Imaging/Backup software

[Frank]

[....]

Agreed! I don't know what they did with the interface, but ATI 11 was
great, and the succeeding versions suck, IMHO. (I think they tried to
make it more user friendly or something. Or at least that was their intent).

Hi Bill,

What version do you use, is it v11.0.8053 or v11.0.8101 ?

If you use 8101 do you have that Yellow System State Warning icon on the main
gui ?

Just curious what brand Hard Drive do you use?

 

[posterboy]

I'm sure this subject has come up plenty of times before, but I'm
wondering what the state of opinion is today.

I'm looking for disk imaging and backup software for Windows XP and 7
systems at home. I bought and have been using Acronis True Image 11
some years ago for the XP system and I see that I can get an upgrade to
the most recent for a modest discount off the street price. I've also
tried out the free versions of Macrium Reflect and Paragon for the
Windows 7 systems.

They all seem to have some pluses and minuses...

- The interface for my old version of Acronis is goofy and not
friendly, and I hear complaints about unreliability, although I haven't
had any major problems.

- Macrium Free seems pretty good, although it appears that you can only
restore files from an image while booted up in Windows, not from the
recovery media. I'm not sure that's a real problem. I've never been
able to make the Linux recovery disk work with this system.

- I haven't used Paragon recently enough to remember whether I like it
or not. I see there's a newer version out than the one I have
installed.

Any recommendations? Should I stick with Acronis? Are there any others
I should consider? I'd be willing to get the for-pay version if it gets
me features I can use.

I just saw this thread and decided to reply. I bought Acronis a couple
years ago but found it was too buggy and gave up on it for Marcrium
free. I restored my system at least twice and Macrium saved my sanity
and it worked great and still use it to back up my partitions. My
complaint about it now is that no matter what research I've done and
WinPEs versions I've tried I can't get my Laptop to find my network hard
drive either by ethernet or wireless. I can certainly use Macrium to
copy a partition onto the network drive but would you think then that it
would find that drive if I wanted to do a restore? Why NO!!! There are
lots of instructions, on Marcrium's site and elsewhere on the web but
none of them work for putting the driver's on the Rescue disc. I've
tried There seems to be really not one useful articulately written
instruction for doing so that I have found. That is especially
frustrating since Macrium should be the one to do such a thing.

John

 

[Percival P. Cassidy]

I just saw this thread and decided to reply. I bought Acronis a couple
years ago but found it was too buggy and gave up on it for Marcrium
free. I restored my system at least twice and Macrium saved my sanity
and it worked great and still use it to back up my partitions. My
complaint about it now is that no matter what research I've done and
WinPEs versions I've tried I can't get my Laptop to find my network hard
drive either by ethernet or wireless. I can certainly use Macrium to
copy a partition onto the network drive but would you think then that it
would find that drive if I wanted to do a restore? Why NO!!! There are
lots of instructions, on Marcrium's site and elsewhere on the web but
none of them work for putting the driver's on the Rescue disc. I've
tried There seems to be really not one useful articulately written
instruction for doing so that I have found. That is especially
frustrating since Macrium should be the one to do such a thing.

Perhaps the feature you want is only available in the Professional (not
free) version.

Perce

 

[Nil]

I just saw this thread and decided to reply. I bought Acronis a
couple years ago but found it was too buggy and gave up on it for
Marcrium free. I restored my system at least twice and Macrium
saved my sanity and it worked great and still use it to back up my
partitions. My complaint about it now is that no matter what
research I've done and WinPEs versions I've tried I can't get my
Laptop to find my network hard drive either by ethernet or
wireless.

I ran into what might be a related issue with Macrium. The computer in
question has USB3 ports and what seemed to be a network card that
Macrium didn't know about. When you boot up with the Recovery disk, it
doesn't find those devices. However, you get the opportunity to scan
the hard disk, and found the appropriate drivers in the Windows\System
directory. Of course, that won't be an option if the disk is dead. I
was thinking that you could put the drivers on separate media, such as
a flash drive, but it might not see that USB device either.

There are elaborate instructions around on how to build a WinPE disk
with extra drivers. It looks like a PITA, and I haven't tried it yet.
In my case, I built a Recovery Disk using the very latest WinPE (4.1?)
and that seemed to include all the drivers I needed.

I think I read that the paid version of Macrium makes the inclusion of
extra drivers much easier.

 

[Paul]

I ran into what might be a related issue with Macrium. The computer in
question has USB3 ports and what seemed to be a network card that
Macrium didn't know about. When you boot up with the Recovery disk, it
doesn't find those devices. However, you get the opportunity to scan
the hard disk, and found the appropriate drivers in the Windows\System
directory. Of course, that won't be an option if the disk is dead. I
was thinking that you could put the drivers on separate media, such as
a flash drive, but it might not see that USB device either.

There are elaborate instructions around on how to build a WinPE disk
with extra drivers. It looks like a PITA, and I haven't tried it yet.
In my case, I built a Recovery Disk using the very latest WinPE (4.1?)
and that seemed to include all the drivers I needed.

I think I read that the paid version of Macrium makes the inclusion of
extra drivers much easier.

When I boot my Macrium WinPE 3.0 (from free version) CD, it
looks like this. I have a network entry, and it sees three
machines on the network. (I prepared this stuff, while
running a Vista virtual machine, with Macrium installed in it.)

http://oi43.tinypic.com/6z0uvc.jpg

( http://i43.tinypic.com/6z0uvc.gif )

I would try:

1) Check for updates while in Macrium.
2) Exit Macrium and start it again. See if you
can prepare another WinPE disc or not. The license
for the free version, forbids doing a second WinPE
download, but see if it works.
3) If you get step (2) to work, try the most
recent WinPE boot CD and see if you get the same
menus as I do.

HTH,
Paul

 

[posterboy]

I ran into what might be a related issue with Macrium. The computer in
question has USB3 ports and what seemed to be a network card that
Macrium didn't know about. When you boot up with the Recovery disk, it
doesn't find those devices. However, you get the opportunity to scan
the hard disk, and found the appropriate drivers in the Windows\System
directory. Of course, that won't be an option if the disk is dead. I
was thinking that you could put the drivers on separate media, such as
a flash drive, but it might not see that USB device either.

There are elaborate instructions around on how to build a WinPE disk
with extra drivers. It looks like a PITA, and I haven't tried it yet.
In my case, I built a Recovery Disk using the very latest WinPE (4.1?)
and that seemed to include all the drivers I needed.

I think I read that the paid version of Macrium makes the inclusion of
extra drivers much easier.

Thanks, I'll check Macrium for the 4.1 version of WinPE and try again.
I've never gotten into the Virtual machine though I've looked briefly at
the software.
Regards.

 

[posterboy]

Thanks, I'll check Macrium for the 4.1 version of WinPE and try again.
I've never gotten into the Virtual machine though I've looked briefly at
the software.
Regards.

I just downloaded Macrium and the WinPE version stated is 4.0. It still
doesn't help. It does now give an option to search the HDD to locate
the drivers for the wireless which I did and they were loaded
successfully it said but still when I searched the network nothing
resulted! Weird. If it is the paid version that is supposed to work
that is a shame. Maybe I'll consider that.

 

[Frank]

[...]

Still using Build 8022 (from the CD) on my main computer here. But I did
download the 8101 update file, solely for the netbook (since it had no CD
capability). But as I mentioned once, it didn't recognize the internal
netbook drive for any restore operations, so I needed to upgrade to ATI-2009,
which could see the backup images ok. So in retrospect, it looks like
ATI-2009 (or a later edition) is a "safer bet" (less problematic) in some
cases. Too bad they worsened the interface, though, IMHO).

Yes, that yellow warning is there (which I just ignore, since I know when I'm
making my backups).

I'm using Western Digital HDs in my main computer (but not the old XP laptop
or XP netbook, which I'm just playing around with).

I totally understand what you mean about the interface, and I could not agree
with you more. Even though I am a registered user of every TI version there
ever was and use them all for specific reasons, but because of the gui
interface changes from v12 (2009) but especially from v13 (2010) Through v17
(2014) and what they did with the default backup locations not being changeable
and have them in groups of idiocy arrangements imho, I still find myself
gravitating toward the last v11 version Acronis made for Seagate drives
DiscWizard v11.0.0.8326, which is even a better simpler gui interface version
of what you see in your v11.0.8181 version. It's simpler because Seagate
stripped the unneeded extra frilly options out of the main version, but at the
same time upgraded its system requirements to also install on Windows 7

Seagate also released a newer Acronis DiscWizard version v13.0.14387 which is
equal to or actually a little bit newer/better than Acronis's last (2010)
version v13.0.7160, but this gets more into the newer gui and I prefer v11.
http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/item/discwizard-master-dl/

Anyway what Hard Drive brand does your netbook have?

Acronis also made a version for Western Digital, like Seagate they stripped the
frills out too altough I've never used it because I don't have any WD drives.
Western Digitals Acronis True Image version is currently at v16.0.5926 which is
based off of True Image 2013
Anyway here is the Western Digital's website for your free download (only works
on western digital hard drives)
http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119


The point is both Seagate's & Western Digitals version are Free to users of
their respective Hard Drives and only work on their drives, and best of all
they strip out Acronis's extra frills that we don't use or care for.
The fact that it is Free is not the reason why I support it, although it's
nice, but it's the fact of how they strip out the frills that interests me.

Anyway I don't mean to carry on about it all, I'm just a long time user and
supported of the good versions of Acronis;

I used to talk with you Bill in the old Microsoft forums back in the days when
they were active. I was the one who gave you those RealPlayer Plugins,
although I went by a different name at that time. You know that particular
RealPlayer version we used, RealPlayer8 Plus 6.0.9.584, I had only used it to
specifically play some certain .ra extensions I had of some old stuff, and is
the only thing I had associated to RP... you know that old relic installs and
works on not only Windows7 but I have it on Windows8 too, lol...

take care

 

[Paul]

I just downloaded Macrium and the WinPE version stated is 4.0. It still
doesn't help. It does now give an option to search the HDD to locate
the drivers for the wireless which I did and they were loaded
successfully it said but still when I searched the network nothing
resulted! Weird. If it is the paid version that is supposed to work
that is a shame. Maybe I'll consider that.

The fact that all the infrastructure is there, tells you
it should be working, and there is some other detail.

If they didn't want you to have it, they'd have removed
the folders, avoided loading the drivers, and so on.

It could be permissions or passwords or the wrong kind of share
or whatever. I didn't test that part of it.

On the machine holding the shares in question, I would install
a packet sniffer, and see what it is receiving. For lack of
a better debugging procedure. Wireshark is an example of a
packet sniffer, but there are others that might be simpler
to use.

Paul

 

[Char Jackson]

The point is both Seagate's & Western Digitals version are Free to users of
their respective Hard Drives and only work on their drives

I believe all of those customized versions work just fine on any drive as
long as they can find at least one 'qualifying' drive on the system.

 

[Paul]

I'm also just now playing around with Ubuntu, to see how much I like (or can
actually get into) Linux. So far, it's been pretty interesting!
Kinda reminds me of the old DOS days, too!

Good to hear from you!

I gave up on Ubuntu here. After collecting seven or eight CDs,
the introduction of the tile-like interface, drove me to drink.

Eventually, the package server stops working on distros,
and you can't add software to your setup (in a practical way).
So in a sense, they "expire". There are some really old distros
I wouldn't mind to keep running (say, 7.04 without PulseAudio),
but with no server with packages on it, it becomes a useless
enterprise.

So instead I moved to Linux Mint (Mate) interface. It has a
traditional menu based interface. I have it loaded on a USB
flash, for maintenance purposes. Any time files need to be
moved, with no permission issues, I use it.

The first time I tried Gentoo (the "compile it yourself"
distro), it was great. Everything worked the way it should
The last time I tried it, the distro was busted, it had
dangling dependencies all over the place. Too many for me
to resolve without a lot of work. So that's another distro
scratched off my list. Someone who is fluent in Gentoo
and Portage, can keep that crap running, but I don't
use it often enough to remember all the tricks. The main
reason for me using that one, was the ability to avoid
PulseAudio entirely, keep the TV player running with
actual sound output, and so on. There is a nice TV
player I used to use, which the idiots broke,
which nobody fixed. Then I had nothing I could use
to tune in television with my WinTV card. Meaning
I can't watch TV while lengthy maintenance procedures
(backups) are running.

The old audio (ALSA) worked fine. Why all the
distros got behind PulseAudio, I'll never know.
All it did was break stuff, including my ability
to do audio on Linux in a VPC2007 virtual machine.
An echo-filled looping mess. As far as I know,
PulseAudio works with RT priority, something
that just doesn't suit an arbitrary hardware
platform. ALSA still had some performance
requirements to meet, but with enough buffering
you could use it.

Paul

 

[Paul]

So if u get a chance, you might also want to reconsider and give Ubuntu
10.04 (NOT the newer distro version) a try. I think ver 12 sucks, and its
too bad they're drifting that way. (and from what I've read, there are a
lot of folks who don't like the direction it took with that "Unity" build -
so just use the older one, no biggie)!

Support is dropped for the old versions. I have all sorts of
these installed in VMs, so I have a pretty good idea what is
left. The distros without Unity are also the expired ones.
My 10.04 and 10.10 are ruined. As you see here, I have nine
of these installed in total.

http://oi44.tinypic.com/kaint5.jpg

( http://i44.tinypic.com/kaint5.gif )

You should see how many Windows ones I have

Paul

 

[Paul]

Wow!
But you say "support" is dropped, but who cares? Does that really matter?
Support for WinXP is going to be dropped soon too (if not already - I don't
know), but again, who really cares? (except for a business or company)

How many times have you (or any of us here, for that matter) really "needed"
the official "support"? We have users here that provide that can provide
the tech support. And if you're talking about the software updates and
security updates, I don't need them. JMHO.

There are 15000 pre-compiled packages available via Synaptic.
(Rough estimate from Debian tree.)

If you remove the servers providing files to
Synaptic, it makes it rather difficult
to install any additional tools you need.
Virtually anything you want to do, the
tool or library for it, isn't installed
and must be downloaded.

See how long you can use your new Ubuntu,
without visiting a package manager or
software store of some sort. Yes, you
can use LibreOffice, as that is typically
on the LiveCD. But if you want to do
any real work, you're going to need to
start downloading stuff. Like say, alternate
movie players, when totem doesn't do what
you want. Or for that, restricted codecs
so you can play a decent range of movie
formats. There is always something not
on that CD.

Paul

 

[Paul]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think they are going to remove all this
stuff from the Ubuntu Software Manager with the next release.

Wait and see :-(

I've been through this before.

The security updates stop first. You'll get
a dialog on the screen for that, so that's your
warning.

It may take a while after that, until the package
server is disabled, and the links are no longer
valid. When you go to use the package manager,
it will complain (fail), part way through the
operation.

The OS will "recommend you upgrade to the next version".
The reason this is not a slam dunk, is because
Ubuntu is headed in a mobile device direction,
and whatever they do, won't be optimal for
desktops. Kinda like the Windows 8 mess.

Even the package manager is deprecated in a way.
They removed the Synaptic entry for easy usage,
and you have to install it and run it yourself.
So there are some manual steps, if you actually
wanted Synaptic. I know you've been using their
equivalent of a Store, but there is another
way to do it as well. Again, some day when you need
to do real work (build a custom kernel), you're
going to need a package manager for that. That
software store can't do everything for you.

The custom kernel would be used, if you wanted
a kernel optimized for Core 2, instead of for
Pentium III. That sort of thing.

Paul

 

[Paul]

OK, but I'll probably never "go there". You're into this a lot more than I
am! For me, I just wanted to test out a different OS and some of its
supported software, and learn a bit about Linux, just for my own personal
interest. No kernel work here.

Having tested out a few Linux distros now, I still have to say I think
Windows holds the advantage for most home users, including me. But that's
assuming I can stick with XP (or maybe someday if I have to, and *only* if I
have to, Windows7

The Software Center (OR Synaptic Package Manager) is nice and handy.

But I don't think it can really replace the ease of use and ability to
download (or purchase on a CD) - and install - just about any piece of
software of any caliber you ever wanted. And that is only available in
Windows. (although the freebie software in Linux is pretty interesting and
nice in its own right).

Linux Mint and Ubuntu, will go down separate paths.

Both tap into the Debian universe, which is where all
the varied packages come from.

Linux Mint will probably stay with the menu concept
and XWindows. And be closer to Ubuntu 7.04 (the old way).
That's why I chose it for my current maintenance
USB boot stick.

Canonical has plans for Ubuntu. They want to go
tiles and mobile. You can see the effects of that
now. A lot of concepts similar to Windows 8, plus
a half baked, resolution dependent GUI (I missed
some features, when I started testing at 1024x768).

The single biggest change Canonical has planned for
Ubuntu, is replacing XWindows. Which will surely
do damage to the "15000 packages" they advertise.
(Take my damaged TVTime application, where the audio
would no longer work with PulseAudio, as a template,
then imagine the video is broken because the graphics
subsystem is entirely different.)

It will take forever and a day, to undo the damage
that will cause. XWindows has been around for decades.
Nobody in their right mind would have proposed
changing the underlying graphics subsystem, but that's
their plan. I presume this is to make something more
suited to mobile platforms. I don't really want
to test any more Ubuntu distros, to find out what
the side effects will be. I can't watch TV as it is :-(

That last step, I don't know how far along in
planning or execution that is. But it's eventually
going to show up.

Will Ubuntu be the next Android ? Who can say.
As I'm not even remotely interested in Mobile,
I won't be around to test it.

Paul

 

[JohnJ]

The fact that all the infrastructure is there, tells you
it should be working, and there is some other detail.

If they didn't want you to have it, they'd have removed
the folders, avoided loading the drivers, and so on.

It could be permissions or passwords or the wrong kind of share
or whatever. I didn't test that part of it.

On the machine holding the shares in question, I would install
a packet sniffer, and see what it is receiving. For lack of
a better debugging procedure. Wireshark is an example of a
packet sniffer, but there are others that might be simpler
to use.

Paul

I just tried the rescue disc with an Ethernet connection and was successful.
Up till now I was only trying wireless. So I'm satisfied with this success,
wired connection will be faster for backing up and restoring anyway.

I'm backing up to a Western Digital My Book Live external device so
installing the program you mention isn't an option but thanks for the
suggestion anyway.

John

 

[Paul]

Guess those versions didn't impress you much either.

Paul, what's the deal on these Mint versions? It looks like you need to
drop down to version 13 to get really LTS (not version 15!).

I thought I read it used some Ubuntu server based stuff, so I guess that
means it too, will need updates in the future, and become obsolete and
unusable over time (in terms of still being able to get software). But
there was mention of one Mint version that was based on Debian, and not
Ubuntu

So I guess (from what you've said) Mint's main advantage over Ubuntu is that
it is (presumably) going to stick with the desktop model, which sure would
be nice.

Still not too sure what the big difference is between the Mate and Cinnamon
interfaces, but I guess the latter is more common, nowadays. Wonder if I
can install it side by side with Ubuntu. Guess I'll have to look into this
more.

All that I was looking for, was something with a menu. I
hate having to type stuff and rely on a search to come
up with a program name. I like to stick with one input
device (mouse, menu), rather than mouse a bit, type
a bit, mouse a bit, and so on.

My needs are pretty modest.

In one case, I actually started with a Ubuntu server distro.
That has no XWindows in it, and when you install it, all you
get is a "console" session. I added XWindows to that, and
then configured a windows manager to go on top. And that
was fine until it expired. At the time, that was one
solution to getting a "Tile free install"

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/9074/u1110svr.gif

Paul