OT: Restoring a partition using Acronis

M

Martin C

Sorry, this is off topic, but there have been so many postings here saying
to use Acronis for backups and imaging that I thought it would be good to
ask the question here.

I have been thinking of buying the latest version, but before that, I looked
through the help files of Acronis True Image Home Version 9.0 that a friend
of mine has.

One thing stood out to me. In the area for restoring to a 'non empty
destination hard drive', there is the following help text:

"If there are any partitions on the new disk, they must be deleted
first.Choose between:
.. Yes, I want to delete all the partitions on the destination hard disk
drive before restoring - all existing partitions will be deleted and all
their data will be lost.
.. No, I do not want to delete partitions - no existing partition will be
deleted, discontinuing the restoring operation. You will only be able to
cancel this operation and return to select another disk.
To continue, select the first choice and click Next."

As I have a disc with 4 partitions (OS, Data, Apps, Games), if I use Acronis
to back up the C partition (operating system partition only), and later try
to restore the C partition, will I have to delete all the other partitions
to do this? That seems mad! My friend is not sure as he has never had to
perform a restore operation anyhow.

Surely to restore a partition will just overwrite the partition to be
replaced, not the entire disc.

Previously I have used Ghost 2003, but now that I am backing up to an
external HDD via USB2, it cannot handle it. Ghost just overwrote the C
partition only.

Please advise.

TIA
Martin
 
P

philo

Martin C said:
Sorry, this is off topic, but there have been so many postings here saying
to use Acronis for backups and imaging that I thought it would be good to
ask the question here.

I have been thinking of buying the latest version, but before that, I looked
through the help files of Acronis True Image Home Version 9.0 that a friend
of mine has.

One thing stood out to me. In the area for restoring to a 'non empty
destination hard drive', there is the following help text:

"If there are any partitions on the new disk, they must be deleted
first.Choose between:
. Yes, I want to delete all the partitions on the destination hard disk
drive before restoring - all existing partitions will be deleted and all
their data will be lost.
. No, I do not want to delete partitions - no existing partition will be
deleted, discontinuing the restoring operation. You will only be able to
cancel this operation and return to select another disk.
To continue, select the first choice and click Next."

As I have a disc with 4 partitions (OS, Data, Apps, Games), if I use Acronis
to back up the C partition (operating system partition only), and later try
to restore the C partition, will I have to delete all the other partitions
to do this? That seems mad! My friend is not sure as he has never had to
perform a restore operation anyhow.

Surely to restore a partition will just overwrite the partition to be
replaced, not the entire disc.

Previously I have used Ghost 2003, but now that I am backing up to an
external HDD via USB2, it cannot handle it. Ghost just overwrote the C
partition only.



Have a look at the current version of Acronis which is version 11

they have a free trial, so you can install it on your machine and see the
newer options.
 
A

AJR

Martin - too much fretting! Note "...In the area for restoring to a 'non
empty destination hard drive',.." "Non-empty" implies data of some sort -
you cannot restore a partition backup without deleting the data
(Formatting).

The restore function only restores the partition, or partitions, that were
included in the backup. If the HD involved several partitions the restore
function "asks" if you want to retore a particular partition or the entire
drive.
 
T

Timothy Daniels

Martin C said:
I have been thinking of buying the latest version, but before that,
I looked through the help files of Acronis True Image Home
Version 9.0 that a friend of mine has.

One thing stood out to me. In the area for restoring to a 'non empty
destination hard drive', there is the following help text:

"If there are any partitions on the new disk, they must be deleted
first.Choose between:
. Yes, I want to delete all the partitions on the destination hard disk drive
before restoring - all existing partitions will be deleted and all their data
will be lost.
. No, I do not want to delete partitions - no existing partition will be
deleted, discontinuing the restoring operation. You will only be able to
cancel this operation and return to select another disk.
To continue, select the first choice and click Next."

As I have a disc with 4 partitions (OS, Data, Apps, Games), if I use
Acronis to back up the C partition (operating system partition only),
and later try to restore the C partition, will I have to delete all the
other partitions to do this? That seems mad! My friend is not sure
as he has never had to perform a restore operation anyhow.

Surely to restore a partition will just overwrite the partition to be
replaced, not the entire disc.

Previously I have used Ghost 2003, but now that I am backing up to an external
HDD via USB2, it cannot handle it. Ghost just overwrote the C partition only.


Here is the User Guide for v.11 of Acronis True Image Home:
http://download.acronis.com/pdf/TrueImage11_ug.en.pdf

If Acronis won't do it, Casper will:
http://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/

*TimDaniels*
 
J

Jim

Martin C said:
Sorry, this is off topic, but there have been so many postings here saying
to use Acronis for backups and imaging that I thought it would be good to
ask the question here.

I have been thinking of buying the latest version, but before that, I
looked through the help files of Acronis True Image Home Version 9.0 that
a friend of mine has.

One thing stood out to me. In the area for restoring to a 'non empty
destination hard drive', there is the following help text:

"If there are any partitions on the new disk, they must be deleted
first.Choose between:
. Yes, I want to delete all the partitions on the destination hard disk
drive before restoring - all existing partitions will be deleted and all
their data will be lost.
. No, I do not want to delete partitions - no existing partition will be
deleted, discontinuing the restoring operation. You will only be able to
cancel this operation and return to select another disk.
To continue, select the first choice and click Next."

As I have a disc with 4 partitions (OS, Data, Apps, Games), if I use
Acronis to back up the C partition (operating system partition only), and
later try to restore the C partition, will I have to delete all the other
partitions to do this? That seems mad! My friend is not sure as he has
never had to perform a restore operation anyhow.

Surely to restore a partition will just overwrite the partition to be
replaced, not the entire disc.

Previously I have used Ghost 2003, but now that I am backing up to an
external HDD via USB2, it cannot handle it. Ghost just overwrote the C
partition only.

Please advise.

TIA
Martin
You read the information about creating and restoring a cloned disk. The
fine manual discusses
this method in Chapter 13 "Transfering the system to a new disk", page 71.
This
process is not what you want to do.

Instead, you create a backup archive as instructed in Chapter 6, and you
restore
whatever you wish to restore as instructed in Chapter 7.

You should make a restore CD if you expect to restore Windows. I have done
that, and
I have also installed the Acronis plugin for BartPE.

Cloning can take a very long time because it is a bit for bit copy, but the
speed of the backup depends on how full the disk was.
Jim
 
A

Anna

Timothy Daniels said:
Here is the User Guide for v.11 of Acronis True Image Home:
http://download.acronis.com/pdf/TrueImage11_ug.en.pdf

If Acronis won't do it, Casper will:
http://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/

*TimDaniels*


Martin:
As Tim has indicated, Acronis True Image - at least with respect to versions
9 & 10 (I haven't worked to any degree with their latest version 11) does
not have the capability to clone individual partitions. It's basically an
all or nothing proposition when using the ATI program as a disk cloning
program.

However, If one uses the Acronis disk imaging capability rather than the
disk-to-disk cloning process, disk images of *individual* partitions *can*
be created. So that in your particular situation if you would want to backup
only a single partition of your multi-partitioned HDD you could do through
the Acronis disk-imaging process. That specific partition could be later
restored through the recovery process.

I believe the same situation as described above exists with respect to the
ATI version 11 but as I've indicated, having not worked with that program
except in a cursory way, I'm not certain of that.

In any event, assuming you would have no problem using your ATI program for
disk cloning, is there any reason why you couldn't simply clone the *entire*
contents of your source drive, i.e., all the partitions on that HDD rather
than just your C: partition? I'm assuming that you would be using another
internal or external HDD as the recipient of the clone. Unless you have some
specific reasons for not doing so, why not clone your D: & E: partitions for
backup purposes as well?

Incidentally, like Tim, I'm a fan of the Casper 4 program. It's a superb
disk-cloning program - simple to use and quite effective. It also has the
happy capability of cloning individual partitions in a very simple way. Note
that the Casper 4 program is a disk cloning program; it does not have disk
imaging capability.

I would strongly suggest you download the trial version (it's slightly
crippled) at the link provided by Tim. And if you want more details about
the program and its use so indicate and I'll post some information to that
effect.
Anna
 
K

Kris

You read the information about creating and restoring a cloned disk. The
fine manual discusses
this method in Chapter 13 "Transfering the system to a new disk", page 71.
This
process is not what you want to do.

Instead, you create a backup archive as instructed in Chapter 6, and you
restore
whatever you wish to restore as instructed in Chapter 7.

You should make a restore CD if you expect to restore Windows. I have done
that, and
I have also installed the Acronis plugin for BartPE.

Cloning can take a very long time because it is a bit for bit copy, but the
speed of the backup depends on how full the disk was.
Jim

I ran and loved Acronis true image 8 for a long time. I got TI 11 on a
sale and it's worked fine. I normally use it for backing up (imaging) a
partition every so often - normally to another partition / file, and
occasionally to a DVD. I have about 6 partitions. The idea is to be
prepared if the spimdle breaks. I have tested it numerous times,
especially with all the unexpected mobo changes (see below).

I had the occasion to use the clone disk when I went from PIDE to SATA. It
takes about 35 minutes to do about 80gb of data/partitions/whatever. XP
booted the new sata just fine (whether you get asked to activate depends on
your change history)(it of course DOES recognize the new hardware.).

You can back up a opsys partition while you are running a live system.

If you are doing a boot-from Acronis-recover-CD, 8 did not see my sata
drives whereas 11 did. This was an anomaly on one of the 3 mobos I went
through in the last month (1 bad NB, 1 bad sata controller, 1 bad NIC
port), and I forget which mobo it was on. I think this one.

For example, I saw that SP3rc was out so I Acronis imaged my C partition
and put SP3rc on. When SP3final comes out in a month or 2, I just backup
my current FF favorites and a couple other things, and restore the
pre-SP3rc image and apply SP3final. Truly mindless! Life the way I like
it!!! :blush:)

Acronis tech support is good.
 

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