Acronis Teamed Up with Western Digital

[BillW50]

In M.I.5¾ typed on Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:05:08 +0100:

I can't comment on the WDC specific utility, but to answer your
questions for the generally available TrueImage.

It does work with both external USB and Firewire hard drives.

So does the WD Edition. The only requirement is that at least one drive
must be a WD drive.

Yes, you can produce an image onto an external hard drive. In fact
this is the ideal way to use it.

As to whether the WD version is crippled to unly work with WD drives,
we await reports.

TrueImage is a good backup solution for the average home user. It
also makes incremental and differential images which are
automatically restored if disaster strikes.

Features Missing From the WD Edition
------------------------------------

Acronis Try&Decide
Application backup
Data backup (select files/folders)
Scheduling
Archive protection
Cleanup utilities
Disk utilities
Consolidating backups
Incremental and differential backups
Notifications

 

[John]

Got it.

With Ghost (old version) the term is "clone". IIRC, there's no term "backup"
in the Ghost version that I've been using. That's why I got confused. I
thought Acronis backup is just like Windows XP Pro backup utility. I'm
guessing their "backup" utility creates an image of the whole drive or
partition of our choice, right?

One last thing. To restore to an empty WD HD, I suppose I have to create a
bootable media (CD) and boot off the CD. Correct?

Thanks Bill.

 

[BillW50]

In John typed on Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:03:09 -0700:

Got it.

With Ghost (old version) the term is "clone". IIRC, there's no term
"backup" in the Ghost version that I've been using. That's why I got
confused. I thought Acronis backup is just like Windows XP Pro backup
utility. I'm guessing their "backup" utility creates an image of the
whole drive or partition of our choice, right?

One last thing. To restore to an empty WD HD, I suppose I have to
create a bootable media (CD) and boot off the CD. Correct?

Thanks Bill.

What makes it worse is some manufactures use different terms for the
same things. And cloning and imaging is generally the same term which
makes an exact copy to another drive so that you can later swap and
replace the original drive.

Acronis True Image (including WD Edition) can do both cloning (imaging)
and backups. And backups doesn't create an exact copy of a drive or
partition, but sort of does but keeps it in a proprietary format in a
file or two or more. And it is usually takes up less space then the
original drive do to compressing and skipping some system files you
don't need (like hibernation and swap files) and not copying the free
space on the drive. Plus it wipes nothing else you have on that drive as
well.

Yes you will need that bootable CD to restore to a fresh new hard drive.
Or if you still have the old drive installed, you can clone it. Then
swap them out. You can also use that CD to clone, backup, and even
restore if you would like too, instead of doing it through Windows.

 

[Mark Adams]

Got it.

With Ghost (old version) the term is "clone". IIRC, there's no term "backup"
in the Ghost version that I've been using. That's why I got confused. I
thought Acronis backup is just like Windows XP Pro backup utility. I'm
guessing their "backup" utility creates an image of the whole drive or
partition of our choice, right?

Cloning makes an exact duplicate of your hard drive onto another hard drive.
The clone is bootable just like the original. In theory, you could switch
between the two drives and not be able to tell the difference; hence the term
"clone".

Imaging uses file compression to make a single file that stores all the data
on the disk. This file is generally kept on an external hard drive, although
it can be kept on any media capable of holding a file that large. The image
cannot boot, and the file can only be restored by the software that created
it.

One last thing. To restore to an empty WD HD, I suppose I have to create a
bootable media (CD) and boot off the CD. Correct?

Yes. The WD utility you would download and install to your computer, then
create the bootable disk from within the program.

The retail version disk of Acronis is both bootable and installable. The
installed program can create a bootable disk from within the program. The
full version can make images, and clones as well as saving files separately.
I believe it can also extract individual files from images that it has
created, without actually having to reinstall the image. A very useful tool

Thanks Bill.

 

[Bill in Co.]

In John typed on Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:51:42 -0700:

Hi John! Cloning is used if you bought a new hard drive and what to
clone your old to the new and then replace the old drive with the new
drive. In this case, this isn't what you want.

What you want is to backup.

I would add this: which is used to create *an image backup* of a source
drive partition (not to be confused with the option of just backing up one's
personal data, etc).

This will leave all of your data on the
external drive alone. And it will only add more data files to the drive
(probably put them in its own folder).

ATI stores it all in a single image file, typically named MyBackup# (if you
are using the full image backup, and not incremental or differential backups
(not sure about those two options as I don't and won't use them).

 

[John]

Thanks for the info.

In John typed on Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:51:42 -0700:

Hi John! Cloning is used if you bought a new hard drive and what to
clone your old to the new and then replace the old drive with the new
drive. In this case, this isn't what you want.

What you want is to backup.

I would add this: which is used to create *an image backup* of a source
drive partition (not to be confused with the option of just backing up
one's personal data, etc).

This will leave all of your data on the
external drive alone. And it will only add more data files to the drive
(probably put them in its own folder).

ATI stores it all in a single image file, typically named MyBackup# (if
you are using the full image backup, and not incremental or differential
backups (not sure about those two options as I don't and won't use them).

 

[M.I.5¾]

In M.I.5¾ typed on Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:05:08 +0100:

So does the WD Edition. The only requirement is that at least one drive
must be a WD drive.


Features Missing From the WD Edition
------------------------------------

Acronis Try&Decide
Application backup
Data backup (select files/folders)
Scheduling
Archive protection
Cleanup utilities
Disk utilities
Consolidating backups
Incremental and differential backups
Notifications

The missing features alone would suggest that the retail version would be
the better option. It is hardly expensive for the protection it provides.
It's £40 in the UK.

 

[BillW50]

In M.I.5¾ typed on Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:59:07 +0100:

The missing features alone would suggest that the retail version
would be the better option. It is hardly expensive for the
protection it provides. It's £40 in the UK.

Not for me. I have the retail version and I like this version far
better. As I don't use the above features anyway and I find them
useless. Especially the Try&Decide which just slows your computer down
(it is faster to make a backup and restore) and incremental and
differential backups which takes far too long to complete anyway. All I
need and want is to backup and restore. Everything else is just fluff.

 

[JS]

Well to date I've tried two WD drives and
all I get when booting to the Rescue/Recovery CD is:
"Acronis True Image is searching for the attached Western Digital drive.
Please attach Western Digital drive or click Cancel to exit the program".

 

[BillW50]

In JS typed on Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:29:28 -0400:

Well to date I've tried two WD drives and
all I get when booting to the Rescue/Recovery CD is:
"Acronis True Image is searching for the attached Western Digital
drive. Please attach Western Digital drive or click Cancel to exit
the program".

I have four WD drives here and it finds them instantly, even from the
CD. How are the WD connected? I'll test again later today on these
netbooks. As most of my testing was done on my laptop with a WD
installed as an internal.

 

[M.I.5¾]

In M.I.5¾ typed on Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:59:07 +0100:

Not for me. I have the retail version and I like this version far better.
As I don't use the above features anyway and I find them useless.
Especially the Try&Decide which just slows your computer down (it is
faster to make a backup and restore) and incremental and differential
backups which takes far too long to complete anyway. All I need and want
is to backup and restore. Everything else is just fluff.

How can the incremental and differential possibly take longer than a full
backup?

My weekly backup takes not more than about 10-15 minutes unless I do a full
backup when it takes around an hour and a half.

 

[BillW50]

In M.I.5¾ typed on Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:01:02 +0100:

How can the incremental and differential possibly take longer than a
full backup?

My weekly backup takes not more than about 10-15 minutes unless I do
a full backup when it takes around an hour and a half.

I don't know how it can, but it does. I am going by other backup
programs like Paragon Drive Backup 2009. About 30 minutes for a full
backup and 3½ hours for an incremental backup. Want me to try the same
under Acronis True Image?

 

[JS]

In JS typed on Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:29:28 -0400:

I have four WD drives here and it finds them instantly, even from the
CD. How are the WD connected? I'll test again later today on these
netbooks. As most of my testing was done on my laptop with a WD
installed as an internal.

Desktop PC that is my beta test box, Windows XP with SP3.

First go around had a Maxtor IDE as the boot drive
and the WD800 IDE drive as the slave. I installed the WD
edition without any problems and I created the image file
on the 2nd partition of the WD drive.

After the first attempt failed, I removed the Maxtor and
made the WD the master, (no other drives attached) with the
idea of using the image file to restore to the first (primary) partition of
the WD drive.

Last attempt: Changed the WD800 to a WD1600, clean install
of XP SP3, copied the original image file to the second partition
but the results were the same, it just can't find the WD drive.

Today I plan to use my full product ATIH 2009 recovery CD to
see if it can at least find the hard drive.

 

[BillW50]

In JS typed on Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:44:31 -0400:

Desktop PC that is my beta test box, Windows XP with SP3.

First go around had a Maxtor IDE as the boot drive
and the WD800 IDE drive as the slave. I installed the WD
edition without any problems and I created the image file
on the 2nd partition of the WD drive.

After the first attempt failed, I removed the Maxtor and
made the WD the master, (no other drives attached) with the
idea of using the image file to restore to the first (primary)
partition of the WD drive.

Last attempt: Changed the WD800 to a WD1600, clean install
of XP SP3, copied the original image file to the second partition
but the results were the same, it just can't find the WD drive.

Today I plan to use my full product ATIH 2009 recovery CD to
see if it can at least find the hard drive.

Are these PATA or SATA drives? If the latter, some BIOS has a setting to
make SATA drives to look like PATA ones before some boot programs can
see them.

 

[JS]

Desktop PC that is my beta test box, Windows XP with SP3.

First go around had a Maxtor IDE as the boot drive
and the WD800 IDE drive as the slave. I installed the WD
edition without any problems and I created the image file
on the 2nd partition of the WD drive.

After the first attempt failed, I removed the Maxtor and
made the WD the master, (no other drives attached) with the
idea of using the image file to restore to the first (primary) partition
of the WD drive.

Last attempt: Changed the WD800 to a WD1600, clean install
of XP SP3, copied the original image file to the second partition
but the results were the same, it just can't find the WD drive.

Today I plan to use my full product ATIH 2009 recovery CD to
see if it can at least find the hard drive.

The ATIH 2009 full product recovery/rescue CD works fine.
Boots from CD, finds the hard drive and the image backup file and restores
without any problem.

Booted to the now restored WD drive and created a second
recovery CD using the ATI WD Edition. This recovery CD
worked no better than the first one, it will search forever and
not locate the WD drive (and only drive) attached to the PC.

 

[JS]

In JS typed on Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:44:31 -0400:

Are these PATA or SATA drives? If the latter, some BIOS has a setting to
make SATA drives to look like PATA ones before some boot programs can
see them.

All the drives are PATA.

 

[BillW50]

In JS typed on Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:42:25 -0400:

The ATIH 2009 full product recovery/rescue CD works fine.
Boots from CD, finds the hard drive and the image backup file and
restores without any problem.

Booted to the now restored WD drive and created a second
recovery CD using the ATI WD Edition. This recovery CD
worked no better than the first one, it will search forever and
not locate the WD drive (and only drive) attached to the PC.

Well guess what? I finally see it! If the WD is the only drive on the
system, the CD version can't see it. Add any other drive (doesn't have
to be a WD one) and it works fine. Seems like a bug to me. <sigh>

 

[Bob I]

In JS typed on Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:42:25 -0400:



Well guess what? I finally see it! If the WD is the only drive on the
system, the CD version can't see it. Add any other drive (doesn't have
to be a WD one) and it works fine. Seems like a bug to me. <sigh>

Sounds like incorect jumper setting on the drive. WD has oddball ones
like master with slave and master without slave.

 

[JS]

In JS typed on Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:42:25 -0400:

Well guess what? I finally see it! If the WD is the only drive on the
system, the CD version can't see it. Add any other drive (doesn't have
to be a WD one) and it works fine. Seems like a bug to me. <sigh>

Sorry for the delay but I just got off the phone
after spending about 2 Hrs. with WD Tech Support.

Not much help but their take on this is the drive can
not have more than one partition. So I will need to see
if this is the case, which also means you need two drives
as you mentioned. The big question is what happens to
users like myself who did have two drives attached but
both drives had multiple partitions?

So I guess I'll try out your suggestion and then
WD's suggestion.

 

[JS]

Sounds like incorect jumper setting on the drive. WD has oddball ones like
master with slave and master without slave.

Yes, I know.
So far I have tried "Cable Select" and "Single or Master"

As mentioned the ATIH 2009 Full Product Recovery/Rescue
CD has no problem finding the drive and the image backup file.
It also restores XP without any problems. So it would appear
the issue is related to the WD Edition recovery CD.