Help/Advice needed from Acronis True Image Users

[tamba1]

Hi I am VERY ill & housebound ( have been for a few years now ) and what prior to being ill I would have tackled quite happily.. now I really struggle to "fiddle around with my PC" ESPECIALLY IF things go wrong !! This may sound nuts but currently my PC is truly my "lifeline" to the outside world and I could not be without it ..

I am DESPERATE to get a Disk Image backup sorted - I looked into this at LENGTH quite some time ago and was completely put off by some "eye opening" posts in forums..

Having looked at various Disk Imaging Sware solutions I was down to 2 Norton ghost and Acronis True Image

At the time I had just got rid of NORTON from my PC completely as it slowed my PC down too much and did not want to go back.. ..So Acronis was looking good ..

From the information on the web It seemed the BEST way to do the 1st Disk Image backup was from a new PC with only the operating system and applications on NOT lots of personal files , documents images etc UNLESS you had 10GB or less in total to be "imaged"..more than 10GB and you were at high risk of Disk Image corruption..

There are a number of forums going into great technical reasons as to why this is the way to do things and the dangers of not doing so .. Equally in these forums there were lots of users who thought they had captured an image backup of their 20-30 GB on their PC only to discover in an emergency the backup had actually failed even though they had had confirmation it was succesful ???

Also I was told : "some combinations of motherboard USB Controller chipsets and external hard drive enclosure USB to IDE Bridge chipsets can cause data corruption when transferring very large data files such as TI images. The external enclosure USB to IDE Bridge chipset seems to be the critical item."???

My PC has approx 40 GB worth of Data and I want to get a Disk image of this ..

Are any of you Acronis users in the same situation - namely had your PC x years - got a fair bit of Data on it and have STILL successfully managed a disk image backup AND used it to fall back to in an emergency?

My big problem is I am currently using Zone Alarm Firewall and need to update it - but Vers 7 and above seem to be having potentially MAJOR problems so have been putting this off.. Quite a few cases have resulted in users reformatting PCs or using their Disk image backup to fallback several times.. or in worst cases losing everything...

I look forward to your replies

Many thanks
tamba1

My Sys Info

Dell Dimension 4550
Pentium 4
WIN XP Pro SP2
2.66 GHZ
1GB RAM
Total Capacity: 111.72 GB
Free: 73.24 GB
Used 38.4 GB

File System: NTFS

300GB Seagate HDD

[einstein_314]

Hmmm...I did a backup of my HTPC (home theater PC) a while back using acronis true image and if I remember correctly, it was about 30GB. I successfully restored from that image a few weeks later. Didn't have a single problem...I've never read anything about the problems you speak of (mind you I've never really looked for problems with acronis. Personally, I'd say you're fine.

Oh and when you make the image, you can get acronis to verify the image before it finishes. So it checks to see if it's corrupt or not...Also if you enable compression on the image (in the settings when you're setting it up to make the image) it will significantly reduce the size of the image file.

Hope this helps.

[tamba1]

Hi Einstein ( love the photo)

Thanks for your reply

a few qs -for you

1.what file system is your PC using Fat30 or NTFS ?

2. Did you backup to an external Hard Disk - if so what file system is that using ..?

3. How long did the backup take you - ?

4. What version Acronis True Image are you using ?

5. Were you able to just follow the true Image wizards or did you have to read the manual in order to use the sware..

6. Do you use True image to do regular weekly/fortnighly backups AS WELL AS using it for image back ups..?

I am very pleased to hear your restore works - what was scaring me is the number of people having received confirmation from their sware that their backup was successful NOT knowing it was in fact corrupted until it was needed in an emergency...

Thanks for the compact tip too


Once again thanks for your info
tamba1

[einstein_314]

1. I'm running NTFS on all hard drives
2. I backed up to an external eSATA hard drive (so I guess it's really exactly the same as an internal one...unlike a USB external drive)
3. The backup took...around 45 minutes? I can't remember exactly.
4. Acronis True Image 10
5. I just used the wizards...manuals are for babies or women :D /jk
6. Yes I use it for regular backups. But not on that computer. On my main rig I back up my documents drive ( I have my OS on one drive, all my documents on another). I don't bother backing up the OS drive...just my documents. But when I backup my documents, I don't make an image. It just backs up the files to my external drive. This backup is about 80GB. I have it set to do a mirror backup (so that the backup is an exact mirror of the source drive). So any files I add/modify/delete the same happens to the ones on the backup drive. I've never had to restore my documents though...so I hope they aren't corrupt :p

[buffbiff21]

well I'm not exactly sure what your questions are, but if you're thinking of getting a disk cloning software...

GET ACRONIS.

It works. The wizards work. Trust me :cool:

I transferred my Raptor's partition onto my old 40gb Seagate. It can automatically "resize" the partition to fit on the smaller drive.

Once it transfers, it will ask you to remove the original disk and then boot from the new one. Then it will generate the XP hardware configurations and you will have a cloned disk. :)

[tamba1]

Hi

Hi Einstein thanks for your answers - they really help ESPECIALLY answer5 :p (LOL)

Seriously though you have helped me and now I have bought Acrons True Image 10 .. So HOPEFULLY I WILL be able to follow the Wizards too LOL ..

Mirror backup for your docs - hmm sounds a good idea .. I had not thought about that .. I was considering doing doing incrematl or Differential backups for my docs etc.. Mirroring sounds worth looking at..

thanks again for your help

Hi Buffbiff

Thanks for your reply .. sounds great as you can see I have now bought Acronis True Image 10 and will be having a go at doing backups using the wizards soon..

Many thanks
tamba1