Why Acronis True Image is an awesome cloning program

[dr_st]

I've been using True Image for some time, and have admired its ability to create backup images on the fly from a running system drive, and even store them on the same drive (of course later they are being moved elsewhere). In contrast, Ghost (which I used a few years back) would complain that it cannot lock the system drive (and I have to reboot into their pre-boot environment), and that it cannot store the backups on the same partition (which is annoying if you happen to have no other partitions in that system).

Yesterday I used True Image not for backup but for cloning an entire drive. Now, this is an old P4 system (running WinXP), which only has 2 SATA ports on the onboard Intel controller, both of which were taken (system drive, which I wanted to clone + data drive). It does have a third party SATA controller by Promise, to which I connected the third drive (clone target).

Unlike with backups, cloning a system drive on the fly is not something True Image can do, so it told me I had to reboot. However, instead of booting into its own pre-boot environment, where it would probably not have drivers for the Promise controller, and therefore would not be able to clone onto the third drive, it does a smart thing - it locks the system drive, lets Windows complete a partial boot and load its own device drivers, which guarantees all physical drives are visible. Then it proceeds with the clone. Kind of like Windows itself does whenever you need to run a CHKDSK on a system drive which cannot be locked on the fly.

That's what good user experience is!

[cadillacmike68]

+1024 on Acronis TI. Once I figured out its nuances, i got really good with it. I had to, because i had an obscure problem with large boot partitions with T30s and XPP. Now I'm going to be using it again on some T61s.

[caonen]

I'm also on board as a strong recommender of Acronic True Image.

I bought/installed a new (identical) hard drive for my T43, just as insurance to extend the life span of this system. After using the ATI boot disk to boot the altered system and restore the Disc and Partition image of my old hard drive, the T43 had no idea the hard drive had been swapped. Been running w/o issues ever since. I still have my old hard drive in reserve, just in case the new one bites the dust.

Acronis is a great product, and I continue to use it regularly.

One small caution worth mentioning. The restore operation offers flexibility for adding/altering partitions, which I found non-intuitive for me. Had I been restoring to a different size hard drive I would have had to work through it. In my case, by not fighting the product and simply restoring the image to an identical hard drive, the end result was perfect and could not have been easier.

[cadillacmike68]

TI 2011 has been working great in my T61s as well. No issues, moved the cloned HDDs across several T61s and they work fine.

One thing to remember is that you really should change the volume serial number on your new HDD to match the volume serial number of the original HDD. Some applications insidiously tie their "validation / registration /" whatever, to the VSN of the originally installed HDD. Roxio did and probably still does this. If you do not change the new HDD to match the original HDD, these programs will error out with a misleading and cryptic error message.

Here is the microsoft utility to change the VSN: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysi ... s/bb897436

Note I do not use TI for backup / restore, I use it Only for cloning.

I use dedicated HDDs (in the ultrabay) and a free utility called karen's power tools replicator to backup user files. It's like the old XCOPY command on steroids. It can freshen, add and even replicate deletions from the source and target. If you work on multiple machines in different locations, you can set up bi-directional replication jobs, and just move the ultrabay HDD from one machine to another. This has been working for me for 2 years. You can even cross platforms. I took an HDD with my user data files and replicated to a clone of my wife's HDDs. Note this is primarily for data files. Don' expect an application to work if you merely copy the files. The registry will not get updated.

System is slow here, but i finally got the link to show:

http://www.karenware.com/powertools.asp

Again, it's replicator. Nice. I used to use XCOY with REPLACE, etc in REXX like structured .BAT files before windoze to back up my spreadsheets, etc, but this is a nice more modern equivalent. I even set up on my wife's computer (without replicating deletions!!!)

[ganon11000]

Best backup program ever, backed up windows 7 before upgrading to 8 & restored within a week due to bsod lol