What disk imaging software do you use and why do you like it?? ( Norton Ghost, Acronis True Image, etc. )


Thanks!:-)

Mike

I use older versions of them both. They are reliable.

The caveat about True Image is that the new version which is sold each year invariably has problems with it initially. It usually takes several program updates to make them reliable.

The idea of operating without a full backup these days is quite misguided & usually causes premature baldness from tearing it out from poor program updates, fouled up programs or viruses/spyware. It's a warm fuzzy to know you can restore your whole system in under half an hour if you must.

Fred

I also use both programs. I use Ghost at work and on my XP machine at home. I purchased Acronis for my Vista machine at home because they were the first on the market with a Vista compatible image program.

Both programs are excellent, and everyone should own and use one of them.

I am using: 1) Acronis True Image Echo Workstation 9.5.0.8115 with the Universal Restore add-on, and 2) Vista CompletePC Backup. True Image is fabulous and it has never failed me. This version allows "bare metal" restores (restore the image to ANY PC regardless of hardware). I've used True Image Home, all versions up to v. 11 and had no problems with corrupt image files, etc., which some experience. The CompletePC Backup that comes with Vista Ultimate has also worked flawlessly (both creating images and restoring images). It too allegedly can do "bare metal" restores.

Another backup application I would highly recommend is "ShadowProtect". It also has the ability to do "bare metal" restores and is about $10 cheaper than True Image Home which cannot do "bare metal" restores. I used that for several months and it was very nice although it couldn't restore an image on my system due to some "glitch", which according to Tech Support was because I was trying to restore the image on a dual-boot machine. They have since corrected this issue in the latest release.

Jeff
simul iustus et peccator

Macrium Reflect.
As I said in similar posts I have tried a lot of imaging programs including all those mentioned and Macrium is easily the best, especially over Acronis.
Just too many problems with Acronis. See their forum.
I do not have a problem with Macrium, and no, I am not connected in any way with them, I'm simply a very satisfied customer and their support is as it should be, with Acronis you can wait for weeks as users have done.

Corrupt images. This is really the biggest problem with it.
Getting a Recovery media to work.
et al.

http://www.macrium.com

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Enjoy life while you can, don't try when you can't 'cos you won't, then it will be too late.

Ianw

I just ditched Macrium (free version) because it made 4 consecutive corrupt images. I just downloaded a 30 trial of the pro. version but have not tried it yet.

In the meantime I made a backup image with Acronis TI 11. I had bought that about a year ago when it was on sale at Staples. It always seems to work for me. How ever it is a heavier load on the computer than Macrium.

I would prefer to use Macrium if it works properly.

I would also recommend Erunt to back up your registry every day. It saved my butt twice this week after downloading some freeware games that changed some of my settings.

What is a "bare metal" restore?

Check reply # 3

I use Acronis True Image Home 2009
You can download a free 30 Day trial at their website.

Any other opinions on ShadowProtect?

Shadow Protect is actually supposed to be the best backup program there is. I read a review a few months ago on imaging programs and Shadow Protect was rated at the top.

That's quite a conclusiion to draw from one review.

It's doesn't have the unnecessary bloat that Acronis or Symantec have. It's hard to argue.

I've used it, it's good stuff. I'm sure I can find more than one positive review.

Bloat? You mean features and added capability? Please define the bloat.

Whoa there big fella! Welcome to 2009!

Bloat

Me I have Acronis TI 11 and never had a problem, used to restore a couple of times also used it to clone a disk. I see no need to update to 2009

What one person sees as bloat another sees as necessary.Though at times I wish you could buy versions with a little more choice as to what is included in the install.It's all in the beholder but what I do not like is when software that did one thing well adds things in and ends up not doing anything well.

I downloaded it just to compare it with my presesnt imager, I run vista.

when I installed shadowProtector it put up a message that snapman.sys is installed from acronis and it interferes with shadowProtector and shoud be removed, I copied it to another partition.

I got the program installed.

then every time I restarted the PC I got a BSOD.
I restarted into DOS but got the BSOD.
I restarted and used my Macruim to install snapman.sys into its folder, Windows/System32/drivers and my PC booted as normal.

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Enjoy life while you can, don't try when you can't 'cos you won't, then it will be too late.

Ianw

This is a known "issue", i.e., you must uninstall True Image before installing ShadowProtect. It's one of those deals where you cannot have two backup programs which monitor the system running at the same time. True Image often leaves behind the "snapman.sys" file and must be removed manually. Here's the destructions for doing so which comes from ShadowProtect tech support:

Quote:

To manually uninstall snapman.sys (as the True Image uninstaller often does not remove this driver, which will cause a BSOD if it is installed alongside ShadowProtect), follow these steps (in this order):

1. As an administrator, run regedit.exe and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}. Remove the snapman entry from the "UpperFilters" values. This will unregister the snapman.sys driver as a PnP filter for disk devices.

2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{71A27CDD-812A-11D0-BEC7-08002BE2092F}. Remove the snapman entry from the "UpperFilters" values. This will unregister the snapman.sys driver as a PnP filter for logical volume devices.

3. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\snapman and add a REG_DWORD value named DeleteFlag with a value 1 inside this snapman key. Next, change the Start REG_DWORD value inside the snapman key to 4 (disabled).

4. Reboot

5. After the reboot, snapman.sys will not be loaded, and its service key will be gone. You can now delete the snapman.sys file (may be located in windows\system32\drivers directory, or in an Acronis install directory)

Jeff
simul iustus et peccator

I dont have Acronis installed, I think in Vista that snapman.sys is part of it, though I might be wrong.

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Enjoy life while you can, don't try when you can't 'cos you won't, then it will be too late.

Ianw

Quote:

QUOTE:
I dont have Acronis installed, I think in Vista that snapman.sys is part of it, though I might be wrong.

I'm afraid you might indeed be wrong... "snapman.sys" is installed as part of Acronis True Image and I think Disk Director as well. It is reported to not be a default system file. Doing a simple search on Google for "snapman.sys" will give you more than ample information which not only confirms that this is an Acronis file only but how to remove it in various ways. IF <--- you choose to remove it by a method other than what I posted above, which is a tried and true method, you are on your own as far as what results you may get; good or bad.

Here's just one example of a thread that discusses "snapman.sys": Take a note everyone and Acronis.

Jeff
simul iustus et peccator

Quote:

QUOTE:

I'm afraid you might indeed be wrong... "snapman.sys" is installed as part of Acronis True Image and I think Disk Director as well. It is reported to not be a default system file. Doing a simple search on Google for "snapman.sys" will give you more than ample information which not only confirms that this is an Acronis file only but how to remove it in various ways. IF <--- you choose to remove it by a method other than what I posted above, which is a tried and true method, you are on your own as far as what results you may get; good or bad.
Jeff
simul iustus et peccator

Many apologies, I had TI and Disk Director installed some time ago and uninstalled them then forgot about them.
I carried out the steps in Acronis uninstall post in your link with what was left over from the uninstallation but that did not work, so I restored my Macruim images of the initial install of Vista, that is, only the very essential files / programs and hardware then I activated it and made the images and then I install all my programs.

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Enjoy life while you can, don't try when you can't 'cos you won't, then it will be too late.

Ianw

Jeff, I see that Acronis offers a 15-day free trial of True Image Home 2009. If one were to try that out, only to decide he didn't really want it, would he be stuck with the snapman.sys problem? Your opinion would be appreciated.

jaded

Quote:

QUOTE:
Jeff, I see that Acronis offers a 15-day free trial of True Image Home 2009. If one were to try that out, only to decide he didn't really want it, would he be stuck with the snapman.sys problem? Your opinion would be appreciated.

jaded

I have made a post on that just in case Pilgrim doesnt know. its here at :-

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=1401990#post1401990

Thread title is :-
TI 2009 demo and snapman.sys

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Enjoy life while you can, don't try when you can't 'cos you won't, then it will be too late.

Ianw

I got a reply from Acronis Support.
=====================================

Thank you for using Acronis True Image

Acronis True Image Home 2009 uses snapman.sys driver, the driver has snapman380 value.

Here are the directories::

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} -> UpperFilters (the values are VolSnap tdrpman147 snapman380)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{71A27CDD-812A-11D0-BEC7-08002BE2092F} -> UpperFilters (the values are VolSnap tdrpman147 snapman380 timounter)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services


Thank you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enjoy life while you can, don't try when you can't 'cos you won't, then it will be too late.

Ianw

Hi, I'm new to the Forum. I've been building Systems since 1984 and I Have personally tried Ghost, Acronis and a Few other Programs. I Read through all the posts soo far and saw no mention of My personal favorite Called CASPER. It used to be called Casper xp. I Wrote an article about it on The CNET Forum awhile back. Here's a Link if anyone is interested in checking it out. http://www.fssdev.com Casper . Regards from Ray..

Quote:

QUOTE:
Hi, I'm new to the Forum. I've been building Systems since 1984 and I Have personally tried Ghost, Acronis and a Few other Programs. I Read through all the posts soo far and saw no mention of My personal favorite Called CASPER. It used to be called Casper xp. I Wrote an article about it on The CNET Forum awhile back. Here's a Link if anyone is interested in checking it out. http://www.fssdev.com Casper . Regards from Ray..

After reading this thread I decided I should just check my imaging program TI 11 Home. I have two computers, each one has its own copy of True Image 11 Home. Although I've made backups religiously I haven't used the rescue disks so today I started both computers with rescue disks, they didn't work, while using the rescue disk one computer couldn't check the latest backup, it just froze, the other computer after booting with its rescue disk wouldn't go past the choice of checking backups for verification, it just froze. So both computers booting up with their rescue disks couldn't verify their backups but both computers while in windows mode could verify their backups as good. How reliable can this be? both computers are WinXP Pro sp3. I am waiting for a reply from Acronis but not holding my breath.

So I downloaded Macrium, on the first computer I made a backup and rescue disk, booted with the rescue disk and got the black screen and nothing more, not a good thing. I then downloaded Casper but it seems to need its own disk from what I can see, erasing everything on the disk before making a backup, I don't have an extra disk at this time.

Not a good day, now I don't know if I have a reliable backup or not.

Stan

If you have the TI 11 cd, try booting from that to check and verify your back-ups. I have never made a TI boot disk because:

"Welcome to Acronis Media Builder"

"This wizard will help you to create bootable media for Acronis products (or their specific components) installed on your computer. When your computer cannot boot normally, you can run the product from this CD.
Note: If you purchased your Acronis product on CD, the product CD is bootable and you can run the product from the CD."

Quote:

QUOTE:
If you have the TI 11 cd, try booting from that to check and verify your back-ups. I have never made a TI boot disk because:

"Welcome to Acronis Media Builder"

"This wizard will help you to create bootable media for Acronis products (or their specific components) installed on your computer. When your computer cannot boot normally, you can run the product from this CD.
Note: If you purchased your Acronis product on CD, the product CD is bootable and you can run the product from the CD."

Thank you for your reply. Both of my copies of TI 11 are downloaded so the rescue cd's are those I've made myself. TI 11 Home seems to work just fine for what I've done until I want to verify the images with the rescue disks; the computers boot, Acronis starts, and the options are all available but I can't verify the images with the rescue cd in either machine because they both freeze and I have to hit the re-start buttons.

I was wondering if anyone else has gone through this and what was done. I do like True Image because its easy enough to use but I've been fortunate to not need a recovery.

Stan

Quote:

QUOTE:

QUOTE:
Hi, I'm new to the Forum. I've been building Systems since 1984 and I Have personally tried Ghost, Acronis and a Few other Programs. I Read through all the posts soo far and saw no mention of My personal favorite Called CASPER. It used to be called Casper xp. I Wrote an article about it on The CNET Forum awhile back. Here's a Link if anyone is interested in checking it out. http://www.fssdev.com Casper . Regards from Ray..

After reading this thread I decided I should just check my imaging program TI 11 Home. I have two computers, each one has its own copy of True Image 11 Home. Although I've made backups religiously I haven't used the rescue disks so today I started both computers with rescue disks, they didn't work, while using the rescue disk one computer couldn't check the latest backup, it just froze, the other computer after booting with its rescue disk wouldn't go past the choice of checking backups for verification, it just froze. So both computers booting up with their rescue disks couldn't verify their backups but both computers while in windows mode could verify their backups as good. How reliable can this be? both computers are WinXP Pro sp3. I am waiting for a reply from Acronis but not holding my breath.

So I downloaded Macrium, on the first computer I made a backup and rescue disk, booted with the rescue disk and got the black screen and nothing more, not a good thing. I then downloaded Casper but it seems to need its own disk from what I can see, erasing everything on the disk before making a backup, I don't have an extra disk at this time.

Not a good day, now I don't know if I have a reliable backup or not.

Stan

Welcome Ray.

Hi Stan, All of My Three Desktops are Homebuilt as well. I Also have two Laptops here and i use Casper on All of Them. On my Desktops,i use Removeable Mobile slide Racks to Pull the drive out after Cloning. On my Laptops, I Use home built USB Enclosures for the SATA Drives. When you start Casper,Select Copy Disc and it will show you Drive 1 (default) which is your Main (source) Drive. If you selected the "Copy Disc" option it will then show you drive 2, (your Target Disc). It warns you that Anything on the Target Disc WILL BE LOST because it's going to Clone your Source drive for you exactly as it is. (You don't need the ISO file. That's a whole seperate animal). Everything you need is right there in the Program. The First Time you use The Program it will take awhile,but after that,it only takes a few minutes using the Smart Clone Technology. The User Interface is small and simple to use. Once the Copy is Complete,it will generate a report for you to view if you'd like to see it telling you the operation completed successfully.. When the Job is Done, Just be sure to Click on EXIT on the menu before disconnecting the External Drive. Hope this helps some, Ray..

Quote:

QUOTE:
Hi Stan, All of My Three Desktops are Homebuilt as well. I Also have two Laptops here and i use Casper on All of Them. On my Desktops,i use Removeable Mobile slide Racks to Pull the drive out after Cloning. On my Laptops, I Use home built USB Enclosures for the SATA Drives. When you start Casper,Select Copy Disc and it will show you Drive 1 (default) which is your Main (source) Drive. If you selected the "Copy Disc" option it will then show you drive 2, (your Target Disc). It warns you that Anything on the Target Disc WILL BE LOST because it's going to Clone your Source drive for you exactly as it is. (You don't need the ISO file. That's a whole seperate animal). Everything you need is right there in the Program. The First Time you use The Program it will take awhile,but after that,it only takes a few minutes using the Smart Clone Technology. The User Interface is small and simple to use. Once the Copy is Complete,it will generate a report for you to view if you'd like to see it telling you the operation completed successfully.. When the Job is Done, Just be sure to Click on EXIT on the menu before disconnecting the External Drive. Hope this helps some, Ray..

Thanks Ray, so if I use Casper I need a drive for each computer? and each backup erases the previous backup? that's the way it sounds. Or, can I partition the backup drive and using Casper, have each partition as a current backup keeping previous backups on their own partitions? I am looking at drives right now and though there aren't any great deals I see Newegg has these which seem to be able to do the job
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148395
I have a couple of external connector units that plug into USB ports and then plug into IDE/SATA/Firewire drives, I could use them when I make a backup. Nothing yet from Acronis on my problems.

Stan

I forgot to mention that if I'm just going to make a clone I think I can use TI 11 to do the same thing for the same purpose.

Stan, The Link you provided from Newegg looks like a good deal to me. I Use A Smaller version of that Drive and i did notice a slight speed improvement with the 16 meg buffer over the drive i had. As for needing a seperate drive for each computer, That would be my choice. I have swapped my laptop drive a few times already for various reasons.On this dell i can swap it in under two minutes. You asked if you can Make partitions and backup that way. Yes,you can with the "Create Disc" option,but i have never used it that way. I Want my spare drive ready to Pop in at a moments notice. You can also browse the FAQ on the websight for other info. I'm attaching a Link soo you can see the Different Products they offer. Good luck in whatever you decide to do. Ray..Product Version Link
***One Important Note Concerning Norton Go Back (if anyone uses it),Go back actually writes to the Original MBR and has been known,IMHO to cause more trouble then it's worth. Having said that Here's a bit of Info regarding Casper and Go Back****.

Is Casper compatible with GoBack?
Yes. However, due to the specific nature of GoBack, if you want to copy to a hard disk protected by GoBack, or copy to a drive that contains a GoBack history file, you must disable protection on the hard disk first. You must also disable protection before creating or removing a drive on a hard disk protected by GoBack. If you use GoBack, please consult the Casper help for additional information. Please note that it is not necessary to disable GoBack to copy from a hard disk protected by GoBack.

Stan, The Link you provided from Newegg looks like a good deal to me. I Use A Smaller version of that Drive and i did notice a slight speed improvement with the 16 meg buffer over the drive i had. As for needing a seperate drive for each computer, That would be my choice. I have swapped my laptop drive a few times already for various reasons.On this dell i can swap it in under two minutes. You asked if you can Make partitions and backup that way. Yes,you can with the "Create Disc" option,but i have never used it that way. I Want my spare drive ready to Pop in at a moments notice. You can also browse the FAQ on the websight for other info. I'm attaching a Link soo you can see the Different Products they offer. Good luck in whatever you decide to do. Ray..Product Version Link


Thanks for your help Ray and your opinion on the drives. I think I will be ordering the drives today if I have time, not sure yet if I will go with Casper, I think I should see if I can get TI to do the same thing as long as I have it already paid for but I will post back with what I decide to do. If you hadn't mentioned what you do with Casper I would have felt secure with TI 11 Home but maybe let down if I really needed it, unless I just don't see it no one else here has said anything about using the rescue disk to check on the backups they have made, maybe I'm the only one having difficulty.

Stan

Stan, You're quite welcome. If you already have TI and feel comfortable with it,then that's fine. I would just strongly recommend that whatever Method or Program you use,That you Make SURE it did what you wanted it to do BEFORE you really need it in a pinch. Reminds me of some of the first Tape drives that were not reliable to some degree or another at times. You "Thought" you had a good backup.....until it came time to use it. Nice to meet you here on the Forum. Ray..

Welcome to the forum!

Have you tried making a new recovery disk from within Acronis?

Quote:

QUOTE:


Have you tried making a new recovery disk from within Acronis?

Yes, I have made two recovery disks from each computer thinking a bad burn, that is after downloading and installing the latest update to TI 11 Home. Both computers boot with the rescue disks (one gives me the black screen of death after making a selection) and the other computer cannot verify its backups from an external drive although TI has no problems performing the backups and verifying them while in windows on both computers.

What I think I will do is keep TI to backup as long as I have it installed, it works well to go into backups to retrieve certain folders and files.

I will also get Casper because Casper will clone a drive as a backup. If I understand correctly, TI will make a clone of the C: drive onto a new drive but then the new drive must be installed?

Stan

Quote:

If I understand correctly, TI will make a clone of the C: drive onto a new drive but then the new drive must be installed?

I believe they do this as a security approach. At this point they encourage you to overwrite or shred all info on the source drive.

Quote:

I believe they do this as a security approach. At this point they encourage you to overwrite or shred all info on the source drive.

During the Clone process you have a choice of either leaving the source drive data intact or deleting it.

I believe you can remove the new cloned drive and still use the source drive if so desired. However, if you want to use the new cloned drive, e.g., you replaced the old source drive with a larger one or whatever, then you MUST shutdown the machine and remove the original source drive beforehand. Then you can startup the PC. This should be obvious anyway since you have two identical bootable drives connected which won't work, hehe.

Jeff
simul iustus et peccator

No you do not have to remove the original source drive if you elect the option of deleting it after the cloning. I know as it happened to me. However if you want to keep the data on the old source drive than you must remove it from machine.
I have found I just make a full backup use the Vista Disc to format the Old C: Drive and the drive I now want to install Vista on, then boot with TI 11 and install vista on the drive of my choice. I have 4 internal hard drives. I have to make sure though in the BIOS I have the drive I selected set to be the first HD in Boot Sequence

Quote:

QUOTE:
Stan, You're quite welcome. If you already have TI and feel comfortable with it,then that's fine. I would just strongly recommend that whatever Method or Program you use,That you Make SURE it did what you wanted it to do BEFORE you really need it in a pinch. Reminds me of some of the first Tape drives that were not reliable to some degree or another at times. You "Thought" you had a good backup.....until it came time to use it. Nice to meet you here on the Forum. Ray..

I've ordered two of the drives, one for each computer, I will be using them with Casper as backup drives. Some years ago I was using an imaging program called DriveImage and when I needed it to restore the OS it didn't work. In fact, TI is sort of reminding me of what DriveImage was like, smooth looking and lots of promises, if it works for someone else that's great but after this ordeal and the amount of time I spent, its for someone else, not me.

I never heard of Casper before, I appreciate this forum and the subjects brought up, your timing for joining the forum was perfect, please keep contributing! there are many knowledgeable members here.

Stan

Hi Stan,When i joined the Forum i was just browsing the threads and i see there are alot of Members who REALLY know what they're talking about and offer a wealth of information. It's a pleasure for me to read on such a forum as this one. When i discovered the thread about this backup situation,i read all the posts from different folks and everyone was offering their opinions which makes this whole process work. As i read all the Posts,i saw no mention of The one I've settled in with, Casper, soo i thought i'd just put it out there for general info for anyone that cared to check it out. If my post has helped you or anyone else out in anyway,then i am glad i posted here. At least you have the Free trial Version of Casper to evaluate and i do believe you'll be very satisfied. Please let us know your opinion once you've had the chance to use it. Regards from Ray..

Quote:

QUOTE:
Please let us know your opinion once you've had the chance to use it. Regards from Ray..

I sure will Ray

I use Acronis TI version 11, use it once a month full back up
I also Backup weekly full back up using the Native Vista backup to a different drive
As tritary back up I have used Macrium Reflect to a totally different drive full backup once a month.

I am pretty well covered as backups go.

Quote:

QUOTE:
I use Acronis TI version 11, use it once a month full back up
I also Backup weekly full back up using the Native Vista backup to a different drive
As tritary back up I have used Macrium Reflect to a totally different drive full backup once a month.

I am pretty well covered as backups go.

It sounds like you are pretty well covered alright. I am wondering though, have you done a successful verification of your TI backups using the rescue disc?

For some years now I have been backing up with different versions of TI but this is the first time I really dug around with the rescue disc and it really opened my eyes that it didn't work. And because of the importance of a backup program, I don't want to have to do some special stuff to make it work with my computers, I just want and expect it to work as it is.

Stan

I have used one of TI backups to restore my C:\ drive in the last month due to a major error on my part

I think his comments only apply to TI 11. Is that what you are using? I have TI 10 and saw no pressing reason to upgrade to Ver 11

Yes mine is 11 build 8053

Quote:

QUOTE:
I think his comments only apply to TI 11. Is that what you are using? I have TI 10 and saw no pressing reason to upgrade to Ver 11

Yes, I am currently using version 11 Home, its also the first version that I am doing more than just seeing if the rescue disc does more than just boot up the computer. I believe I started out with version 8, I have been fortunate to not have needed any of the backups over the years, just reinstalling programs/OS's whenever I built a new computer.

Stan

I'm wondering why you want to do a verification from the rescue disc.

When I make an image with TI9 and most recently TI10, immediately following the making of the image, TI automatically goes into the verify mode. The image gets verified that way.

I test the rescue disc by booting from it and go through the steps and stop short of pushing the "proceed" button.

I've reimaged with older versions, but not with 9 or 10 yet. TI10, the one I have was (maybe still is) a free one, stripped down...just for full back up. That's all I need...no incrementals, or frills.

Quote:

QUOTE:
I'm wondering why you want to do a verification from the rescue disc.

When I make an image with TI9 and most recently TI10, immediately following the making of the image, TI automatically goes into the verify mode. The image gets verified that way.

I test the rescue disc by booting from it and go through the steps and stop short of pushing the "proceed" button.

I've reimaged with older versions, but not with 9 or 10 yet. TI10, the one I have was (maybe still is) a free one, stripped down...just for full back up. That's all I need...no incrementals, or frills.

I don't really have a reason to verify the integrity of a backup using the rescue disc other than to see if it works and I believe it should but it doesn't, is this a weak link or a warning? And, if one portion of the rescue disc doesn't work in good times will any of it work in a real disaster? I have gone into backups to look at individual files and that worked just fine but that has been with a working system. I would feel much better if it just worked, I believe this is something to not ignore.

It is now three days and no response from Acronis other than an automated email to inform me they received my request.

Stan

Quote:

QUOTE:

QUOTE:
I'm wondering why you want to do a verification from the rescue disc.

When I make an image with TI9 and most recently TI10, immediately following the making of the image, TI automatically goes into the verify mode. The image gets verified that way.

I test the rescue disc by booting from it and go through the steps and stop short of pushing the "proceed" button.

I've reimaged with older versions, but not with 9 or 10 yet. TI10, the one I have was (maybe still is) a free one, stripped down...just for full back up. That's all I need...no incrementals, or frills.

I don't really have a reason to verify the integrity of a backup using the rescue disc other than to see if it works and I believe it should but it doesn't, is this a weak link or a warning? And, if one portion of the rescue disc doesn't work in good times will any of it work in a real disaster? I have gone into backups to look at individual files and that worked just fine but that has been with a working system. I would feel much better if it just worked, I believe this is something to not ignore.

It is now three days and no response from Acronis other than an automated email to inform me they received my request.

Stan

Stan,
did you read what Dave just said in #58?

How much time went by between image creation and disc varification?

Curious!

Quote:

QUOTE:
Stan,
did you read what Dave just said in #58?

How much time went by between image creation and disc varification?

Curious!

Yes, it was a matter of minutes for both computers...one gave the black screen and the other froze showing only the status bars, I determined it was frozen after leaving it in that state for around 45 minutes just to be sure. I usually backup weekly and verify in windows. Its 4 days and still nothing from Acronis. I should be receiving my new drives today.

Stan

I found the differences between TI 10 & 11 inconsequential so I stuck with TI10. Works fine as long as you use the latest build - 4941.

Fred

Quote:

QUOTE:
I found the differences between TI 10 & 11 inconsequential so I stuck with TI10. Works fine as long as you use the latest build - 4941.

Fred

I usually like to go with the latest version with something like this and I thought the upgrade offer was too good to refuse. I didn't try this when I had previous versions of TI installed, I just made sure the rescue disc could boot the computer, I'm glad I did this now.

When a program such as Acronis, using the rescue disc, can boot a computer there shouldn't be any conflicts such as a black screen of death or freezing when the OS is WinXP which is a main stream system and has been around for awhile.

Stan

Acronis has a very long record of what I think is rushing software to market, including newer builds. That means that someone is always having problems with their early versions until they sort them out.

IMO - good software (eventually) - bad management.

Fred

Quote:

QUOTE:
Acronis has a very long record of what I think is rushing software to market, including newer builds. That means that someone is always having problems with their early versions until they sort them out.

IMO - good software (eventually) - bad management.

Fred

I believe you are correct, Acronis can be good software alright, several years ago I bought it after reading all the good recommendations but I've never had to depend on it after a crash, this experience with it has shook my belief foundation in it.

I like this forum as a way to get other ideas, experiences, and opinions. My experience with this software seems to be going against the grain but that is my experience, now I will be using Casper, from what I can see it will be easier and, I hope, more dependable (still no response from Acronis). I'm done with Acronis, it doesn't take more than one let down from such important software to let me know if its dependable or not. When I get the new drives I will test Casper and report back here on my experience with it.

I thought Acronis 2009 is the latest model and TI 11 Home is the older version?

Stan