Re: My miserable experiences in testing and "removing" the "Acronis [alleged] True Image 11 Home" Backup product.


"Richard A. Landkamer" <ralandka@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23DyJOxhKIHA.5328@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To Whom It May Concern:

I am sharing with this list an accounting of my experiences in testing and
"removing" the "Acronis [alleged] True Image 11 Home" Backup product on my
computer, which are described in detail in the following 2 forwarded e-mails
that I have sent to support@xxxxxxxxxxxx

Does anyone on this list know of any Backup product other than Norton Ghost
that will create a true Image Copy Backup of Windows XP Pro SP2, and which
takes all of its Image Copy Backups under a basic DOS System where there are
no open and constantly changing System Files? To my knowledge, only Norton
Ghost takes all of its Image Copy Backups under a basic DOS System where
there are no open and constantly changing System Files. If there is any
other Backup Utility that takes its backups in this manner, then I would
like to evaluate this product. Thank you.

Richard A. Landkamer


Richard:
Without addressing the specific issue you've had with the Acronis True Image
program (I've snipped the copies of your email messages to Acronis which
were included in your posting to this newsgroup)...

While you've indicated (at least as I interpret your posting) that your
specific interest is with reference to a disk imaging program (as opposed to
a disk cloning program), I would assume that your *basic* objective is
utilizing a backup program that is designed to back up your entire system,
i.e., your operating system, all programs & applications, and user-created
data. And to do so effectively and with reasonable speed.

If my assumption is correct, let me suggest a program that might interest
you. While it is a disk-to-disk cloning program rather than a disk imaging
program, perhaps it will meet your basic objective of a comprehensive backup
program...

We've been working with this Casper 4.0 disk cloning program for nearly a
year now. Based on our experience to date with this program (in an XP
environment) after using it with a few score systems and performing hundreds
of disk-cloning operations, we have finally recommended this program to
users.

Of the few dozen users of whom we're aware who have been using the program
with some regularity, all of them - without exception - have commented
favorably about the program. In every instance it has become their
disk-cloning program of choice. Many of these users had heretofore been
using the Acronis True Image & Symantec's Norton Ghost programs (among
others) for their disk imaging/disk cloning needs and after working with the
Casper program *all* of them now prefer the Casper 4.0 program as their
primary day-to-day comprehensive backup program.

The beauty of this program lies in its simplicity of use, speed of backup
operations, and overall effectiveness. While not totally flawless, it
certainly comes close in our experience.

Here are some details about the program for you and for those of you who
might be interested...

First of all, potential users should note that this is a *disk cloning*
program - not a disk imaging program - in the sense that the program is
designed to create (for all practical purposes) a bit-for-bit copy of the
source HDD so that if the recipient of the clone is an internal HDD, that
cloned HDD will be bootable and its data immediately accessible, unlike the
situation where a disk image is created on the recipient HDD (or other
media) and a recovery process is necessary to restore the image to a
bootable, data-accessible state. Note, however, that should the recipient of
the clone be a USB external HDD - since that device is not ordinarily
bootable - its contents (although accessible from the boot HDD) would need
to be "cloned back" to an internal HDD should the recovery/restore process
be necessary to create a bootable HDD. On the other hand, should the HDD
encased in the USB enclosure be removable, it could be installed as an
internal HDD in the PC and thus the user would have a bootable functioning
HDD.

The Casper 4.0 program also has the happy capability of cloning individual
partitions from one HDD to another HDD, not merely creating a "disk image"
of the partition(s). (See details below).

In general, the chief advantage of a disk-imaging approach rather than a
disk-cloning one has always been that following the initial creation of a
disk image, subsequent incremental (or differential) disk images can be
created and this allows for a significant (and obviously desirable) increase
in backup speed as compared with the time it takes for a user to create a
disk clone every time the user backs up his or her system.

There's also a relatively minor (in our view) advantage of creating disk
images rather than disk clones in that the resultant disk image file can be
compressed in size, thus saving some disk space. However, this advantage
generally disappears (or at least is substantially reduced) after a number
of incremental backup disk image files are created following the initial
(original) backup file ("archive"). And given today's relatively inexpensive
large-capacity hard drives we do not feel this advantage is of major import
for most users. Additionally, disk imaging obviously lends itself better to
using DVDs as the backup media, however given the rather large amount of
data usually being backed up by most users in today's systems most users
prefer to use hard drives (internal or external) as the recipient of the
disk image backup when employing that approach rather than disk cloning. In
any event if one's primary or exclusive interest is in disk imaging rather
than disk cloning then one need not consider the Casper 4.0 program.

The significant advantage of the Casper 4.0 disk cloning program over other
disk cloning programs that we're familiar with, e.g., Acronis True Image or
Symantec's Norton Ghost, is its ability to create *incremental* disk clones
following the creation of the original (first) disk clone. Employing what
Casper calls its "SmartClone" technology the program can create subsequent
disk clones of the source HDD usually at a fraction of the time it takes to
create a "full" disk clone. This results in a decided incentive for users to
undertake frequent complete backups of their systems knowing that they can
create "incremental" disk clones in a relatively short period of time.

The Casper 4.0 program's capability in creating these incremental disk
clones results in a significant savings of time as compared to the usual
time it takes to create a cloned disk using other disk-cloning programs.
Knowing that this incremental disk cloning process will take only a
relatively short period of time provides the user with increased motivation
to back up their systems on a much more frequent & systematic basis than
they might otherwise do - a most desirable result as I think most PC users
would all agree.

Another positive feature we've discovered with the Casper 4.0 program (at
least based upon our experience to date) is that unlike other disk cloning
programs such as the Acronis & Ghost programs, when the recipient of the
clone - the destination HDD - is an *internal* HDD, the user need not
disconnect the source HDD from the system and make an *initial* boot
following the disk cloning operation with only the destination HDD
connected. Again, we're referring here to a disk cloning operation where the
recipient of the clone (the "destination" drive) has been an *internal* HDD.
As many of us know, there has been a problem with disk cloning programs in
general with this situation in that if immediately following the disk
cloning operation both the (internal) source & destination HDDs are
connected and an *initial* boot is made to the source drive, there can be a
subsequent problem with that destination drive in that it will fail to boot
if at a later time it is the only HDD connected in the system. Because of
this anomaly our advice - as well as from others including the developers of
these disk cloning programs - has heretofore always been to disconnect the
source HDD from the system *immediately* following the disk cloning
operation and make that initial boot with *only* the destination (internal)
HDD present. (And, of course, to determine that the clone has "took" - the
cloned HDD is bootable & functional).

While this problem does not always happen along the lines described above,
it does occur with sufficient frequency that we feel this cautionary note is
required. Note that where the recipient of the cloned contents of the source
HDD is an *external* HDD, such as a USB external HDD, this potential problem
does not exist since the USB external HDD is not ordinarily a bootable
device. Again - based on our experience with the Casper 4.0 program to date
using a fairly wide variety of systems together with both PATA & SATA HDDs
in a variety of combinations, e.g., SATA-to-SATA, PATA-to-PATA,
SATA-to-PATA, etc., we haven't experienced a single problem (as described
above) in this area.

Using the Casper program is simplicity itself. There's virtually no learning
curve in undertaking the disk cloning process as one navigates through the
few easy-to-understand screens with a final mouse-click on the button which
will trigger the disk-cloning process. After undertaking one or two
disk-cloning operations it should take the user no more than 20 seconds or
so to get to that point.

Here's a more-or-less typical example of using the program to clone the
contents of one HDD to another HDD (internal or external)...
1. Access the Casper 4.0 program.
2. Click on the opening screen's "Copy Drive" icon.
3. Click on the Next button on the "Welcome..." window.
4. Select the "Copy an entire hard disk" option, then the Next button.
5. The next window will reflect the HDD to be copied, presumably your boot
drive. Click Next.
6. The next window will list the "destination" HDD, i.e., the drive that
will be the recipient of the cloned contents of the drive you're copying.
Highlight that drive listing and Click Next.
7. A warning screen will appear indicating the destination HDD is "currently
in use" and that "all data on that disk may be lost if you continue". It's
just a cautionary note so click Next.
8. Since you're cloning the entire contents of your source HDD to the
destination HDD, just click Next on the next screen to accomplish that.
9. Select the "Perform the copy now" option and click Next and then Next
again on the following screen.

The disk-cloning operation will proceed with a final screen indicating its
successful conclusion.

BTW, the program is also capable of scheduling the disk-cloning process on a
daily, weekly, or other time period selected by the user.

The program is not particularly inexpensive as disk cloning programs go.
Cost for a single-license is $49.95. AFAIK, the program is available for
download only from the developer at http://www.fssdev.com and this does not
include the "Casper Startup Disk" which sells for an additional $9.95. That
"Startup Disk" is a really essential piece of the program since in many
cases it would be the only way to effect a recovery of the system when the
installed Casper program could not be accessed from the Windows environment
because the program resides on a HDD that has failed or has become
unbootable. The usual scenario for using the Startup Disk is when the
recipient of the clone has been an external HDD - most likely a USB external
HDD - and the original source disk has become defective or dysfunctional
(unbootable) so that there is no opportunity to access the installed Casper
program. Since the USB external HDD containing the cloned contents of the
source drive is not bootable, one must use the Startup Disk in that
situation in order to clone the contents of the external HDD back to a
non-defective internal HDD in order to recover the system.

The developer does have a 30-day trial version available - see
http://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/trial/. The trial version is somewhat
crippled in that the cloned partition on the destination drive will be the
same size as the partition on the source drive - they will not be expanded
to a larger size or to fill
up available space on the new hard drive. In any event the trial version
should give a user some reasonable insight as to how the program works.
However note that the trial version does not include the program to create
the "Startup Disk" described above. That would have to be separately
purchased.

This Casper 4.0 program is advertised as being compatible with Vista,
however, except for some cursory experience we've had using Casper with that
operating system, we feel we haven't had sufficient experience with that OS
to form any absolute judgment as to its effectiveness (or lack of) in that
environment. I will say the relatively few times we've used Casper in the
Vista OS with a number of different systems it has performed flawlessly. And
we've received favorable reports from users who have been using the program
in a Vista environment.


Using the Startup Disk...
The Startup Disk will ordinarily be employed in those recovery-type
situations where the user cannot gain access to the installed Casper program
because the HDD to be restored (on which the Casper program resides) is
unbootable due to a corrupted operating system or has become
mechanically/electronically defective, and the drive that contains the disk
clone is a USB or Firewire external HDD which is ordinarily unbootable thus
preventing access to the installed Casper program from that device.

When using the Startup Disk remember to connect only the two HDDs that will
be involved in the disk-cloning (recovery) process; disconnect any other
storage device(s) from the system. The booting-up process with the Startup
Disk is usually quite lengthy - we've generally found that it takes between
6 to 9 minutes before the program loads and the disk-cloning process can
begin. Thereafter the disk-cloning operation (recovery) should go reasonably
quickly & smoothly.
Anna

(Addendum re potential problem with the recipient drive of the clone...)
Based on our experience to date with the Casper 4.0 program (about a year
now), we have yet to run into that potential problem as we did with every
other disk cloning program we've used in the past. We've probably performed
more than two hundred disk cloning operations over this time using the
Casper program with a variety of systems using a variety of internal PATA -
SATA HDDs in various configurations. In every case immediately following the
disk-cloning operation, we booted the system with *both* drives (source &
destination) connected - something we ordinarily would not do with the other
disk cloning programs because of the (potential) problem I've previously
detailed. In every case where we later booted to the newly-cloned
solely-connected drive we did not encounter a boot problem as we sometimes
experienced with other disk cloning programs when both the source &
destination drives were still connected immediately following the
disk-cloning operation and a boot was made to the source HDD while those two
drives were connected. I'm hopeful that this unbroken string of successes
will continue since this is a real advantage to this program as compared
with other disk-cloning programs.
Anna


Cloning partitions with Casper 4.0

Using XP's Disk Management utility, set up desired partitions on the
destination hard drive (see example following these steps).

1. Access the Casper program and click on the "Copy Drive" icon.

2. Following the "Welcome to the Casper..." screen, select the option "Copy
a specific drive". Click Next.

3. On the "Select Drive" window that opens, select (highlight) the source
hard drive containing the specific partition you want to copy. Click Next.

4. On the "Select Copy Destination" window that opens, select the option
"Copy to an existing drive" and click Next.

5. On the "Select Destination Drive" window that opens, select (highlight)
the destination hard drive containing the partition that will be the
recipient of the clone. Ensure that you've selected the correct destination
drive and partition. Click Next.

6. On the next screen, click Next to confirm that you want to overwrite the
data on the destination drive.

7. On the next screen, select the option "Perform the copy now" and click
Next and then Next again to start the cloning process.

As an example...
1. Let's say you want to clone the contents of your old 40 GB HDD to a
newly-purchased 200 GB HDD (roughly 170 GB in binary terms).

2. You plan to set up your 200 GB HDD with three partitions - one of 50 GB,
one of 55 GB, and the third of 65 GB.

3. After installing the 200 GB HDD in your current system in preparation for
the disk (partition)-cloning operation, use the XP Disk Management utility
to create the desired three partitions on that disk. Assign whatever drive
letters are available to each of the three partitions and ensure that the
first partition (presumably the partition that will be the recipient of the
cloned operating system) is designated "Active" during the process. You
needn't be concerned that you assign a drive letter other C: to that first
partition. The disk-cloning process will assign the C: drive letter to that
partition. Also, you can later change the drive letters of the other
partitions using the Disk Management utility on the newly-cloned HDD.

4. Then, using the above "Cloning partitions..." steps, clone the contents
of your 40 GB HDD to the first partition of the destination HDD.

5. Shut down the system, disconnect the old 40 GB HDD, and if not already so
connected, connect the 200 GB HDD as Primary Master if it's a PATA HDD, or
to the first SATA connector on the motherboard if the disk is a SATA drive.
Boot with only the new 200 GB HDD connected to assure that the drive boots &
functions without problems.

6. Reconnect the 40 GB HDD if you plan to continue to use that disk as a
secondary drive in your system.


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