Re: Bad Experience with Acronis Backup Software

It is interesting to follow this thread and see how end users suffer from
lack of comprehensive information about backup software developments.

I hope that the following information may be useful.

Powerquest was small company that specialised in disk management. First it
developed Partition Magic which allowed partitioning on the fly and then
Drive Image which did system backups in the form of disk images of whole
drives onto another drive. PQ were in completion with Norton Ghost for image
backup. The bought by Symantec that now markets DI as Ghost 10 latest
version of is 10: a disadvantage of is that it needs Microsoft's
..netframework installed, even for single users but it is still a very good
backup program.
True Image was developed by Acronis as image backup software and later Disk
Director was developed as a competitor to Partition magic. From a simple
disk imaging program for genreral users, True Image has grown into a
multiple version product focused on the corporate market. It is still good
but added complexity has reduced reliability. A significant problem with
the later versions is that the "rescue disk" may not work with the CD\DVD
drive on your computer. Alas! when the time comes, after a crash to restore
an Acronis image from your archives, you cannot access it because your CD
drive will not mount the Acronis loader. This loader is written in an old
version of Linux and may not be up to date with your motherboard or CD
drive. Users are not completely lost in such cases because they can install
Windows onto a scratch drive, install Acronis also and then, from within
Windows on the scratch drive, restore the archived image to their regular
Windows drive. This is a reliable fix but not for beginners.
So new users with Acronis mustto check that the rescue disk works when the
program is installed and when it isr upgraded, or if they change their
hardware because even though the rescue disk worked when True image was
first installed it rescue may not work after software or hardware changes in
the system.
Onclejon

"DonCPA" <DonCPA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:E1E4EDD0-958E-403B-AE1A-FC4CF1585A1E@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thank you all for the helpful remarks. We purchased ATI some time ago and
never really made as much use of it as we could have. I just keep writing
batches to capture all the data files on a daily scheduled basis. But I
am
not happy with that solution and am thinking ATI may be a lot better if I
use
it right. Does it work with SBS03? We have WinXP Pro on all the
workstations here, so I presume it would be a good way of saving time if
we
had to restore a workstation. At least with the batches (I use xcopy a
lot)
I can get an image of the network data storage onto an external drive in
about 10 to 20 minutes per daily session. But if ATI runs on SBS, then I
want to backup the whole server to capture the system and programs for
offsite storage in case of a disaster. It would be really cool to set up
a
remote redundant server and do it automatically, but I don't have a clue
how
that would work, and it looks like SBS actively gets in the way when you
try
that.

Thanks again everyone for the ideas already.

Don



"JPan" wrote:

The true test of system backup software is when you have a need to
recover a disk. That test came for me with Acronis True Image Home a
few days ago. I am sad to report that it failed miserably. Not only
was their bootable recovery CD software confused (mouse didn't work and
it couldn't see my drives), but also running the recovery under Windows
XP failed without a single message (not even to the error log). All
this has been made worse by the general lack of concern and
responsiveness by their customer sevice department (which conveniently
doesn't seem to publish a phone number). I want to share this with
anyone looking for a backup solution so they don't get burned like I
did. I am a software professional with a BS in Computer Science, so I
assure you I'm not some novice that doesn't understand how to use
software (in case you were wondering).

JPan




.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: OT-True Image Backup
    ... Make sure the USB drives file system is NTFS and not FAT32.. ... Jaymon is correct in that the disk image you create and save to the D: ... partition of your USB external HDD will have no effect on the other ... Step-by-Step Instructions for Using the Acronis True Image Program to Backup ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Re: OT-True Image Backup
    ... Make sure the USB drives file system is NTFS and not FAT32.. ... Jaymon is correct in that the disk image you create and save to the D: ... partition of your USB external HDD will have no effect on the other ... Since the disk images you will be creating (at least the initial backup ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Re: Replacing Notebook Hard Drive
    ... both the disk cloning & disk imaging capabilities of the ATI program. ... Step-by-Step Instructions for Using the Acronis True Image Program to Backup ... can take to back up the entire contents of one's day-to-day working HDD, ... With both hard drives connected, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: Acronis and new disk
    ... with using the disk copying/disk cloning programs such as the MaxBlast ... contents of your 40 GB HDD to your new 120 GB HDD rather than creating a ... Step-by-Step Instructions for Using the Acronis True Image Program to Backup ... With both hard drives connected, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: Need help backing up my C: drive
    ... I tried using Windows' backup and restore which works for important data ... consider a disk imaging program such as ... Acronis True Image to clone the contents of your day-to-day working HDD onto ... With both hard drives connected, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)