Using Acronis to Install New HDD

Hoping someone in forums today is familiar with Acronis products ... True Image 9 (TI9) and Disk Director 10 (DD10). I was on the final restore to new drive, went to bed to take a nap. When got up, wife informed me of a power "Black out" --- Oh, great, all I needed was Murphy jumping into this project. I booted up box/new drive and error out "No MBR ".
The question I need answered...
Did the power loss caused the problem or when I did NOT include the following option during the restore process ... MBR and Track 0.
The following quote is a running thread I have posted at Acronis Forums. Like most forums, Friday through Sunday can be slow post days, I'm anxious for a solution.

 

Thought I would update this thread ...

If my first pass would not have been spanked by a power outage, new drive would have been restored on the original pass. On initial pass I did not include option MBR and Track 0 and was told later it was not required. Option would be used if user has more than one OS and required "Boot Managers ". Another situation involves some issues with Acronis True Image and Vista.

Over all, I am very pleased with the outcome. Computer works great. Checking Disk Management and Disk properties all is good. XP moved default settings into play per new drive ....
Indexing - Both partitions - I disabled both.
System Restore - Both partitions - disabled D partition, a non-system drive.
Will have to monitor System restore. Prior to drive update, XP always created a new copy once per day and in most causes automatically when new software was installed. Today I noticed XP has NOT created any copies since drive install two days ago (system has been warm/cold booted approximately 5 times since drive install).

With nothing to compare to, I am pleased with Acronis programs. The program(s) works within Windows and if required (when boot drive not available) via rescue boot disk. For myself, this is a nice advantage... only one set of programs to learn, since both views are the same.
My only complaint is image restore time. I can create an image in 12 minutes. To restore that same image takes 3 hours and 10 minutes .... but it works, and that is the most important feature.

 

I've been an avid "Ghost" user for more years than I care to admit but have played with an older version of Acronis (the one that was offered up free of charge last year) on a couple of systems (including the wife's laptop with no FDD).

After encountering a major problem with a drive ID on a cloned (Ghosted) HDD where I also wanted to put the original drive back in the system after wiping it (as a non-system drive), I decided its time to start test driving something else as a potential replacement. Just ordered Acronis TI V.10 last Thursday and will start using it. Hopefully, it doesn't wind up like my last version of PowerQuest's Drive Image (2002) which as of this writing, is still in its original wrapper.

 

System Restore "Create Daily Restore Point" has returned back to "Automatic" ... cool ... this HDD upgrade is officially completed.

 

Their is always room for additional rescue / support tools.
Acronis TI V.10 is Vista compatible. Might want to read the support links provided to me in my Acronis/Wilderness forums (See "Acronis Forums" in my first post - Vista sector issue and When NOT to use MBR/Track 0 with Dells). Have fun

 

Is it Dennis? It wasn’t a few weeks ago and I have not heard that it has been fixed yet. It’s partly vista compatible under the right conditions, but if you’re one of the 10-20% of people with the wrong conditions, well……..

 

Their will always be teething pains when a new OS is released. With the bulk of the computers being sold today via OEM's / mass production, Vista is pushed, end user gets trapped in "re-inventing the wheel ". A MUST read on support forums for Vista user, Vista: Are there issues with the disk ID?, an ongoing thread for Acronis TI. For myself, I'm very happy with XP and will stay there for at least another two years plus.

 

For sure Dennis there are going to be problems with new OSes, what I find unacceptable is that a company is claiming their product is "Vista Compatible" when they know full well that it is not. On that thread at Wilders the Acronis support person admits that there is a problem for a percentage of users, but I don’t see any mention of this on the Acronis site for people buying the product. If you are one of the unlucky ones then you are told you can repair things with the Vista DVD, but if you don’t have a full Vista DVD, well you’ve had it.

Acronis have again admitted the problem 4 days ago in this thread.
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=178723

I just wanted to point out to people reading this thread that True Image 10 is not all it claims and not "Vista Compatible" in the sense that I personally would expect.

 

Appreciate the comments and the warning. Haven't read any of the referenced commentary but will get to that, for sure. Fortunately, this author isn't overly concerned about the Vista issues because I'm XP Pro and 2003 Server exclusively at this point in time. Ran the Vista Beta on a test machine for a while and wasn't overly impressed but have to get back to Vista at some point in time so that I know the OS.

Will be receiving my Acronis software today and am looking forward it. As stated previously, have been a big supporter of 2003 Ghost but after encountering an HDD ID problem affecting a cloned drive used in the same system as the drive it was cloned from, I thought it would be smart to see how Acronis handles this. Am also looking forward to what I think are considerable advantages that Acronis has over Ghost re: incremental imaging.

Thanks for the heads up.

 

Will be eagerly awaiting for your impressions of the product. I have chose not to use incremental, not so much as feature, but as my backup scheme. I do not install much software anymore and when I do, look for a zip/exe install run from a folder. Everything else is on non-system drive which is auto updated 3 times per day (SyncBack). In addition I keep System Restore active (has not let me down on 2 occasions I used). Another feature I have not tried is
"Disk Clone ". When seeking a simplified process on Acronis boards to upgrade my new drive, this was the suggestion I followed ....
Turn computer off.
Pull old drive.
Install new drive.
Boot from Acronis rescue disk
Check BIOS - does it see new drive - mine did - continue boot.
Partition drive (used Acronis Disk Director 10).
Load True Image - Restore old drive image to new drive.
Boot from new drive - DONE

As with all projects of this nature, your mileage may vary. That's the nature of the beast ... as Murphy gleefully chuckles!!!

 

I hesitated before posting because my initial take is just that - initial. So far, so good and am very impressed with the speed vis-a-vis Ghost. Took me 4 minutes and 47 seconds to image a 36.26 Gig System drive with 12.3 Gigs on it. 4 minutes 14 seconds to verify the image. Used this on another system first and got similar speeds although I didn't time that one. Guess I'll have to throw a new drive in at least one of the two and test the restoration before too much time goes by. Will try cloning as soon as the need arises in a real world situation (that will happen soon enough).

I appreciate the comments and although I haven't yet set a schedule for incremental backups, I'll get to that too. I've been a big fan of Karen's Replicator for more years than I should admit to and make daily automated backups of all critical data files. Have used this strategy in concert with periodically scheduled images and (knock on wood), haven't lost anything for at least 5-6 years.

I also see that Acronis permits imaging to networked drives so will do a little experimenting with imaging current backups (both images and data) to my server. Since I'm one of these types that uses multiple drives, I see this as a pretty straight forward excercise. Will post observations of any relevence.

Thanks again

 

Good Morning Rockster

Glad to see your first "hands on" was a good one.
Just a few generalizations / Acronis....

May have a few teething pains with SATA / drivers. This seemed more pronounced restoring from an external drives (Acronis not seeing external drive). My two older computers are PATA and kids new computer is SATA. All three computers have been imaged to there internal drive and external with no conflicts. I have restored my PATA twice. Once from internal D partition and from external when installing new drive.

You should see best compatibility with Seagate/Maxtor HDD of later release. Seagate is sending out new drives with watered down utilities acquired from Acronis Disk Director and True Image.

Acronis UPDATE and UPGRADE rules.
Updates are free, Upgrades require repurchase. First, get yourself registered and download most recent version (update) of version 10 True Image. True Image 11 will be released sometime this summer/fall (??)... this requires a purchase. BUT recent buyers of version 10 get grandfathered. I can not remember the time allowance. I believe it is 6 months from date of purchase and you qualify for upgrade (version 11) free, but may be as short as a month. So best check this out first chance you get. You will have to ask/request for this, they will not auto-upgrade you.

 

Dennis:

Thanks. I'll keep my eyes open re: the updates and have already received some promotional literature re: V 11.0.

I'll be able to answer the SATA issues pretty soon as most of my drives are just that. The first System drive I imaged was a 36Gig Raptor, next machine was a 40 Gig Samsung (36.26) and the next one will be another 36 Gig Raptor. I've got four SATA's in the first machine and six in each of the other two along with PATA removables in each. (Hehehe - don't get me started.)

I don't use externals per se but will try writing an image to a little USB 2.0 laptop drive I carry around for copying off critical files in times of emergency. I did my wife's laptop (also SATA) to DVD's not too long ago using Version 7.0.

I'll be out of pocket for a week or so beginning this weekend, but will keep you posted as I learn this software. Thanks again.

 

Another update .........

Just used this software to clone a problematic drive and its been idiot-proofed. Very nice. Ghost will now be put to pasture.

 

When I was looking for imaging software, this was the most important feature. I like simply things.