Acronis TI v10 and Vista

[Sebby]

Excellent news. Thanks for the karma.

[Noreen]

Rik, that's a really handy download site to keep a note of, as many customers are now supplied with Vista CDs like mine.

[Rik]

It's in our archives, Noreen.

[Steve]

Thanks Noreen,you were braver than me I chickened out earlier in the recovery process, by the way I have to press f12 to get into the boot options menu and it does beep loudly when its had enough

[Noreen]

Well, it obviously can't install Windows itself as it hasn't got the files but I was scared of what it would do when I pressed "next". An option to repair your computer came up, I clicked on that and then the Repair menu came up. I then clicked the button to "Close Down". Obviously I can now repair a problem or go back to a restore point etc but what I'm not sure about is how I would actually start Windows. There is an option for a command prompt. Would it be with that?    

[Rik]

Is that when Sebby's picture came up, Noreen?

[Steve]

  Noreen, I think may be, that if acronis recovery fails to give you a working version, this software get its going again without the vista dvd being required

[Sebby]

There is an option for a command prompt. Would it be with that?    

I suspect this'll be the option you'll need to use, Noreen. I'm not sure exactly what it is that needs repairing, but this will allow you to run the required executable.

[Noreen]

Thanks for everyone's help. I think that Steve probably has the answer.

I've now spent hours reading about TI v10 on Wilders and it seems that Acronis have really messed up with Vista and TI v10 and TI v11. I really don't understand all the technical stuff but it appears that when TI v10 restores a PARTITION image created by Vista it doesn't restore to exactly the same position as it was originally which is why the repair is required. This problem apparently doesn't happen with partitions created by other programs. The problem does not arise with FULL DRIVE images and no repair is therefore required. For anyone interested in doing PARTITION backups only, there is a workaround here http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=185731&highlight=Vista which appears to work well so that no repair is necessary. I only make Full Drive images so I'm not going to do it at the moment.

It seems to me that it's an absolute necessity to be able to have full confidence in a Backup program and I really can't say that I've got that now. In all the stuff on Wilders there was one reply from Acronis last year in which they said that they were aware of the problem and were working on a fix. Presumably that appeared in TI v11 which of course has its own problems.

Another alternative is the ability in some versions of Vista to make a "Complete PC Backup" to external media which I had done just after I partitioned it with Vista. The main drawback that I can see to this is that there seems to be no facility to validate the Backup. Restoring this Vista Backup requires the use of the Repair CD which I luckily now have, wouldn't have been able to access it otherwise. I presume that the Restore process would see my external drive as it's using Vista's driver, I don't want to restore it just to find out.    

[Rik]

That's one of the big problems with any backup program, Noreen. We put our faith in them to have done the job, but the only way to test is potentially very destructive. Acronis do seem to have lost their way a bit lately, which is worrying.

[Noreen]

What I found worrying, Rik, was that in all the months of posts on Wilders about this problem, it took Acronis literally months to make one rather unsatisfactory reply. They don't seem to be bothered about customer's problems with their products.

[Sebby]

That doesn't inspire much confidence, I must admit, Noreen. You'd think that if a program is Vista compatible, they'd release a patch pretty quickly.

[Rik]

What I found worrying, Rik, was that in all the months of posts on Wilders about this problem, it took Acronis literally months to make one rather unsatisfactory reply. They don't seem to be bothered about customer's problems with their products.

I found that way back in v8, there were ongoing issues but little interest in fixing them. It's why I skipped v9. Unfortunately, at the time, the only alternative seemed to be Ghost, and coming from Symantec was enough to put me off.

[Noreen]

I was quite happy with v9 and XP but I never had to do a restore to really test it.

[Rik]

I have done with 8 & 10, and all was well. I do confess to sweaty palms during the process, though. 

[Inactive]

I had a HDD failure a few years back, I had made a Full Back -Up using Sonic, I too had sweaty palms on restoring it all to a new HDD, however it all just went back to the date of back-up, all sorted.

I use Aconis V9 now, not sure if it will work tho, I hope I don't need to test it.

[Noreen]

Another drawback that I've discovered with the Vista Complete PC Backup is that it appears that you can only have one. After that it does an incremental backup on the previous one. I'd rather be able to keep one Backup of the starting setup and another of its recent state which I could change over time. I think that I'll keep the Vista starting setup backup just for safety and then rely on Acronis for full drive backups from now onwards.

[Rik]

Could you not fool it by 'moving' the first backup, Noreen?

[Steve]

I have always performed a full backup of my basic program suite using acronis v9 and v10, so I know I can get back to something that works. Certainly with XP and my limited experience of vista, system restore has solved most of my problems.I always back data up automatically using acronis on a regular basis.Obviously if I have HD failure there is a bit more work for me to do than a simple restore but its good I think to get rid of some of the detritus that collects over months of use.

[Noreen]

Could you not fool it by 'moving' the first backup, Noreen?

Don't think so, Rik, because the Windows Recovery Environment which is the CD that Sebby made, is where you have the option to restore the Complete PC Backup and that automatically refers to its own reference to the backup. If you moved the backup the restore option wouldn't know where to find it. At least I think that's what happens, I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere that you can direct the Recovery option to a backup. That would seem reasonable if you only had one backup.

[Rik]

Being a CD, though, would imply that the location of the backup is hard-coded into it. In which case, can you not just move the file from that location, in which case wouldn't it assume it was making a backup for the first time?

[Noreen]

I think that the restore option has to refer to the computer to find the position of the backup. I'd try it out so that I could see what happens but I'm nervous that it would start restoring. I'm going to leave well alone for now and rely on Acronis WHEN I get it.

[Rik]

I suspect that it creates an environment at a given location. You'd probably have to move the entire folder (or whatever), to fool it into starting afresh. However, is it creating this on your internal HD? If so, it wouldn't be much held if that had failed.

[Noreen]

No it has to be created on an external device, HD or CDs/DVDs or similar.

[Rik]

So, if the device changes, would it not assume no previous backup?