System Imaging as Additional Protection

Ahh really? didn't know that :) Always good to know, I haven't had that particular issue :)

Thanks for the heads up jimbo

If you have the little 100MB partition as active boot partition, you need to image that only once - for the case when the disk hardware itself goes south. But as long as the disk runs well, there is no need to restore this partition. You need to only restore the OS partition. Just make sure you select "Do not restore MBR" during the restoration. Like e.g. here in Macrium:

Why would you only image the 100mb partition once? Why not do it every time? I understand it doesn't change much...but it's tiny, has next to nothing in it, and takes up about 0.000000001% of your total backup space.

pparks1 said:

Why would you only image the 100mb partition once? Why not do it every time? I understand it doesn't change much...but it's tiny, has next to nothing in it, and takes up about 0.000000001% of your total backup space.

Because it never changes at all. It is an unneccesary additional step. I appreciate the minute space requirement, but why bother. The same goes for the system recovery partition - if you want to protect that from a hardware failure, image it once - and once only.

Good tip Jimbo45.

I think the failure to boot issue may be due to Imaging just the OS partition?


I bring this up because, I have never had a boot issue w/Acronis personally.

But, My OS is on a 40GB SSD, and I do a complete disk Image of that drive..

This method images the entire disk as is:
All Partitions incl. the hidden 100MB, Alignment, Disk Signature, .. everything.

We all may have slightly different methods, but I find just doing the entire disc rather than partition is much easier.
Although this may not always be practical for all setups.


But I have seen the exact issue Jimbo45 describes if just the OS partition is imaged.
And as mentioned, easily remedied however.

whs said:

Because it never changes at all. It is an unneccesary additional step.

Maybe I am wrong, but don't you simply check 1 additional box when you create your backup set? So, the additional step is 2 clicks instead of one????

whs said:

I appreciate the minute space requirement, but why bother.

Because in that rare case that you do need to restore your MBR or that partition does get whacked, you have it in your most recent backup already...rather than having to hunt down the backup which contains it. This way the screenshot shown above detailing what to do with the MBR is really no longer an issue. You can choose whichever option and all will be fine. So why??? Simplicity really.

whs said:

Because it never changes at all. It is an unneccesary additional step.

For me at least, only doing it once is actually an "additional unneccesary step" I literally set up my backups once,
tell Acronis to image System Reserved along with C every Sunday at 19.00Hrs, make 3 incremental backups before deleting all backups and making a new full backup (so once a month I get a fresh backup).

For me, removing "System Reserved" from the drives to be imaged would actually be more effort, because once it's done, I just let it do its thing, and remind myself not to do anything particularly intensive on a Sunday evening.

Course we all have our own way of doing it, and whats right for me isn't right for everyone else.

Doesn't Windows built in imaging automatically image System Reserved too? its been a while since I used it, can't remember.

Yes, I do understand the benefits of imaging a machine. In fact, I use Acronis True Image Home 2010 at home myself and use a combination of Macrium and EaseUsToDo Backup for a couple of lab boxes that I use at work. But I also don't install much software and next to nothing is licensed (only Acronis and my games...everything else I use is open source or freeware)...so the setting back up part for me is relatively easy. Clearly this is a bit different than most other people and I did acknowledge that for most.....doing an image is a wise idea.

In retrospect, I guess I probably would have refrained from making that original post as I clearly was just debating the concept of necessity rather than good idea.