Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent Software for Backing Up Your OS Installation, November 4, 2007
By | Jesse H. Schexnayder "schex86" (Fairbanks, AK)
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A couple of months ago there was a power outage, and even though my UPS kicked in, the auto-shutdown software didn't. When I tried to reboot, there was a Blue Screen of Death waiting for me. I tried everything from reinstalling XP, to recovery console, safe mode, BIOS fiddling, nothing worked.
I didn't have any backups, so I was out of luck. But as I went through the incredibly time consuming drudgery of reinstalling Windows and 50 or so other programs that I had on my original install, I kept thinking to myself, "there has to be a better way".
So I decided to spare no expense. My first purchase was a 2TB external hard-drive (split to 1TB with RAID 1), and my second was this software. And it works like a charm for my use (btw, I don't consider DVD backups to be a viable option).
The first step in backing up my new install was to establish a secure zone on my RAIDed drive (about 25 GB). This is a special partition invisible to the OS (and viruses, spyware, etc.) so it can't be accidentally deleted or modified. This was simple to do, and the hidden partition's size can be adjusted at any time.
I performed the initial backup with no problems. A previous reviewer mentioned that the green progress bar wasn't providing sufficient feedback. For my purposes, however, I don't back up individual sets of files or folders, I back up the entire hard drive, bit for byte, to include the MFTs and Boot sectors, etc. I don't need to see what's being copied at any given moment, because I already know its either a '0' or a '1'. Anyway, compression is decent (9 GB for 20 GB worth of files) and fast (usually 10-15 minutes to complete).
I've also set up a scheduled weekly backup which is done "incrementally" and only saves the changes from the original. TrueImage will automatically delete old backups to make room for new ones, as you begin to fill up your "secure zone".
I've actually begun to use this in lieu of "System Restore". I try to keep most of my regularly updated stuff on my RAIDed external drive now (I actually moved "My Documents" there) and anytime I have a serious problem I can actually restore the system to a previous state week by week. I've already done this 3 or 4 times in the past 2 months using a boot CD created by the software and it works flawlessly.
It's a good feeling to know that you can reverse any changes made to your system. There's even a feature called 'Try and Decide' that let's you do this in real-time and undo any changes made during an installation or other activity. If you're looking for a robust backup solution that perhaps doesn't involve backing up to CDs/DVDs, this software will work for you.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
EXCELLENT Product - even backs up Linux, November 9, 2007
By | A. Attanasio (New Jersey, USA)
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I recently have installed Ubuntu (Linux) and dual boot with Windows XP.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn Acronis 11 not only will backup Windows but also Linux. I'm now effortlessly able to backup both my Windows partition and my Linux partition to my external hard drive. I previously had version 9 and just upgraded to version 11. I know , down the road, if I purchase a new computer, it will have Vista which Version 11 is compatible with.
Five stars from me !
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3 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
decent software but still has a few kinks, November 2, 2007
By | Brad A. North "BradleyA" (Gladstone, MO)
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True Image Home Version 11.0 Build 8027 was used for this review.
I installed this software on Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and every available update from Microsoft Update service. It appeared to perform a backup of my C: drive partition with no observable problems. However, during the backup process, all the software shows is a current progress bar and a total progress bar. The only bar that has any relevance is the current progress bar. I never ever seen the total progress bar move until possibly after the entire operation was completed. I cant stand any kind of software that monopolizes the entire computer for several minutes on end without ANY KIND OF RELEVANT DATA being displayed on-screen about what it is doing. Could the current file/sector being copied been displayed? Yes. Could the remaining number of sectors/files left to be copied have been displayed? Yes. Could an estimated required number of DVDs been shown? Yes. Could the start time and finish time in minutes have been shown? Yes. What did the programmers of this software show during the entire backup process? A green bar that advances about every 10 minutes. At least have an advanced options choice to see whats going on. Anyway, moving on. After an hour or so backup procedure of approximately 20 gigabytes which ultimately required 3 full DVDS and about 1/8th of a 4th DVD, the backup completes. So now, I attempt to explore the archive by putting in DVD 1. The logical disc to start on in almost any circumstance. Not here. The software wants the last disc of the archive. Why? I have no clue. Maybe the programmers were so shortsighted that they thought it would be more useful to save a couple of megabytes of space for the user than to write the "table of contents" of the backup on each DVD. Considering DVDs can be purchased as cheap as .18 cents a disc I personally would opted for having the TOC written on every DVD rather than having to swap a disc every time I blink, which is what this software had me doing. Okay, so the disc swap and the quirky request to start on the last DVD instead of the first are issues I press through and accept. My backup is whats important. Well, I never could verify that my backup was completed successfully. When I tried to explore the backup I had just made, the software had me swapping my backup DVDs like I was a plate juggling clown. Only I was juggling DVDs instead of plates. I felt like an idiot. Please insert disc 1, 3, 4, 2, 1, 4, 3, 4, 1. This was ridiculous. There should be absolutely no reason to request the same DVD more than once just to explore the archives.
I have 4 DVDs of data I cannot explore let alone restore. And even if I am doing something wrong somewhere it shouldnt be this difficult to figure out. I am a very experienced Windows user. I've been using Windows since 95 came out.
Maybe, just maybe, this software works better at backing up data to a larger removable source where disc swapping isnt required. I may try that method on a different day if I can justify wasting even more time on this product that has definitely failed to impress me on the first try.
edit: Okay, I went back and tried to restore my backup again. I found a "much" easier way to restore a backup from multiple DVDs. When I tried to restore my backup "from" the DVDs the software had me juggling the 4 DVDs like a plate juggling clown. So I decided to copy the .TIB files(True Images file format) from each DVD to the hard drive, making sure they were in the same location, and attempt to do a restore that way. I was much happier with this restoration method. There was no constant request from True Image to swap DVDs and the partial restore was successful.
Bottom Line: This software seems to work very well IF you do not split your backup over multiple cds/dvds. If you have no other choice than to backup your hard drive over multiple cds/dvds, make sure that when you go to restore the backup you copy ALL of your .TIB files to the same directory of the target hard drive and THEN begin restoring. Otherwise, you will be juggling DVDs until only God knows when. After 11 different request to swap DVDs from a 4-DVD backup set during an attempt to perform a restore I simply cancelled the operation and moved on.
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