Acronis True Image 8.0 disappoints

[Timothy Daniels]

Maybe True Image has a better user interface,
maybe it's more intuitive, maybe it's better for
incremental backups, maybe... maybe...
But the sucker won't do what Ghost 9.0 (previously
Drive Image 7.0) can do - copy just one bootable
partition and place it on another drive amongst
other bootable partitions - allowing one to boot up
any one of several archived systems from the
archive drive.

I got sucked in by the raves on this newsgroup
and in the PC magazines about Acronis' True
Image, and Drive Image 7.0 was causing my PC
to freeze up (even with the recent DI updates
available on the Symantec website). So I gave
up and ordered a copy of True Image.

Now I find that I can't just copy a partition to
unallocated space on the destination drive, I've
got to copy it to an entirely empty drive! IOW,
only one cloned system per hard drive. Sheet!!
What a waste of money.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Rod Speed]

Maybe True Image has a better user interface,

No maybe about it.

maybe it's more intuitive,

No maybe about it.

maybe it's better for incremental backups, maybe... maybe...

Stop that.

But the sucker won't do what Ghost 9.0 (previously Drive Image 7.0) can do -
copy just one bootablepartition and place it on another drive amongst other
bootable partitions - allowing one to boot up any one of several archived
systems from the archive drive.

You can do that indirectly by having
an image file involved in the process.

And why would you want to COPY the partition at all ?

I got sucked in by the raves on this newsgroup
and in the PC magazines about Acronis' True
Image, and Drive Image 7.0 was causing my PC
to freeze up (even with the recent DI updates
available on the Symantec website). So I gave
up and ordered a copy of True Image.

Now I find that I can't just copy a partition to
unallocated space on the destination drive, I've got to copy it to an entirely
empty drive!

No you dont.

IOW, only one cloned system per hard drive.
Wrong.

Sheet!! What a waste of money.

Anyone with a clue would have used the free trial to check that.

 

[IDIDIT]

Maybe True Image has a better user interface,
maybe it's more intuitive, maybe it's better for
incremental backups, maybe... maybe...
But the sucker won't do what Ghost 9.0 (previously
Drive Image 7.0) can do - copy just one bootable
partition and place it on another drive amongst
other bootable partitions - allowing one to boot up
any one of several archived systems from the
archive drive.

Hi. It's interesting how people view products, I used DI from around
5-6 to 7 or 8 and found them all difficult to use and none ever worked
correctly. True Image I use weekly backing up several drives with no
difficulty to partitions on separate drive partitions. All I do is
make a new folder with the date on it for each image made. I save the
oldest to use when I feel the newer ones have too much clutter in
them. A good idea might be to go to home sight and check for updates
on a regular basis. Also their forum is VG for info.
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=65

Good luck

 

[Joep]

Maybe True Image has a better user interface,
maybe it's more intuitive, maybe it's better for
incremental backups, maybe... maybe...
But the sucker won't do what Ghost 9.0 (previously
Drive Image 7.0) can do - copy just one bootable
partition and place it on another drive amongst
other bootable partitions - allowing one to boot up
any one of several archived systems from the
archive drive.

Acronis is learning Symantec tricks:

Reduce your disk backup time and storage by excluding paging and hibernate
files from the disk backup image

Manage your PC performance by changing the disk imaging process priority

Verify disk backup image before a restore

Check the file system after a restore

Those are the new features from v7 > v8 ... would have justified version 7.1
at most.

 

[Chuck U. Farley]

I got sucked in by the raves on this newsgroup

and in the PC magazines about Acronis' True
Image, and Drive Image 7.0 was causing my PC
to freeze up (even with the recent DI updates
available on the Symantec website). So I gave
up and ordered a copy of True Image.

Same thing happened to me last fall. I switched to Ghost 2003 (thanks to
Peter for the recommendation) and haven't looked back since.

 

[Bob]

Now I find that I can't just copy a partition to
unallocated space on the destination drive, I've
got to copy it to an entirely empty drive!

I believe Partition Magic 8.0 will do partition copies but I haven't
tried it.

I am about to evaluate the Enermax 352 RAID-1 box, which also does
backups automatically and is hot swappable. I am tired of having to
stop everything for 2 hours, boot to DOS and wait for the copy to be
built.

Sheet!! What a waste of money.

That's why smart people find cracked versions for individual
evaluation only. The s/w industry has exploited too many individuals
like you described. Companies can afford to get burnt, but not most
individuals. Visit <alt.cracks> for more on this subject. But be aware
of trojans - always scan anything you download. And have a very recent
archive available in case you get zapped by malware cracks.


--

Million Mom March For Gun Confiscation
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/mmm.html

A liberal is a person who is so open minded
that their brains have fallen out.

 

[Bob]

True Image I use weekly backing up several drives with no
difficulty to partitions on separate drive partitions. All I do is
make a new folder with the date on it for each image made.

The OP wants to make disk copies, not images.


--

Million Mom March For Gun Confiscation
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/mmm.html

A liberal is a person who is so open minded
that their brains have fallen out.

 

[Bob]

You can do that indirectly by having
an image file involved in the process.

"Acronis True Image 6.0 lets you create an image of any disk or
partition without rebooting your PC. You can restore any partition
under Windows XP except a system partition. System partition
restoration, however, can be started in Windows XP. In this case
Acronis True Image 6.0 reboots your PC, runs itself before Windows
loads, performs restoration, and boots Windows XP upon completion."

And why would you want to COPY the partition at all ?

To be able to mount it and check its integrity.

Acronis True Image does not have any means of verifying the integrity
of an image.

Anyone with a clue would have used the free trial to check that.

Anyone with a clue would realize that most free trials are
deliberately crippled.

--

Million Mom March For Gun Confiscation
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/mmm.html

A liberal is a person who is so open minded
that their brains have fallen out.

 

[Rod Speed]

"Acronis True Image 6.0 lets you create an image of any disk or
partition without rebooting your PC. You can restore any partition
under Windows XP except a system partition. System partition
restoration, however, can be started in Windows XP. In this case
Acronis True Image 6.0 reboots your PC, runs itself before Windows
loads, performs restoration, and boots Windows XP upon completion."

What has that got to do with anything ? Thats what I said
you can do, use an image file if you want to copy a partition.

And the current version is 8 anyway.

To be able to mount it and check its integrity.

Thats unlikely to be why Timmy wants to do it.

Acronis True Image does not have any
means of verifying the integrity of an image.

Wrong with 8.

Anyone with a clue would realize that most free trials are deliberately
crippled.

Not on what you can do, it just says that the particular
task you have setup cant be done with the trial, after
you tell it to do what you want done.

 

[Rod Speed]

It's interesting how people view products,
True.

I used DI from around 5-6 to 7 or 8
and found them all difficult to use

In what respect ?

and none ever worked correctly.

Weird. Was there anything unusual about the hardware ?

True Image I use weekly backing up several drives with no
difficulty to partitions on separate drive partitions. All I do is
make a new folder with the date on it for each image made.
I save the oldest to use when I feel the newer ones have too
much clutter in them. A good idea might be to go to home sight and
check for updates on a regular basis. Also their forum is VG for info.
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=65

Yeah, one real advantage with TI.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I believe Partition Magic 8.0 will do partition copies
but I haven't tried it.

Thanks for reminding me of that, Bob. I got a copy
of Partition Magic 8.0 when I bought PowerQuest
Drive Image 7.0, and I had only used it once to move
and shrink a partition. Now I see it can clone bootable
partitions, copying the boot sector as part of the entire
partition. I works very much like Drive Image (and thus
like Ghost 9.0). You tell it which drive has the source
partition, then tell it the partition, then tell it the destination
drive, then where on the destination drive to put it. And
so I could clone a bootable copy of WinXP to my archive
hard drive and so have it ready for immediate use in the
event that "things go pear shaped". No transferring
an image file back to the primary HD, etc. Just reset the
HD boot priority in the BIOS and then boot the archive
HD (which is on a Kingwin removable tray). It doesn't
even matter which of the archived partitions is "active"
as they all have boot.ini files which allow me to select
any one of them.

Now the only problem lurking is how to copy a Master
Boot Record to a new HD whenever the need should
arise. Right now, all my HDs have an MBR and there's
no need to copy or generate one. But if I were to get a
new HD, would the WinXP installation disk's FIXMBR
utility be able to build a new MBR from scratch for it?

*TimDaniels*

 

[Rod Speed]

Thanks for reminding me of that, Bob. I got a copy
of Partition Magic 8.0 when I bought PowerQuest
Drive Image 7.0, and I had only used it once to move
and shrink a partition. Now I see it can clone bootable
partitions, copying the boot sector as part of the entire
partition. I works very much like Drive Image (and thus
like Ghost 9.0). You tell it which drive has the source
partition, then tell it the partition, then tell it the destination
drive, then where on the destination drive to put it. And
so I could clone a bootable copy of WinXP to my archive
hard drive and so have it ready for immediate use in the
event that "things go pear shaped". No transferring
an image file back to the primary HD, etc. Just reset the
HD boot priority in the BIOS and then boot the archive
HD (which is on a Kingwin removable tray). It doesn't
even matter which of the archived partitions is "active"
as they all have boot.ini files which allow me to select
any one of them.

Now the only problem lurking is how to copy a Master
Boot Record to a new HD whenever the need should
arise. Right now, all my HDs have an MBR and there's
no need to copy or generate one. But if I were to get a
new HD, would the WinXP installation disk's FIXMBR
utility be able to build a new MBR from scratch for it?

Yep. Even just partitioning the drive
in Disk Management would do that fine.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Yep. Even just partitioning the drive
in Disk Management would do that fine.

Thanks, Rod. It looks like Partition Magic will serve
as my HD cloning utility for a while. The only drawback
that I've observed is that it's slower than Drive Image.
Drive Image (when it worked) cloned 19GB in about 5
minutes. Partition Magic takes about 20 minutes.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

Thanks, Rod. It looks like Partition Magic will serve
as my HD cloning utility for a while. The only drawback
that I've observed is that it's slower than Drive Image.
Drive Image (when it worked) cloned 19GB in about 5
minutes. Partition Magic takes about 20 minutes.

Yeah, the imaging apps are generally
optimised for the best cloning speeds.