Acronis True Image Help!!

[phaedrus]

Hi all,

I'm having terrible problems trying to make a bootable backup of my
Hard Drive.
I've given up the ghost with Ghost (terrible piece of software) and am
now trying my luck with Acronis TI's trial version. Problem being with
this one that the user manual is very badly written and talks about
something called a "secure zone" and changing the size of zones without
explaining what they are, what they do or why one would need to!
All I want to do is create, on a recordable DVD., a *complete*
bit-for-bit copy of my HDD with all the operating system, applications
and data and make it bootable so in the event of HDD failure, I can
just slip the DVD into another computer with a clean HDD and have it
boot-up fully with everthing working just like your regular HDD does.
If poss, I'd like to do it all on just the one DVD without need for a
separate boot disk. I've only 4GB in total on the HDD so it should all
fit on DVD without need for compression.
So how do I do it?? Can someone spoon-feed me through the process
step-by-step? 4 days waisted trying to achieve this so far. :-(
Many thanks!

 

[Derek Baker]

Hi all,

I'm having terrible problems trying to make a bootable backup of my
Hard Drive.
I've given up the ghost with Ghost (terrible piece of software) and am
now trying my luck with Acronis TI's trial version. Problem being with
this one that the user manual is very badly written and talks about
something called a "secure zone" and changing the size of zones without
explaining what they are, what they do or why one would need to!
All I want to do is create, on a recordable DVD., a *complete*
bit-for-bit copy of my HDD with all the operating system, applications
and data and make it bootable so in the event of HDD failure, I can
just slip the DVD into another computer with a clean HDD and have it
boot-up fully with everthing working just like your regular HDD does.
If poss, I'd like to do it all on just the one DVD without need for a
separate boot disk. I've only 4GB in total on the HDD so it should all
fit on DVD without need for compression.
So how do I do it?? Can someone spoon-feed me through the process
step-by-step? 4 days waisted trying to achieve this so far. :-(
Many thanks!

This might be a better place to ask:
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=65 It's the official True
Image forum.

 

[zigipha]

The "secure zone" is a partition on the HD used to store full and
incremental images from the active partition. It is managed by TI (i.e.
tosses out the old images when it runs out of space. If you just want
to make DVDs that have theimage of your drive, you dont need to bothe
with secure zone.

A high level step by step
1. make an emergency boot disk(recovery disk)
2. restart the PC with the boot disk
3. tell it you want to save the partition, pick the partition as
thesource and the writeable drive as the destination.
4. verify the integrity of the newly created disks
5. verify you can boot with the newly created disks

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I'm having terrible problems trying to make a bootable backup
of my Hard Drive.
I've given up the ghost with Ghost (terrible piece of software)
and am now trying my luck with Acronis TI's trial version.
[.......]
All I want to do is create, on a recordable DVD., a *complete*
bit-for-bit copy of my HDD with all the operating system,
applications and data and make it bootable so in the event
of HDD failure, I can just slip the DVD into another computer
with a clean HDD and have it boot-up fully with everthing
working just like your regular HDD does.

Be aware that the new HDD will not be able to run WinXP
on another computer because WinXP will recognize that
it's in a new environment.

The "boot-up" from DVD will involve "restoring" it from
image file form to hard drive sector form first, and THEN
you should be able to boot the OS. That can take a lot
time.

A faster way would be to clone the image of the 1st HDD
sector-by-sector onto a 2nd HDD that would act as a backup.
THAT image (called a "clone") would be directly bootable.
You can do that with True Image if the entire contents of
the 1st HDD are transferred to the entirety of the 2nd HDD.
If you want to just transfer a specific partition from the 1st
HDD and to put it among other partitions on the 2nd HDD,
you can use Ghost or Casper XP (assuming that you have
WinXP). With Casper XP, you can even use a free trial
version, downloadable from:
www.FSSdev.com/products/casperxp/ .

As with all NT/2K/XP clones, isolate it from its "parent" when
booting it up for the 1st time. (Thereafter, it's OK if it can
see its "parent" OS partition when booting.)

 

[Neil Maxwell]

The "secure zone" is a partition on the HD used to store full and
incremental images from the active partition. It is managed by TI (i.e.
tosses out the old images when it runs out of space. If you just want
to make DVDs that have theimage of your drive, you dont need to bothe
with secure zone.

The downside of the secure zone is that it's on the same HD as your
data, so a failure of the HD wipes out your secure zone too.

A high level step by step
1. make an emergency boot disk(recovery disk)
2. restart the PC with the boot disk
3. tell it you want to save the partition, pick the partition as
thesource and the writeable drive as the destination.
4. verify the integrity of the newly created disks
5. verify you can boot with the newly created disks

This will work, but I make the backup on a second HD, then burn it to
DVD. It's a good bit faster and more reliable, for me at least, and
the writing software can verify directly after the write.

Regardless, it's critical to verify that your boot disk works, that
you can read the backups from it, and that the integrity of the backup
is good, as in steps 4 and 5.

 

[Derek Baker]

The downside of the secure zone is that it's on the same HD as your
data, so a failure of the HD wipes out your secure zone too.

Doesn't have to be true, mine's on a separate (physical) drive.

 

[Rod Speed]

I'm having terrible problems trying to make
a bootable backup of my Hard Drive.

I think you grossly overuse the word 'terrible' |-)

I've given up the ghost with Ghost (terrible piece of software)
and am now trying my luck with Acronis TI's trial version.

Problem being with this one that the user manual is very badly
written and talks about something called a "secure zone" and
changing the size of zones without explaining what they are,
what they do or why one would need to!

Yeah, that area of the manual does leave quite a bit to be desired.

The short story is that you can ignore the secure zone completely
if you want to write your images to DVD. Its used for images
written to hard drives, and when you dont have a separate partition
or drive to the one you are imaging to write the image file to.

All I want to do is create, on a recordable DVD., a *complete*
bit-for-bit copy of my HDD with all the operating system, applications
and data and make it bootable so in the event of HDD failure, I can
just slip the DVD into another computer with a clean HDD and have it
boot-up fully with everthing working just like your regular HDD does.

TI can certainly do that.

If poss, I'd like to do it all on just the one DVD without need
for a separate boot disk. I've only 4GB in total on the HDD
so it should all fit on DVD without need for compression.

So how do I do it?? Can someone spoon-feed me through the process
step-by-step? 4 days waisted trying to achieve this so far. :-(

The easiest to understand approach is to make the rescue CD
and boot that. Select the Create Image option, tick the hard drive
on the first line which shows hard drives and partitions. You want
to image the entire hard drive, not just the partition on it. Then
specify the DVD burner where you name where the image file goes.

Its almost as easy with the installed TI, just ignore the secure zone,
it isnt relevant to what you want to do, specify the DVD burner as
the destination for the image file, just type a file name in the filename
box after the drive letter TI will supply when you click on the DVD drive.

 

[Rod Speed]

phaedrus wrote

Be aware that the new HDD will not be able to run WinXP on another computer
because WinXP will recognize that it's in a new environment.

That is just plain wrong. You'll only have a problem if the motherboard
chipset is significantly different and even then its completely trivial to
repair the install to allow for the different chipset.

The "boot-up" from DVD will involve "restoring" it from
image file form to hard drive sector form first, and THEN
you should be able to boot the OS. That can take a lot time.

More bullshit on the time.

A faster way would be to clone the image of the 1st HDD
sector-by-sector onto a 2nd HDD that would act as a backup.
THAT image (called a "clone") would be directly bootable.

Pity you need to buy the second hard drive. Makes
a lot more sense to just have what you need for the
new hard drive if you ever do see a hard drive failure.

Most dont have a boot drive failure so it makes no sense
to have the second hard drive for that unlikely situation.

It does however make a lot of sense to have an image
on DVD in case you ever do have a hard drive failure.

You can do that with True Image if the entire contents of
the 1st HDD are transferred to the entirety of the 2nd HDD.

If you want to just transfer a specific partition from the 1st HDD and to put
it among other partitions on the 2nd HDD, you can use Ghost or Casper XP
(assuming that you have WinXP). With Casper XP, you can even use a free trial
version, downloadable from:
www.FSSdev.com/products/casperxp/ .

Pity its such a limited dud.

As with all NT/2K/XP clones, isolate it from its "parent" when booting it up
for the 1st time. (Thereafter, it's OK if it can see its "parent" OS
partition when booting.)

Or dont bother cloning for backup at all. Use image files instead.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

That is just plain wrong. You'll only have a problem if the motherboard
chipset is significantly different and even then its completely trivial to
repair the install to allow for the different chipset.

Then "Phaedrus" ought to read this:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html .

*TimDaniels*

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

Then "Phaedrus" ought to read this:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html .

No point, that is just plain wrong too. The way to
do it is repair the install after booting the XP CD.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Timothy Daniels wrote


No point, that is just plain wrong too. The way to
do it is repair the install after booting the XP CD.

And which incorporates this:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;824125

*TimDaniels*

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

And which incorporates this:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;824125

Which says what I said in the bottom half.

No advantage in the other approach with the top half.