Windows 7: Acronis Home Image

How are you guys installing Acronis?
I ahve tried Acronis 9 & 10, and Acronis Director 10. When I try to use them they all pop up and say they are not compatible with 7???

Installation order often causes problems and there are several threads on common repairs.

But I especiaily like the posts about how Gparted corrupts the MBR if it is aborted before it comletes the resize task....

MS has long maintained that when Multi-booting the "oldest" OS should be installed first: 98>XP>Vista etc. Any other order and a repair of the bootloader, MBR etc may be required. Seems the 98 and XP installs did not know about Vista when they were written....

The *nix systems, well... what do the Ubuntu forums say to use for resizing if they don't like GParted? It usually helps to provide an alternative when critizing a solution many others use successfully .

Do you mean ATI v9 or ATI 2009? I have not tried ATI 9 or 10. I can tell you that ATI 7 WILL NOT work, but that is no big surprise.

ATI Home 11 and ATI Home 2009 are all that I know of working with Windows 7. The Workstation product DOES NOT work according to those who have tried it.

If you are going to try ATI Home 11 or 2009 first REGISTER THE PRODUCT AT ACRONIS SUPPORT AND DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THE UPDATE! This is important whether it is XP, Vista or Windows 7.

I have no problems creating images of Windows 7 from within Windows 7 using Acronis. If I am doing an IMAGE restore then, yes, I use the boot CD.

It is fine imaging 7 from within 7. Restoring it leaves correct permissions and access.

I have had trouble after creating/restoring any other o/s partition from within 7.

Unable to gain access to the restored other o/s partition. The last time, I managed to get in , but was logged on with a temporary profile.

I now do all my imaging/restoring either from within Vista - that never caused a problem - or using the boot disc.

Well ... they say two things:
1) IF you must use GParted, make sure you have a Vista repair CD handy to do Startup Repair SHOULD your Vista OS become corrupted, or
2) Use the Vista Disk Management utility to shrink the Vista OS -- with a link then provided to the How-to-Geek forums post that has hints for working around shrinkage restrices.

As to the "use successfully", guess that depends on WHERE you read about the results. The Ubuntu forums have post after post when folks used GParted to shrink Vista and then could not boot Vista again, and (since you may doubt the veracity of *nix posters), the NeoSmart forums has several posts where folks encountered the same problems.

Oh, and if it makes you feel any better, when I first mentioned this in the Ubuntu forums, the GParted fans were outraged -- until two of the most senior forum members decided to systematically test out the claim -- and discovered that it WAS correct.

And, IMHO, it's not "critizing a solution" when you warn people that it might cause serious damage; it's warning them of the risks they are taking when choosing that solution. People have a right to know what risks are present when they do something.

I would advise using an app. that is compatible with the windows new nt6 partitioning rules - in preference.

Usually, they are not free, though.

Gparted can also recognize drives when other bootable partition managers cannot.

It certainly can be useful.

I never had any trouble updating bcd after using GParted.

I was not clear, I have created images of XP and Vista OS parttions from within Windows 7. But I have always done image restores of OS partitions from the boot disk. I will do restores of non-OS partitions from with the OS (XP, Vista, Windows 7). So far no problems.... knock on wood.

I suspect new ATI users when installing get their disk MBR corrupted when they allow ATI to create the "Secure Zone" (a second partition) when installing on a single HDD system with a single visible partition and one or more OEM created hidden partitions.

In some of these cases ATI's ability to shrink a partition to reallocate space and create a new partition is no better than Windows Disk Manager. Both are too much of a crap shoot.

Yes, it seems the problem only arises if using the Image app. GUI within 7 to restore another o/s partition.


I couldn't get into the other o/s partition I had restored from within 7.

Using the boot disc to restore that ( if memory serves ) same image again worked fine.

This restriction is new to 7 - i don't get that problem restoring o/s images from within Vista.