
>find those items which had been changed during the interim
>period and ADD them to what they call the "Base Image", thus
>eliminating the necessity of having to do full backups all the
>time. Put another way, I am wondering if the "incremental
>backups" work in like manner when you update an existing
>folder with new/changed files???
>
>Any comments on this?
>
>
>Jeff
>simul iustus et peccator

The way I understand it once you have taken a Full Image you can then take Incremental backups which add the update to the Full Image backup that you have already taken. The only problem I have seen with using these types of backups is that data or programs that have been removed would still remain on the Full Image that is updated via Incremental backups. This is why I don't run Incremental backups and only run Full Image backups.




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RangerBob.

I was wondering about that. The incremental backup does not remove/modify as well as add to the existing full backup? In other words, the incremental does NOT reflect *ALL* changes made to the full backup?

~Justin

>RangerBob.
>
>I was wondering about that. The incremental backup does not
>remove/modify as well as add to the existing full backup? In
>other words, the incremental does NOT reflect *ALL* changes
>made to the full backup?
>
>~Justin

I don't think it would. It would have to totally rewrite the Full Image and I think all it will do is tack on to the end what has been added since the last image.

I have been trying to use the Image Explorer and it is not working. I don't know if it is a bug in the program or something I did with the image when I created it. Something that is odd is that the image says it is in FAT16 format but my drive is formated as NTFS.




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RangerBob.

I tried the Explore Image and it worked perfectly establishing a drive letter and allowing me access to any of the folders. However, once again, upon finishing, which it did, it hung but allowed me to click out.

Another possible bug. When "Creating Image", upon going to the last window where you see time remaining....nothing happens, no image creating initiated. I retried this several times and found that the ONLY way to have it work properly was to put it on "scheduled task." Doing that, it flawlessly started at the prescribed time and finished without issue. The image verification capability is appealing, works well; does take in my case about 20 minutes.

I was thinking of emailing TI and having them take a look-see at this thread, requesting that they post here.

~Justin

>RangerBob.
>
>I tried the Explore Image and it worked perfectly
>establishing a drive letter and allowing me access to any of
>the folders. However, once again, upon finishing, which
>it did, it hung but allowed me to click out.
>
>Another possible bug. When "Creating Image", upon going to
>the last window where you see time remaining....nothing
>happens, no image creating initiated. I retried this several
>times and found that the ONLY way to have it work properly was
>to put it on "scheduled task." Doing that, it flawlessly
>started at the prescribed time and finished without issue. The
>image verification capability is appealing, works well; does
>take in my case about 20 minutes.
>
>I was thinking of emailing TI and having them take a look-see
>at this thread, requesting that they post here.
>
>~Justin

The image on my old Gateway just completed. It took about 2 hours but the backup was smaller than the previous backup under version 6. The Image Explorer worked fine on this image. I don't know what could be going on. The Gateway is running Windows 2000 Pro and is formated NTFS while the PC that the Image Explorer failed on is a Dell running Windows XP Pro and is also formated NTFS. I am creating a new image by selecting an image of the whole disk to see if that fixes the problem.

Creating the image on the same hard drive you are backing up does seem to be a major problem. While it is doing this, basically the PC is useless. The test I ran on the Gateway was writing to a second hard drive and I was still able to use the PC while it created the backup which was also true of the backup I made from my Dell across my LAN.





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Bob,

Did you create that image on a separate partition or did you use True Image's "Secure Zone"? Inquiring minds wanna know. hehe

Jeff
simul iustus et peccator

>Bob,
>
>Did you create that image on a separate partition or did you
>use True Image's "Secure Zone"? Inquiring minds wanna know.
>hehe
>
>Jeff
>simul iustus et peccator

I created it in an existing folder on the partition I was backup like I had done many time in version 6.




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I believe this is about everything the manual has to say about incremental images. This is from several parts of the manual so it may sound chopped up:


"Acronis True Image can create incremental images. These images that contain
only those disk sectors that changed after image creation.

The Acronis Secure Zone can still be filled completely when creating incremental images (see
"Incremental images"). This happens because the program can't delete the first (complete)
image, since it might be required for restoration. Thus, you should periodically check zone
free space when creating incremental images, to increase it, if necessary, or re-create base
images.
We do not recommend that you create alternating incremental images. If you need to create
incremental images of several disks (partitions), you should combine these operations into a
single operation.

Incremental images
An incremental image contains only data from those hard disk sectors that changed
after the previous disk image (complete or incremental) was created. Thus such an
image is significantly smaller and takes less time to create than a full image.
However, as it does not contain all the necessary information about disks
(partitions), it requires more than one image for restoration, including the current
incremental image and at least one previous image or, ideally, all the previous
incremental images and the initial complete image. You can't foresee the exact
number of images required for a particular restoration, as it depends on how much
data changes between image creations.
Note that you can create incremental images more often, as they are far smaller
than complete images and take significantly less time to create. If you create such
images often, you'll be able to restore disks (partitions) relatively easily and quickly.
If you just use complete images, this will require far more time and space (up to 10
times more).
An incremental image created after a disk is defragmented might be considerably larger than
usual. This is because the defragmentation program changes file locations on disk and
incremental images reflect these changes.
Using incremental stages instead of complete images gives you more flexibility in
what you restore. It takes much less time and as little as one tenth the disk space.

An incremental image contains data only from parts that changed after the previous
complete or incremental image was created, so it's usually smaller and takes less
time to create.
Therefore, if you create the first disk (partition) image, you should select the
complete mode.
If you already have a complete image, it is recommended that you create
incremental images.
(Having a policy for creating full and incremental images is recommended. For
example, you might consider creating a full image monthly and incremental images
weekly.)
Selecting the previous image
If you select incremental image, you must also provide the previous one (complete
or incremental) for the new image to be created. Together with the initial complete
image, incremental images make the single file set that must be stored on the same
device and in the same folder. If you use removable media, you can still place one
image file set on several CDs or DVDs.

If you are to restore a disk (partition) from an incremental image, you must have the current
image as well as at least one, or preferably all, previous incremental images and the initial
complete image. The exact number of images depends on how disk contents changed
between image creation procedures."


Hope this helps a little,
Acadia

FZBar.

I recall the default compression (which I left untouched) on TI 6 as set to "3". On TI 7 I have left it at the default "normal."

The size backup and time relationship of both versions make it appear to be pretty close to one and the same, with TI 7 being a bit faster (backing up to an external drive.)

~Justin

I just ran the first Ver. 7.0 image of my primary partition which is about 10 GB. My last 6.0 image had to be broken into 2 parts of 4,194,304 KB and 75,736 KB using #7 compression on the slider and it took about 17 minutes to complete. 7.0 created a single image of 3,882,552 KB at the normal setting in about 7 minutes.

Ver. 6.0 was the easiest and best backup utility I had ever used,... Ver. 7.0 is even better.

Edit: BTW, Ver. 6.0 is still available at $9.99 for those who have Ghost on their computer. Get it at: http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/offer.html

This is turning out to be a very good thread on what to expect with True Image 7.0.

My first experimental full image at minimal compression in TI 7.0 seemed to correspond approximately to the time & size expected of slider setting 1 in TI 6.0. So it goes with slow processors. Must be time to build another system.

The file formats between TI 6 & 7 seem to be the same which probably means TI 7.0 can restore an image made with TI 6.0. I have not tested that theory yet. The Check Image program I had running under TI 6.0 seems to be able to verify images made from TI 7.0, as well.

I haven't had any abnormal termination problems in imaging as, I think, Justin mentions.

Some of the questions raised can probably be only answered by Acronis. If anyone poses those questions to them, can you please post back here with what you've found. Thanks.

If I recall correctly, Acronis had a series of updates available shortly which fixed a host of small problems after TI 6.0 was issued. Of course, those folks will have to work over Christmas for that to happen. I hope that's not likely.

All in all, it looks like a credible issuance. I haven't tried yet to either restore an image or test out the additional piece of software made available free to those who are updating, named Recovery Expert Deluxe.

Fred

I purchased Acronis 6 about a month ago, had no idea that version 7 was coming out, so I'll stick with it. The question that I have , has anyone formatted their XP and used the image to reinstall it back to its previous condition ?

Hugo, I would guess that if you contacted Acronis with verification of your 6.0 date of purchase, they would probably give you a free upgrade to 7.0.
When I first bought the 6.0 Ghost upgrade, (http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/offer.html) I had a dual boot system with Ghost on one partition but was unable to install Ghost on the primary partition where I wanted to install 6.0. I contacted Acronis and explained the problem. They sent me a download for a standard version of 6.0 at no charge. As stated in several posts above, Acronis is very flexible and helpful.

I received a free upgrade to 7.0 BUT I just purchased 6.0 several days earlier.

Acadia

Thanks Bobbo and Acadia, just sent Acronis an email, with all the info, serial no. and date so maybe they will update it. If not I imagine version 6 will be ok for me as I only make a total backup as I use other programs to backup individual files.

Indeed, I believe the only "extra" that I will use in 7.0 is the Integrity Checker, but I believe that Acronis use to have an Integrity Checker of sorts that a 6.0 user could download for free; it was a separate program I believe. Can anyone verify this? If so, I wonder if they are still offering it for 6.0 users?

Acadia

Acadia, the name of the program used with TI 6.0 to verify the successful completion of images was Check Image. I have run it on an image file produced with TI 7.0 & it said that the new image was a good one. I suspect this works because the format of the image files has not changed from TI 6.0 to TI 7.0.

I have not yet restored an image using TI 7.0 yet, but I'm keeping my last image done with TI 6.0 & a boot disk - JUST IN CASE.

Fred

>Indeed, I believe the only "extra" that I will use in 7.0 is
>the Integrity Checker, but I believe that Acronis use to have
>an Integrity Checker of sorts that a 6.0 user could download
>for free; it was a separate program I believe. Can anyone
>verify this? If so, I wonder if they are still offering it
>for 6.0 users?
>
>Acadia

I've used the CheckImage tool in version 6 and got it here:

http://www.acronis.com/files/support/CheckImage.exe

I just re-downloded it about 2 minutes ago and the link still worked for me.

I just upgraded to version 7 this morning and found that image time and verify time were exactly the same as with version 6.
Imaging 9GB with level 3 in version 6 (5.94GB) and "Normal" in version 7 (5.91GB), each took 18 minutes to image and 50 minutes to verify.
Version 7 is easier to use, though. More to explore.

I want to thank FZbar and all the rest of you guys for alerting me that Acronis 7 was now out, as I had just purchased Acronis True Image 6 a month ago, I sent an email to them and much to my suprise they responded and Allowed me to update to Version 7 with no charge. They are a company that I will certainly do business with in the future.

>I want to thank FZbar and all the rest of you guys for
>alerting me that Acronis 7 was now out, as I had just
>purchased Acronis True Image 6 a month ago, I sent an email to
>them and much to my suprise they responded and Allowed me to
>update to Version 7 with no charge. They are a company that I
>will certainly do business with in the future.

I am not surprised. I have always found them to be very good to work with.




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Ditto to Hugo & Ranger Bob's commentary on Acronis.

If any of you folks has been contacted by Acronis Tech Support in sorting out your problems, will you please post what the results were.

Thanks
Fred

P.S. If you didn't notice, there is an update to Recovery Expert to build 132 available.

I just got thru imaging my hard drive and made 8 cd's with the new Acronis 7 true image, took 63 minutes, then used the check image function, said every disk had errors, anyone else had that problem.

Hugo, I imaged my entire HD using TI 7.0. Took the same time (about) as version 6. I ran both the version 6.0 Check Image program as well as the program to verify the files in new version 7.0. Both said the new image files were ok. I imaged to a second HD, though, not a set of CD's.

I have not yet restored from these files since I haven't screwed up my system enough recently to justify it. I still have an image from version 6.0 & a version 6.0 boot disk - JUST IN CASE.

I don't know why your setup didn't work correctly. Did you run the imaging as the only thing going on in the PC? That's the way I usually do it - last thing before I head to bed & run the check the next morning.

I'd try to shut down other non-necessary programs to see if you can find a conflict. I'd also suggest getting in touch with the details to Acronis Tech Support & challenge them to find the problem & correct it.

Hang in there.
Fred

LOL. Received 2 replies from Acronis reference my post #40:

Thank you for contacting us.

The TrueImageMonitor.exe process is necessary to run scheduled backups in time. You do not need to change any settings for this process or start it manually.

Hopefully informed you well. If you have further questions concerning our software, please feel free to contact us again at your earliest convenience.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
__________________________________________________________________

Thank you for interest in Acronis software!

TrueImageMonitor.exe file is a service that monitors imaging processes,
manages them and displays imaging process progress.
There is no need to add it to startup folder since it is started
automatically anyway.
___________________________________________________________________

No reply yet referencing other mentioned 'issues' in v7.0

Happy Holidays to all.
~Justin

>
>LOL. Received 2 replies from Acronis reference my post
>#40:
>
>Thank you for contacting us.
>
>The TrueImageMonitor.exe process is necessary to run
>scheduled backups in time. You do not need to change any
>settings for this process or start it manually.
>
>Hopefully informed you well. If you have further questions
>concerning our software, please feel free to contact us again
>at your earliest convenience.
>
>We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
>__________________________________________________________________
>
>Thank you for interest in Acronis software!
>
>TrueImageMonitor.exe file is a service that monitors imaging
>processes,
>manages them and displays imaging process progress.
>There is no need to add it to startup folder since it is
>started
>automatically anyway.
>___________________________________________________________________
>
>No reply yet referencing other mentioned 'issues' in v7.0
>
>Happy Holidays to all.
>~Justin
>

That sounds like what I said in my reply #41 was pretty much in line with what it does. :) Did they say it could be removed if you are not interested in running these types of backups?




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Ranger Bob.

No further comment from Acronis, however, based on the emails I would assume that if you are not scheduling backups and you disable it in startup, no harm. Note...I do not know if it is instrumental in monitoring incremental backups.

Contrary to past experience, their delay in responding suggests that they are flooded with support questions and issues, re TI v7 .

~Justin

Justin, could be or they could be working on an update. Wouldn't want them to come up with one of those 21 MB updates every week, though, since I still use dialup.

I see the Acronis add-on in the startup/run list. If you have something like Startup Editor, you could disable it for a specific test to see what goes wrong, if anything, before restoring it.

Fred

Fred.

Until these issues are resolved, I reinstalled TI 6.

I am not comfortable with v7. to remotely risk having zero backup (and paying for it as well.) Better to sleep well. :+

~Justin

I also reinstalled version 6, the check image said every cd that I made was corrupted. I would like to see if anyone else has used version 7 to image their complete hard drive and install on cd's and then try the check image. Maybe something wrong with my setup. I was reading on Acronis's FAQ they mentioned that the explore image would not work at the present time for cd's, but failed to mention about whether Check Image would work on cd's.

>I would like to see if anyone else has used version 7 to image their complete hard drive and install on cd's and then try the check >image.

I just ran the "Verify Image" utility on my 5 CD-RW disks that I burned my image to a couple of days ago and it was successful. And just so you can compare, I used a Lite-on 52246S burner with Sony CD-RW650HS disks on a WinXP Home machine.

Jeff
simul iustus et peccator

The coup de gras for me was when using TI 7, I backed up, checked the image and it was A-Ok. Just for the heck of it, since it was just done, I decided to restore that image. TI 7 could NOT restore it saying it was corrupted. (I didn't check the prior images using v6.0 on the scant possibility that the program would corrupt those files.) I then uninstalled it and reinstalled v6.

I have backed up and immediately restored (to check authenticity) and TI 6 works perfectly. As well, because of this fiasco, I have retained 3 prior backups on my external 200 gig HD.

~Justin

The coup de gras for me was when using TI 7, I backed up, checked the image and it was A-Ok. Just for the heck of it, since it was just done, I decided to restore that image. TI 7 could NOT restore it saying it was corrupted. (I didn't check the prior images using v6.0 on the scant possibility that the program would corrupt those files.) I then uninstalled it and reinstalled v6.

I have backed up and immediately restored (to check authenticity) and TI 6 works perfectly. As well, because of this fiasco, I have retained 3 prior backups on my external 200 gig HD.

~Justin

Justin - I just had call to restore my entire HD using TI 7.0 & an image made several days ago which was stored on my second HD. I booted off the CD boot disk for TI 7.0 made when I first installed the new program - it worked correctly & restored 6 partitions in a dual boot (Win 98SE & Win XP Pro) system.

So, I have to conclude that TI 7.0 can work correctly, but we still have no understanding why it doesn't work on your system. If I recall correctly, this is exactly the "growing pains" which occured during the early days of TI 6.0, but I understand how frustrating it can be.

Here's hoping they have a substantial update soon.

Fred

FZbar it was good that you were able to restore your system with TI7. you are the first one that I have seen that actually restored your system. I cannot seem to make cd's that will that will pass the "Check Image" . I deleted TI7 and then downloaded it again , thinking I may have had a glitch in the first download. Can make an image with no problem. Did it several times with different disks. Still will not pass the Check Image program. Looks like Acronis pulled this dude before it got ripe.

Hugo,

These problems seem to be sporadic and not universal. I created a full backup on both my PC's to CD-RW disks and both passed the Image Check.

I do remember having similar problems with TI 6.0 when it was first released on these same two machines. But eventually, with the excellent support from Acronis, these bugs were resolved. I realize this is of little consolation to those who are currently having these types of problems. But I am confident that they will all be fixed in due time.

Jeff
simul iustus et peccator

Pilgram, im glad yours worked, probably the differences in various machines. Acronis will probably have some updates in the next several months, to get some of the bugs out.They stated that Explore Image will not work with cd's and they were working on the problem, so i'll just hang loose until then.

Hugo - Is there a way you can make a backup of one of the partitions of your hard drive to another partition of your hard drive? If you can & can restore from it, we can conclude that something is going awry in the production of the image to the CD ONLY & not to ones on a HD.

Also, are you using normal compression rather than minimal? I made my images with minimal compression.

Fred

FZbar
I only have one partition on my hard drive so I can not install an image on it, also I used normal compression, when making disks. I have a HP 9510 burner and no problems with it. Ihave the Veritas software to make backups and have never had this kind of problem with it. I have made three sets of disks with TI7 and it shows all disks are corrupted, put all of them in the garbage as I cant trust them at this time.

I understand the conservative approach, Justin. In these matters, it is usually the correct approach.

Since I backup to a 100 GB HD, I keep several past image versions. With a TI v. 6.0 boot disk, I can go back to my last v. 6.0 image easily & I know that one works.

I haven't tried it, but I think the chances are good that I could even restore an image made with v. 7.0 using the v. 6.0 bootup disk, IF the file formats of both versions are identical. I'll post if I do that test.

Fred

>I purchased Acronis 6 about a month ago, had no idea that
>version 7 was coming out, so I'll stick with it. The question
>that I have , has anyone formatted their XP and used the image
>to reinstall it back to its previous condition ?

I received an email from Acronis on this update right right I had updated with the special price for the update for existing version 6 users which included a free copy of Acronis Recovery Expert. I replied to the email to Acronis Sales telling them that I had just upgraded before receiving the email and asking about the free program and included my serial number. Within a few minutes I received a reply that included a url to download the free program. Hopefully they will do the same for you since you had upgraded not long ago.




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the new version
TIA, Jack

Here's one, Jack.

http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/screenshots.html

I think I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. See below. As you can see in the display screen it shows two partitions. I don't know what the FAT16 partition is. This PC was factory configured and came this way with Windows XP Pro pre-installed. I had been either selecting both the partitions or the block for Disk 1 when I did the backup. When I did this the Explore Image did not work. Today I decided to see what would happen if I only selected the NTFS partition and backed it up. This backup ran in about 22 minutes and the Explore Image worked fine.

I wonder if I need to do a second image on the FAT16 partition or if I even need it in the even of a forced reformat?




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What is the function of 'TrueImage Monitor.exe' which also places itself in the startup folder?

~Justin

>
>What is the function of 'TrueImage Monitor.exe' which also
>places itself in the startup folder?
>
>~Justin

Sorry I don't know but I bet it has something to do with scheduled images that you can run.




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RangerBob.

"Acronis Scheduler2 Service" is the second inclusion in the startup folder. This one is self evident. I am curious what the other is and whether it is required. A quick scan of Acronis web site did not tell anything..will look again later when I have time.

~Justin

EDIT: I am wondering if it might be related to "monitoring" the incremental backups.

>RangerBob.
>
>"Acronis Scheduler2 Service" is the second inclusion in the
>startup folder. This one is self evident. I am curious what
>the other is and whether it is required. A quick scan of
>Acronis web site did not tell anything..will look again later
>when I have time.
>
>~Justin
>
>EDIT: I am wondering if it might be related to "monitoring"
>the incremental backups.

Could be. I don't use Incremental backups so I would not need it. I searched both the user file and Acronis and found nothing on it. Maybe an email to Acronis will answer your question.

As a side note I hope a patch comes out soon to fix this CPU hogging problem. It makes the PC almost unusable if you are creating a backup to the same partition you are using.




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I sent an email to Acronis about this thread. They sounded interested in reading it & may respond to some of the questions or direct those interested to Tech Support at Acronis. The fellow who responded to me was a Steve Lawton.

Fred

Fred.

Interesting. I sent an email this morning, as well.

~Justin

EDIT: Just noticed that our "newest member" is listed as "Acronis."

Welcome to the forum !!

Justin -

Could you ever imagine Microsoft or Symantec doing something like that? Not likely!

Fred

Fred.

Emphatically NO. Unfortunately, coupling those names with any definition of "service" is an oxymoron. :-(

~Justin

Ran into a problem after I installed the update etc., which all went fine on my Win XP SP-1 box.

I created the "Secure Zone" partition which went ok. I then created a full backup image to the "Secure Zone" and ran the "Check Image" utility, both went fine.

I then tried to use the "Explore Image" utility and got two errors.
1) Cannot assign Drive Letter.
2) No Image could be found in the "Secure Zone".
3) Got a BSOD when closing out.

I sent off an e-mail to Acronis tech support too. Any suggestions as to what might be wrong?

Also, in regard to this issue, do any of you know if you can see how much space has been used and/or left in this "Secure Zone"?

Jeff
simul iustus et peccator

Jeff.

There definitely was sufficient space on the hard drive for the "secure zone"?

~Justin

I haven't imaged to the Secure Zone, just to another HD, but a few questions for you. Do you have a large number of partitions defined -like running out of letters? Have you read the *.pdf file on True Image 7.0 at their web site (& storable on your local machine). Sorry I can't add more.

If past performance of Acronis is consistent with TI 7.0, I'll bet you'll get a response shortly to help you out. I did several times with TI 6.0.

Fred

Justin queried: There definitely was sufficient space on the hard drive for the "secure zone"?

Actual space used on my HD is about 6 gigs. I allocated 10.9 gigs for the "Secure Zone". Compressed, the image was 2.9 gigs.

Fred asked several questions, hehe.

Yes, I read the .pdf Manual. I have only one partition on my 40 gig HD, which now has 2: Main and the "Secure Zone". The first attempt to use Image Explorer, I accepted the default letter "F". This is when I got the error message that True Image couldn't assign a drive letter, etc.. and when I tried to cancel, I got the BSOD. The second attempt, after hard rebooting, I manually assigned the drive letter, "Z". But I got the same error plus the additional error that said that there was no Image located in the "Secure Zone".

In the past, I too have had great and quick replies from Acronis support. But I have sent off 3 e-mails to them, one 2 days ago and haven't had any replies back yet. Hmmmmmm??

Jeff
simul iustus et peccator

>Justin queried: There definitely was sufficient space on
>the hard drive for the "secure zone"?
>
>Actual space used on my HD is about 6 gigs. I allocated 10.9
>gigs for the "Secure Zone". Compressed, the image was 2.9
>gigs.
>
>Fred asked several questions, hehe.
>
>Yes, I read the .pdf Manual. I have only one partition on my
>40 gig HD, which now has 2: Main and the "Secure Zone". The
>first attempt to use Image Explorer, I accepted the default
>letter "F". This is when I got the error message that True
>Image couldn't assign a drive letter, etc.. and when I tried
>to cancel, I got the BSOD. The second attempt, after hard
>rebooting, I manually assigned the drive letter, "Z". But I
>got the same error plus the additional error that said that
>there was no Image located in the "Secure Zone".
>
>
>In the past, I too have had great and quick replies from
>Acronis support. But I have sent off 3 e-mails to them, one 2
>days ago and haven't had any replies back yet. Hmmmmmm??
>
>Jeff
>simul iustus et peccator

Did you see the problem I was having with trying to Explore the Image? Did you just select the partition in the list instead of Disk 1 when you did the image? If not then that might be why you had the problem. At least that fixed the problem for me.




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>Did you see the problem I was having with trying to Explore
>the Image? Did you just select the partition in the list
>instead of Disk 1 when you did the image? If not then that
>might be why you had the problem. At least that fixed the
>problem for me.
>

Bob,

Yes, I saw your previous post but I'm a bit confused about this "Disk 1" issue you raised. When going through the "Explore Image" dialogs, I did click on the "Secure Zone" in the tree on the left. The next dialog displayed the "Disk 1" item with the "Secure Zone" partition listed with "F" assigned as the default new Drive Letter. Proceeding from there gave me the errors. See the Screenshots in sequence. Perhaps they will help to at least clarify what I'm experiencing??





Sorry... only 2 of the 4 screenshots were allowed here. I'll post again with the remaining 2.


Jeff
simul iustus et peccator

Here's the two other screenshots. Oooops, I guess I'm only allowed 2?? I was only given the option to post 2 more if I deleted the previous 2.

The shots were of the 2 Error dialogs:

1) Cannot assign a drive letter to a partition from the image archive.

2) Acronis Secure Zone does not have any images.

Jeff
simul iustus et peccator

I just tried Explore Images with no major difficulty. I was able to identify an image on a second HD of the entire first HD, select which partitions I wished to assign virtual drive letters to, explore the image, & then close the virtual drives down I no longer wished to see. The one problem I encountered was in shutting down the virtual drives was that the shutdown of the virtual drive went ok but the cursor kept it's hourglass shape (program still running). I was able to shut down TI 7.0 by clicking on the x to close. Clearly a flaw & which was identified by someone in an earlier post.

Fred

I did not create my backup in the secure zone. The Disk 1 I was speaking of was in creating the image, not the Explore Image.




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Pilgrim - Sounds like you're trying to create a hidden partition within a one partition drive. That's confusing the program. Get a second drive.

Sonny,

You may be right about True Image getting confused. However, according to the "Manual", this is exactly what one of the recommendations is for using the "Secure Zone".... and to be honest, it was one of the major reasons I paid for the upgrade from 6.0.

1) I'm going to remove the "Secure Zone" for now and wait for Acronis' Tech Support to reply.

2) If this is not a viable way to use the Secure Zone, then I'll be requesting a refund. I have no space, nor need and no money to buy another HD. hehe

Jeff
simul iustus et peccator

To my mind, it seems that TI is trying to grab a chunk of a one partition drive and hide it. It may be possible, but it just doesn't sit right with me especially since it's the boot partition.

Fred.

As mentioned earlier, I had the results that you did where it would "hang." There was no problem either opening earlier backups and extracting files made with TI6. It assigned it a sequenced virtual drive letter and removed same when done. The hanging issue has to be resolved and it gives me some assurance that it wasn't just my machine. It is of particular concern as it happened also when making bootup CD and floppy bootups. Although I could click 'next' or 'finish', are these bootups viable?

~Justin

Justin - I made a boot up CD & the program did not hang at all.

Sounds like many items to repair. I remember a similar experience with TI 6.0, but Acronis responded quickly with updates to solve the problems.

In anycase, the stuff I need works pretty well & I have a few back up images which can be restored in the case of a total meltdown of the OS.

I hope Acronis tech support responds quickly to the individuals who are having the most significant problems first - ie. not being able to assign/see the image in the Secure Zone sounds like a biggie.

Fred

Jeff, Fred.

Just think, we are just a handful of users finding issues with this version. It is becoming apparent that it needs various patches quickly.

Can you envision being on the receiving end of the email at Acronis tech support (worldwide)? No joy.

~Justin

I just had the occasion to restore an image. The image had been created in 8 minutes, the restore took only 4 minutes. In my opinion, Acronis True Image vers. 6.0 and 7.0 are the best backup utilities available. I had problems with Ghost failing to restore on two different occasions, requiring a clean install both times.

bobbo,

I have to agree that True Image is the best backup utility I have tried out of the three I've used: Drive Image, Ghost and True Image. However, True Image 7.0 does take longer to do a backup than did 6.0. With 6.0, it would take about 35 minutes to do a backup to my HS CD-RW disks (5 disks). But 7.0 takes about 50 minutes to do the same operation to the same disks. I'm not overly disappointed, mind you, but it does take longer in my case.

Jeff
simul iustus et peccator

Jeff, I do my backups to a second hard drive which goes very fast. Are you using normal compression? How fast is your CD burner? I just picked up a 52x32x52x Liteon for $39 (free shipping) from NewEgg.

Using the b582 version, today, I was able to use the Explore Image capability to restore a few files directly rather than using the Restore function. It assigned a virtual drive letter without problems & eliminated it correctly, when requested.

Anybody tried the clone disk function yet? Any problems?

Fred

Fred, I installed a new Maxtor 40 GB drive, booted from the TI Boot Disk and cloned from old HD using Acronis 7.0 Cloning utility. The whole process including cloning, drive removal, drive reinstallation, took about 45 min from start to finish.

Thanks Bobbo - now that I know it's safe ...

Fred

Edit: You have to admit, it's a hell of a piece of software for $30!
:clap: