Acronis - Norton - Dantz

I usually put considerable effort into decisions regarding which software I purchase. In the security arena I’ve been a Norton customer for years. Norton can be a love it or hate it brand sometimes; I personally have had no problems with Norton products.

I never bothered with backups on my last computer, the old Gateway. When it came to backups for my new computer, I decided that I will use a disk imaging program. After some research, the choices are Acronis True Image, Norton Ghost or Dantz Retrospect. Backups will be made to a 200GB Western Digital Essential USB 2.0 external hard drive.

Lovers or haters of any of the above mentioned imaging programs are encouraged to chime in now!

 

Hi Wlafeen,

I can only comment as a confirmed Acronis True Image user.
This is one of the few programmes on my machine which has always been 100% reliable when needed.
Support is very good, free updates are often available to bring improvements, and it has saved me from two major failures by re-installing the C:\ partition after HD failures.
Highly recommended.

Roger

 

I found Acronis Truimage to be very good as well. Certainly saved me a lot of hard work, reinstalling everything, when I break Windows!

 

Purchase none of the above. Go FREE with Drive Image XML. This is not a Symantec or PowerQuest product, it's published as freeware by Runtime Software.

It's a GUI program, similar to Ghost or Acronis...only easier. You can continue using your computer while it's making the image.

The chink in the armour might be that you have to make your own PE (Preinstallation Environment) CD to execute a restore. I used the recommended BartPE.

You do need a copy of Windows XP w/SP1 or SP2 slipstreamed. The other two files you need for the Bart PE are the Drive Image XML.exe and the Drive Image XML plug-in (which is also free from Runtime).

This thing works!

 

Havent used anything but Acronis and it works well. Has not failed me yet!

I understand they are working on a 64 bit version but not there yet.
Heres a link to their forum:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/forumdisplay.php?daysprune=&f=65

While its not error free, my gateway hasnt ever had a problem with it.

savagcl

 

The Drive Image XML is pretty good for those that haven't purchased any other product. If I was to purchase, I'd go with Acronis over Ghost. But that XML is free, why buy?

The operative words on the Runtime site are "...currently distributed as freeware..." Personally, I recommend that people just download it and figure out what to do with it later.

I've found that the original freeware distributions of software tend to work just fine for a long time after it becomes payware.

 

wlafeen--Doesn't the WD Drive come with Dantz Retrospect? It came with mine. Works like a charm. And it can not only Backup (to encrypted, compressed files) but also make a Duplicate, like the old Ghost Clone.
I do not think the new versions of Ghose do a clone anymore.

 

Cool - thanks for all your posts. Need to give Acronis a shot.

My WD drive is an Essential 2.0 which does not include Dantz. I think the WD Dual-Option model and/or other WD models have Dantz but the Essential 2 is just and empty FAT32 drive.

 

Hi all, I have just recently purchased Paragon Drive Image 7 I have made several Images of seperate partitions, but have not yet used it to re-install.
Someone some time back on this Forum highly recomended Paragon Drive Image 7. If someone has actually used it I would like to know the exact process on how it was done, this would take some weight of my shoulders if I knew the right way for a painless Restore for when I will need it.
Thanks
hawk22

 

I just had a week long problem with a new Acronis release.

Turns out that it was my BIOS that was out of date. The acronis worked
perfectly after that was updated. The acronis support folks were very
helpfull in determining what the problem was and stuck with me until the
problem was solved.

savagcl

 

Hi,
I've been using Acronis True Image for a long time.
It's high qualify prodact, I just love it, becouse it saved me many times out of reinstalling Windows.
Recommend!