acronis just failed me. What's an easy backup scheme?

[bounce]

I made an Acronis true image backup of my win7 main drive and after a drive failure it won't restore. So after a clean install I'm now looking for program (that works well in 7) to clone and restore the main drive if needed.

Also, I now have a dual boot setup so I'd be looking for something that on corruption I could boot into working syste mdrive and restore an image to the non-working system drive.

Thanks for any info!

 

[pparks1]

Out of curiosity, what version of Acronis were you using?

 

[Colonel Travis]

Ditto pparks1 - and when you say it didn't restore, what exactly happened?

 

[steve-pressman]

I use a program called Spotmau
Spotmau.com - Computer Service

Clones/Images perfectly every time as well as many other things it does

Steve

 

[SIW2]

In what sense will it not restore?

Does Acronis recognize the .tib image?

Is it corrupted?

I made an Acronis true image backup of my win7 main drive and after a drive failure it won't restore. So after a clean install I'm now looking for program (that works well in 7) to clone and restore the main drive if needed.

Also, I now have a dual boot setup so I'd be looking for something that on corruption I could boot into working syste mdrive and restore an image to the non-working system drive.

Thanks for any info!

 

[bounce]

I can open the .tib file and browse through the C: drive but, I'd like to restore the file to an individual partition but it's blocked out so I can't. I guess you can't restore to partitions only full drives?
Ideally, I'd like to just have image backups ready to restore to individual system partitions. I'm far from an IT backup type guru so maybe I'm going about this wrong?

 

[SIW2]

Is the partition you want to restore to smaller than the original one you made the image of?

I don't know if your app. would be able to do that. The Paragon I have can do it - but I think that is an unusual ability.


If it is - you are going to have enlarge that partition so it is a little larger than the original.

Probably don't need a partition - Unallocated space should be fine to restore to - but it may still need to be the same or larger than the original .

 

[Colonel Travis]

still kinda confused about what happened, bounce. You've got 2 HDs?

 

[bounce]

still kinda confused about what happened, bounce. You've got 2 HDs?

Just one, but it had a few partitions on it. I tried to backup from .tib file to a single partition, but Acronis seems to only backup to a full drive and not let an individual partition be a target for backup.

I've now clean installed twice so I have a dual bootup setup and an empty partion. I'd like to find a program that will easily let me clone and restore to a "partition" on one hard drive. Does that make sense? thanks

 

[gregrocker]

I use Windows 7 backup imaging on all seven of my machines, saving image to a primary formatted partition on the HDD or secondary, copied to an external.

I have had to boot into the WIn7 installer>Repair console>Recover Using an Image about a dozen times now to reimage my HDD or another and it has never failed me yet. I even send the image over the network, just popping it into the root where is auto-detected if kept by it's same assigned name.

It isn't as fancy as the paid programs, or even Macrium free, but it is reliable so far and built in, perfect for introducing ordinary users to backup imaging and never having to reinstall again.

 

[Zardoc]

still kinda confused about what happened, bounce. You've got 2 HDs?

Just one, but it had a few partitions on it. I tried to backup from .tib file to a single partition, but Acronis seems to only backup to a full drive and not let an individual partition be a target for backup.

I've now clean installed twice so I have a dual bootup setup and an empty partion. I'd like to find a program that will easily let me clone and restore to a "partition" on one hard drive. Does that make sense? thanks

I'm sorry, but what's the Acronis version or did I miss this piece of info?

 

[bounce]

Hey thanks. I was curious about the built in one. I've backed up drives before, but always thought the windows restore was sketchy. Maybe I'll give it a chance.

 

[bounce]

still kinda confused about what happened, bounce. You've got 2 HDs?

I'm sorry, but what's the Acronis version or did I miss this piece of info?

True image home 2010 I believe it was build 5055

edit: yes that's the one

 

[Zardoc]

There is an update from 5055. 6029.

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/updates/index.html

Also if you did an Image of a failed drive, could be that it won't reatore because of coruption.

I imaged thousands of times and might of lost 1, at most 2 images. Once I got the image by using CD instead of recovery manager.

 

[Colonel Travis]

You can backup/restore just a partition with Acronis, doesn't have to be the whole drive.

OK, so two followups:

1.) Did you make an image of your whole C: drive and are now trying to take a portion of that image and place it on your blank partition? If you just want to move files, you can mount the image and move files. Go to Tools & Utilities -> Mount Image then move away.

2.) Are you trying to make a copy of the two partitions, store both under in image and then place that image on the empty partition?

 

[bounce]

You can backup/restore just a partition with Acronis, doesn't have to be the whole drive.

OK, so two followups:

1.) Did you make an image of your whole C: drive and are now trying to take a portion of that image and place it on your blank partition? If you just want to move files, you can mount the image and move files. Go to Tools & Utilities -> Mount Image then move away.

2.) Are you trying to make a copy of the two partitions, store both under in image and then place that image on the empty partition?

Made the image months before the failure, the corruption wasn't til much later.

Colonel: I did make an image of the C drive and what I'd like to do is back that image up to the 3rd partition on same drive that's not in use. I can mount it (just did) but if I just move/copy those files to the other partition will it be bootable? I thought you had to use the "restore" feature in Acronis for that?

 

[Colonel Travis]

Are you trying to recover everything on the image right now, or are you just wondering how to store it?

If you just want to store, there's no need to mount and move those files. Just put that image on the empty partition, assuming you have the space, and that's it. I know you know this, but remember - if your whole hard drive fails you're pretty much screwed.

For the bootable part: Acronis 2010 has adapted to 7 Ultimate and Enterprise - it will let you boot from the .tib file, no need to create a bootable disk. But if you made this image months ago, I don't know if that applies in your case because real deal 7 hasn't been out that long. You can also boot from Acronis recovery manager even if your OS goes kaboom!, or you can create a separate bootable CD or DVD or whatever, which will then allow you recover that image.

As long as you have a bootable CD (or whatever) nearby AND that image, you should have no problems recovering, not counting every murphy's law situation.

 

[bounce]

Are you trying to recover everything on the image right now, or are you just wondering how to store it?



For the bootable part: Acronis 2010 has adapted to 7 Ultimate and Enterprise - it will let you boot from the .tib file, no need to create a bootable disk. But if you made this image months ago, I don't know if that applies in your case because real deal 7 hasn't been out that long. You can also boot from Acronis recovery manager even if your OS goes kaboom!, or you can create a separate bootable CD or DVD or whatever, which will then allow you recover that image.

great, that second paragraph really helped out with what I need to do. thanks for that.

 

[Colonel Travis]

cool, good luck. I just got 2010, because although the 7 backup features are definitely an improvement for Windows, Acronis is faster and has so many more options. Haven't tried the new .tib feature myself, just decided to make an ISO.

 

[Zardoc]

So, If I get this right (correct me if I'm wrong) you have an image (a .tib file) of your Windows (7 I imagine) and you want to move that image to another drive.

If so so just copy the Tib file and paste it were you want.

If you want to restore the .Tib image to that partition and use it as a boot drive from a drive that already has a boot section, well that's different.

Which is it? Is it what the colonel thinks?