Can we trust Acronis True Image (From HDD to SSD)?

[pintree3]

A year ago or so I had changed my Western Digital hard drive (holding my OS on the C: drive) for a Samsung 840 EVO SSD.
I'm leaving the country and want to take my SSD with me and put back the Western Digital Hard Drive on the PC remaining here. Western Digital provides free ''Acronis True Image WD Edition"
I was wondering if I could trust it for creating an image from the SSD to the HHD.I'm asking this for 2 reasons: Is it a trustworthy software? and -2- Is it smart to use such a thing backwards--from SSD to HDD?

Thank you

 

[pbcopter]

In my opinion (having used Acronis for quite some time), it is very trust worthy.

Yes you can go from SSD to HDD or HDD to SSD with no issues.

 

[Night Hawk]

I'm now running Acronis TI Home edition 2010 on the 64bit Windows 10 as well as on the 64bit 7 Ultimate without issues going from Sata II to S3 drives and back from S3 to S2. The program is not only reliable but compresses the size of images down quite more then the backup option in Windows as far as drive space.

It's one of the best written softwares other then an older one like Norton Ghost that used to see a high rep in years past. With Acronis I can leave that running and go off and shoot some bugs or aliens in Steam driven game and find the image backup is complete with TI having run silently in the background. It's light on resources as well as dependable in the assessment I would give it!

 

[ignatzatsonic]

As someone once said, "trust but verify".

It should work. It will likely work. It may not work.

You'd be foolish to assume it will work.

Therefore, verify that it has been done successfully before you get on the airplane.

 

[Night Hawk]

Ah gee I want to get on the flight without wings! :roflmao:Things go better when well grounded!

You can't even give the best Windows out the 100% guaranty of success 100% of the time! Where does leave everything else? And with any images made you would expect to be wanting to verify the integrity since you might have to restore it at some time! This is one reason I had been keeping a second OS drive in limbo inbetween Linux and now 10 in case I had any doubt about a system image made. Boot live off of the acronis cd with the 7 host drive unplugged and restore the image.

In fact the clone of the host drive over to the second for seeing 10 upgrade over that seemed like I was still in the host drive's copy of 7 from Acronis doing a great job with that. If you are in doubt about the present version of TI you have there there shouldn't be with the newer releases which would be even more updated as far as SSDs are concerned.

Even with the different technologies at work as far as hardwares are concerned they still are read in the same manner by software as far as volumes and partition sizes are concerned. Any good disk imaging program will compensate for any difference found in proportional or fixed sizing that you select when going to run the program and have to make the selection.

 

[pintree3]

I thank you all for taking the time to help me. All of your points are being taken into consideration. Having said that I would like to add 2 things if I may.
You all mentioned the trustworthiness of Acronis, but please note this is not a normal version of it but rather a "Western Digital version'' of it, which made me ask the question as to if it would work in this case or not. The manual mentions, for ex. from a WD hard drive to an SSD but not the other way around.
I also agree with double-checking 1st. My question is How do I do so? how do I verify? Or do you mean, make the image, see if it works, and if not, return back to the SSD? This makes sense I guess? or is there another way--since according to the Acronis manual I will be burning the image onto a CD?
Thanks again

 

[Night Hawk]

OUCH! WD as well as Seagate renaming, rebranding so to speak Acronis as the Sea Tools instead provide the stripped down form of Acronis where features like the One Click backup option isn't present. I have that here as well as the full 2010 version of TI now trying to see if the WD will run like the retail version does on Windows 10. If I take a fast screen you can see the two side by side for somewhat of a good immediate comparison.

Since the installation on the first failed attempt of Acronis on 10 left shortcuts behind awaiting a second attempt once 10 was cleaned up I now have to reboot so the 2010 can finish checking for the 2015 version I already have on the downloaded iso for! I'll have to edit this post afterwards to include the side by side view of the two types of the program.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

There are competing free applications that do not have the WD limitation.

I don't know if there are free versions of Acronis that don't have that limitation.

 

[Night Hawk]

Well WD has their own brand of drive there explaining the limits as well as Seagate having their own while the regular freebies are trial versions of TI. Those offer the full features for 30days.

As for trying to grab a capture of both as soon as the 2010 Home version went on the WD shortcut now only brings up the full retail version since both share files in the exact same folder with retail canceling out freebie! Anyways I grabbed a fast snipping to add in here.

You'll immediately notice the much larger screen for the full retail version while this doesn' include the OneClick option to schedule full backup images on a custom schedule like having a full system image backup going on a daily basis.

 

[pintree3]

I am still waiting for WD to reply and they have yet to do so. Meanwhile, since I already have Comodo Backup I decided to use it and see.
I was trying to do a full disk image of my C: drive and I got the following msg: ''no viable destination disks found for the selected item"
I assume that since this is an image file and bootable and therefore it has to go on a DVD that I must choose -1- 'Disk Partitions and MBR and then -2- Backup format: Mirror disk/partition
Also my C: drive (on an SSD drive) where my OS sits, is on Disk 2 and NOT Disk 0 so neither Disk 0 nor Disk 1 were chosen. However, on the next step, where the above message popped up. There is a button that says, "Choose Disk" and below it are 2 choices: 'Disk 0' and 'Disk 1' Neither of which I originally chose nor want. So I am confused with everything here and do not know what to do.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Tough to help you as I don't know Comodo, but....

If you have a "System Restore" partition that is marked as "system" in Windows Disk Management, you should include it in your image file or make a separate image file of it.

DVDs are a poor choice for a system image. It will take multiple DVDs and they are much more problematic than a hard drive. Use a hard drive to store your images.

 

[pintree3]

Tough to help you as I don't know Comodo, but....
If you have a "System Restore" partition that is marked as "system" in Windows Disk Management, you should include it in your image file or make a separate image file of it.
DVDs are a poor choice for a system image. It will take multiple DVDs and they are much more problematic than a hard drive. Use a hard drive to store your images.

Sometimes, this smart person (me) is an idiot Of course a DVD is a poor choice, what was I thinking? To give me just a little excuse I'll tell you why DVD came to mind. 1st since Acronis mentioned ''first you'll need a DVD..." in their explanation of what I must do, which in turn made me think that when I do a fresh install of Windows all I need is a CD. But of course, that is not what I'm doing now, is it? ''Dah Michael"
As to the rest, When within Comodo the choices checked were ''Disk 2 (MBR Disk 232 GB)" and below it ''Track 0 and MBR'' and below that C:\ (232GB) System drive NTFS'

This in turn begs a question, my older drive that I'll imaging to is only 150GB. I assumed that since only 81GB are presently being used on my C: drive that therefore this difference would not matter, but now I'm questioning if it does matter?
Which in turn begs another questioning showing to what degree I am realizing that I really do not know what I'm doing. If I create an image on a send drive (Which BTW happens to be 'Disk 0' and is called 'D: drive' then how do I git it from there to my new hard drive? --since on 1st boot the OS won't be there?
Which then make me think further. on my old Drive the OS is there but it has everything it had as it had it a year ago. This means that if I remove the present SSD and replace it with my old one all will boot normally BUT all will be a year old. Originally this was exactly what I was going to do and then slowly and painfully update everything. The image creation idea was so that I may skip this huge step (and then easily update to Win 10 since it has been told).

 

[ignatzatsonic]

see comments in bold:

As to the rest, When within Comodo the choices checked were ''Disk 2 (MBR Disk 232 GB)" and below it ''Track 0 and MBR'' and below that C:\ (232GB) System drive NTFS'

I don't know Comodo, but.....if in doubt I'd want an image of all of those, possibly in a single file, possibly in multiple images.

This in turn begs a question, my older drive that I'll imaging to is only 150GB. I assumed that since only 81GB are presently being used on my C: drive that therefore this difference would not matter, but now I'm questioning if it does matter?


If your source drive is using 81, then an image of it should be smaller than that with the typical compression. I use Macrium and it would create an image file of perhaps 40 GB in such a case--about half the size of the occupied space. So, you'd need that much space on the destination drive.

Which in turn begs another questioning showing to what degree I am realizing that I really do not know what I'm doing.

That's a very bad sign. I'd urge you to drill into the Comodo help file and to certainly NEVER get yourself into a situation where you are totally reliant on Comodo or any other imaging application. Know what you will do if if fails completely.

If I create an image on a send drive (Which BTW happens to be 'Disk 0' and is called 'D: drive' then how do I git it from there to my new hard drive? --since on 1st boot the OS won't be there?

I don't understand the term "send drive".

With Macrium, here is how it would work:

You install Macrium.

Within Macrium, you make a "recovery disk" that is used to boot your PC after a hard drive failure. You do this with an ordinary CD burner and a blank CD. This disc MUST boot the PC. If it doesn't, you are screwed--unable to restore. So obviously, you should test it immediately after making it.

You make an image file or files of those partitions necessary to restore Windows. That may be just 1 partition or it may be multiple partitions. You store them on any totally separate hard drive that has enough space, often an external.

When disaster strikes, you remove the failed drive, install the new good drive, then boot from the recovery disk. That leads you to an interface, from which you choose what image you want to restore and to where you want to restore it.

If the process works, you are back up and rockin' within an hour.

If it doesn't, you go to plan B. It works maybe 98% of the time if you know how to operate the software.

Which then make me think further. on my old Drive the OS is there but it has everything it had as it had it a year ago. This means that if I remove the present SSD and replace it with my old one all will boot normally BUT all will be a year old. Originally this was exactly what I was going to do and then slowly and painfully update everything. The image creation idea was so that I may skip this huge step (and then easily update to Win 10 since it has been told).

The idea with images is to make a new image periodically--perhaps every month. So you are never seriously out of date after a restore.

 

[pintree3]

gnatzatsonic, thanks. About, "I don't understand the term "send drive"." It was a type-o, sorry. I meant ''second drive''.What I meant to say was, " If I create an image on a 2nd drive (Which BTW happens to be 'Disk 0' & is called 'D: drive' then how do I get it from there to my new hard drive? --since on 1st boot the OS won't be there?"

My thinking was: I create an image of my current OS drive C: onto my drive D: (which happens to be in the PC presently.) I remove my present C:drive SSD and replace it with thee HDD. So how does the computer know, "Hey there is an image on D: which needs to be copied to this C:/ ?" Obviously it does not work this way. To go back in time I had an HDD with the OS and other stuff installed in it. When I replaced the HDD with the new SSD I did not delete or format my HDD. I just removed it and did a fresh install of Win 7 on the SSD. Hence my HDD still has everything.
My thinking was if I now do an image of my current C: which is on my SSD and remove the SSD and replace it with my old HDD, will it not then read my HDD? I thought yes, it will (and then windows will go crazy and everything else telling me update, update, update.
Then at that point I click on 'x' whatever that may be, and it would then do the image copying for me--reboot and voila, bingo, all will be perfect. Or at least that is how I thought it would work. But I'm assuming it may not work this way at all merely from seeing what Comodo was suggesting I do.
Seriously, if it is that complicated and time consuming perhaps it would be better for me to just skip the imaging and just exchange hard drives and then start the updating process.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

see comments

My thinking was: I create an image of my current OS drive C: onto my drive D: (which happens to be in the PC presently.) I remove my present C:drive SSD and replace it with thee HDD. So how does the computer know, "Hey there is an image on D: which needs to be copied to this C:/ ?"

The computer wouldn't know.

But you would. You'd direct Comodo (presumably by booting from a Comodo recovery disk) to restore some specific image. If you have an image made on July 1 and another made on Aug 1, it's up to you to select the one you want--that is, you'd choose the day to which you want to restore.

Image files aren't "copied" to make a bootable drive. They are "restored". That's a formal process done within the imaging application. Not a copy by any means. An image file is just that. It's a file. Your PC needs thousands of files to form a bootable Windows installation. You turn that 1 image file into the thousands of files needed to boot by going through the formal restoration process. No other way.

You can typically "drill into" an image file and fish out individual random files at will, but that's not going to lead you to a bootable drive.

To go back in time I had an HDD with the OS and other stuff installed in it. When I replaced the HDD with the new SSD I did not delete or format my HDD. I just removed it and did a fresh install of Win 7 on the SSD. Hence my HDD still has everything.
My thinking was if I now do an image of my current C: which is on my SSD and remove the SSD and replace it with my old HDD, will it not then read my HDD? I thought yes, it will (and then windows will go crazy and everything else telling me update, update, update.
Then at that point I click on 'x' whatever that may be, and it would then do the image copying for me--reboot and voila, bingo, all will be perfect. Or at least that is how I thought it would work. But I'm assuming it may not work this way at all merely from seeing what Comodo was suggesting I do.
Seriously, if it is that complicated and time consuming perhaps it would be better for me to just skip the imaging and just exchange hard drives and then start the updating process.

Not sure I'm following you, but.........

If you removed a good hard drive from a working PC on June 1, it would only be out of date by 30 days on July 1. If you put it back in the PC on July 1, you'd have to go to Windows Update and get the last 30 days worth.

Yeah, that's less complex than fiddling with an imaging application and restoring a 30 day old image that would have to be updated at Windows Update anyway.

 

[Night Hawk]

I am still waiting for WD to reply and they have yet to do so. Meanwhile, since I already have Comodo Backup I decided to use it and see.
I was trying to do a full disk image of my C: drive and I got the following msg: ''no viable destination disks found for the selected item"
I assume that since this is an image file and bootable and therefore it has to go on a DVD that I must choose -1- 'Disk Partitions and MBR and then -2- Backup format: Mirror disk/partition
Also my C: drive (on an SSD drive) where my OS sits, is on Disk 2 and NOT Disk 0 so neither Disk 0 nor Disk 1 were chosen. However, on the next step, where the above message popped up. There is a button that says, "Choose Disk" and below it are 2 choices: 'Disk 0' and 'Disk 1' Neither of which I originally chose nor want. So I am confused with everything here and do not know what to do.

The Wonders of the Freewares or should I say "Blonders" of them! While still having the WD version I was in a Circuit City a few years back before they closed up and spotted the full version sitting in the software shelves and grabbed it! Best move I could ever make! It condenses system images smaller then the built in Windows backup tool does and runs quietly in the background as I took notes while firing up a Steam/Valve type 1st shooter and the image was made without issues of any type.

Here the OS drive when only being the 7 host drive while still having the one now seeing 10 on it has always been Disk #0 of the two Sata II types drives being that the 7 drive was originally plugged into the first Sata II port with the two dvd optical drives in the 5th and 6th ports to allow for additional drives. I did have two more but were Sata 3 type drives and one developed a problem while the first was simply stuck in an external enclosure in prep for the new drive now twice the size but a Sata II large enough to keep system images for both versions of Windows as well as backing everything up!

gnatzatsonic, thanks. About, "I don't understand the term "send drive"." It was a type-o, sorry. I meant ''second drive''.What I meant to say was, " If I create an image on a 2nd drive (Which BTW happens to be 'Disk 0' & is called 'D: drive' then how do I get it from there to my new hard drive? --since on 1st boot the OS won't be there?"

My thinking was: I create an image of my current OS drive C: onto my drive D: (which happens to be in the PC presently.) I remove my present C:drive SSD and replace it with thee HDD. So how does the computer know, "Hey there is an image on D: which needs to be copied to this C:/ ?" Obviously it does not work this way. To go back in time I had an HDD with the OS and other stuff installed in it. When I replaced the HDD with the new SSD I did not delete or format my HDD. I just removed it and did a fresh install of Win 7 on the SSD. Hence my HDD still has everything.
My thinking was if I now do an image of my current C: which is on my SSD and remove the SSD and replace it with my old HDD, will it not then read my HDD? I thought yes, it will (and then windows will go crazy and everything else telling me update, update, update.
Then at that point I click on 'x' whatever that may be, and it would then do the image copying for me--reboot and voila, bingo, all will be perfect. Or at least that is how I thought it would work. But I'm assuming it may not work this way at all merely from seeing what Comodo was suggesting I do.
Seriously, if it is that complicated and time consuming perhaps it would be better for me to just skip the imaging and just exchange hard drives and then start the updating process.

The attempts with the freebie version are rather pathetic! Norton Ghost would do a much better job! The money spent on the full retail version is well worth it in contrast! The software is dependable and does the job once you get familiar with how to pick and choose things. First is usually the drive you plan to backup and second the desination which is generally on a second or even third drive where you have room for backups you can schedule and full system images depending on the capacity of the drive.

Here with two 1tb drives plus the second OS for some time split up after running a Linux distro on the front end I stored images on the back end backup partition created there following the decision to use the second storage to back up the first of those two. Originally that had strictly intended for images as well as anything scheduled for partial backups. The full version will handle all of that with ease and why I can recommend it.

It also just successfully cloned the 7 host over to the second OS drive once that was wiped to prepare for the 10 upgrade over that before deciding a temp of 7 was going to be needed. Now I have two working OSs to backup on the new twice as large 2tb storage/backup drive. I'm still running the 2010 version on the 64bit Windows 10 as well as on 7 and should expect to see reliable results.

 

[pintree3]

ignatzatsonic I never said 1 month, I said 1 year. The purchase date is: [FONT=&quot]5/8/2014 [/FONT]which means, depending if 5 is the month or the day, it's either 12 or 15 months ago. The old HDD would have about a year of updating to do: 1 yr of Windows, 1 yr of Office, 1 yr of the security suite, 1 yr of the Adobe suite, the browsers and so on.

Night Hawk: many people agree with you about Norton Ghost. but this will be a one-time thing for me. for normal backups I have used Comodo for a few years now and am quite happy with it.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

ignatzatsonic I never said 1 month, I said 1 year. The purchase date is: [FONT=&quot]5/8/2014 [/FONT]which means, depending if 5 is the month or the day, it's either 12 or 15 months ago. The old HDD would have about a year of updating to do: 1 yr of Windows, 1 yr of Office, 1 yr of the security suite, 1 yr of the Adobe suite, the browsers and so on.

Each method (update or Comodo) would involve some time.

Each would have a certain risk of a bad outcome.

You'd have to make a choice. I don't know how disastrous a bad outcome would be for you.

Based only on what I perceive in this thread (I haven't analyzed it with a fine toothed comb), I'd go with updates and avoid imaging if possible, but it's certainly your call. Imaging is a complex (touchy) operation and has a higher risk--in my opinion, particularly if you don't have a lot of experience with the application. So you'd be taking on risk, presumably in exchange for saving time.

 

[Night Hawk]

Night Hawk: many people agree with you about Norton Ghost. but this will be a one-time thing for me. for normal backups I have used Comodo for a few years now and am quite happy with it.

Hey as long as Comodo which is also a good program by reputation is working out where's the fuss? And only one time? How many times a year do you think I make full system image backups? Maybe one or two a year if that, one simply to replace the other no less in order to somewhat keep it updated but not too long after a clean install of Windows.

At this time however 7 is overdue to see a clean install despite making up a full system image backup as well as note clone of the then 7 host drive right before downloading the latest now seen. I still manually back things up as I go along so they don't get lost as far as downloads and updates as well as other files I may keep locally on the OS drive(s).

With the pending clean install needed for 7 as well as wanting to get the Freebie now being seen I almost ended up simply keeping the temp clean install on the second alone and get that the way I wanted 7 again and keep trying to upgrade over the then host 7 and solve two problems with one stone since I already made the image.

Each method (update or Comodo) would involve some time.

Each would have a certain risk of a bad outcome.

You'd have to make a choice. I don't know how disastrous a bad outcome would be for you.

Based only on what I perceive in this thread (I haven't analyzed it with a fine toothed comb), I'd go with updates and avoid imaging if possible, but it's certainly your call. Imaging is a complex (touchy) operation and has a higher risk--in my opinion, particularly if you don't have a lot of experience with the application. So you'd be taking on risk, presumably in exchange for saving time.

Full system image backups as well as scheduled partial backups have always had risks along with simple manual backups by copy and paste where files can get trashed in a heart beat and totally useless afterwards! Been there enough times where what you are counting on doesn't make the trip! Just now I found some files I try out on each newer version of Windows mostly a collection of wav files were discovered with blank white icons and did nothing when selecting for assigning a wav file to a function in Windows. I now have to replace those with another backup previously made.

The other thing I wanted to mention was that the WD limited form of Acronis is only good with WD drives! This is one thing that has to be mentioned here! Unlike Sea Tools which are not brand restricted as WD did for their WD Tools this will have an immediate effect on anything non WD! Plus I had tried out the freebie from the WD using that brand here and still said Not Good Enough! I went out intentionally to look over other backup softwares one night and was fortunate the store had a few TI Home 2010 boxes right there!

As for using any program initially with any number of software utility programs you first have to get used to how they work and how to use what they feature. Or it simply won't run or run the way you want it to. And even if pintree3 only wants to run it once and see working results I have to say that investing in a good program while not having an immediate need may just save the day sometime later.