Now that Acronis has taken a dump, what's a good imaging SW?

[Doomer]

Used Trueimage for years but after v9, they slid into the dumpster. I'm through with them and am now looking for another imaging program that actually works. what's considered to be the best these days.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

can't you just keep using the old software?

We use an old version of Ghost here but only image 1-2 machines at a time.

 

[nordloewelabs]

SystemRescueCD. free.

 

[Doomer]

Old SW don't work with vista.

Gonna check out SystemRescueCD. Thanks.

 

[blackangst1]

Have you tried the backup/image feature in Vista? I found it worked very well. For home use anyway.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

just curious what issue did you have with trueimage? and which version?

 

[Doomer]

Didn't know Vista had an image feature. Does Win 7 have it also?

Version 11 home edition. It's just totally flakey. Hangs, aborts with cryptic error messages. Most just stops imaging whenever and wherever it feels like it. acromis has really dropped the ball. They once owned the market but now their rep is mud.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

ahh ok.. i use true image home 2009 and have been loving it so far.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Doomer
Didn't know Vista had an image feature. Does Win 7 have it also?

Version 11 home edition. It's just totally flakey. Hangs, aborts with cryptic error messages. Most just stops imaging whenever and wherever it feels like it. acromis has really dropped the ball. They once owned the market but now their rep is mud.

Yes it does, and its pretty nice. Start menu then type "backup" in the search bar, and choose the backup and restore center.

 

[bruceb]

Acronis should work fine with Vista .. But as with any imaging program, it is best to run it from the rescue cd, where it is the ONLY program that is running while the image is being made. Any image made while the OS is running or with any APPS open will not
work properly (I only image the way I said, and most IT depts probably do it that way as well)

 

[readymix]

Originally posted by: Doomer
Didn't know Vista had an image feature. Does Win 7 have it also?

works good for me. good enough that i stopped using acronis altogether (v. 11). with vista, it's only available in business and ultimate.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

i've made images from inside the OS before and had no problems...

does it take longer to do an image from the acronis rescue cd?

 

[Nothinman]

i've made images from inside the OS before and had no problems...

As long as the program uses volume shadow copy it should be fine, although it's still safer to use a Live CD.

does it take longer to do an image from the acronis rescue cd?

Technically it should be faster since there will be no I/O contention, however now you have the time required to reboot as well so it depends.

 

[evident]

whats wrong w/ acronis? i have true image home echo or something and it works fine imaging my drives.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: Chiefcrowe
i've made images from inside the OS before and had no problems...
does it take longer to do an image from the acronis rescue cd?

A lot depends on what kind of imaging. There is backup imaging. That requires restoration. I never use that. I use the CLONE utility and create a duplicate HDD. That is best done from the bootable media, not within the OS. Some of the reasons:

1. It is OS independent.
2. No reboot is required to do it.
3. In Acronis, the Linux based GUI is hugely better than the command prompt screen.
4. It is faster and more accurate.

One caveat with TrueImage - for Vista, version 11 or higher is necessary to insure bootability of the cloned drive.

Many errors in imaging are caused by trying to image drives that need CHKDSK /f /r run on them.

Also, before imaging a drive, it is useful to do a full optimization/defrag of the drive.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

thanks corkyg!

next time i will image from the boot cd.

yes I usually defrage and delete anything unneeded before doing backups to make them faster.

 

[gigahertz20]

Check out this thread I created awhile back,
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=33&threadid=2319932



I would use Macrium Reflect Free edition instead of Acronis, it does the basics and is suppose to be pretty fast.
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp



Also, a question popped in my head after reading this thread, maybe corkyg can answer it. If you want to format your hard drive by using killdisk or some other utility to write 0's to every sector, what would be the best way to make a complete image of your hard drive before you do that format?

If you just create a backup image of your hard drive, that will not copy the boot sector will it? You have to use the CLONE feature correct, if you want to be able to format your hard drive and then restore it and be able to boot up?

 

[Doomer]

Cool, thanks for the links.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: gigahertz20
If you want to format your hard drive by using killdisk or some other utility to write 0's to every sector, what would be the best way to make a complete image of your hard drive before you do that format?
If you just create a backup image of your hard drive, that will not copy the boot sector will it? You have to use the CLONE feature correct, if you want to be able to format your hard drive and then restore it and be able to boot up?

If you backup your harddrive and then restore the back up, the boot sector will be there. If you clone the drive it will be there immediately.

BTW, TrueImage 2009 has a built in set of drive cleaning utilities. Also, Acronis has just started their own forum for all their products.

Acronis

It's got growing pains and is a little bit on the slow side, but it will grow and get better. It is modded by Acronis techs.

 

[Raincity]

After converting to Win 7 from XP I ran into the same issue with True Image 9 not working with Win 7. I downloaded the True Image 2010 beta and it worked fine but was more than I needed. I ended up going with Maxtor Maxblast 5, a striped down version of True Image 10 and it does everything I need it to do.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Windows Home Server.

 

[Schadenfroh]

I have heard good things about Ghost For Linux:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...u_karmic_leopard&num=1

 

[EarthwormJim]

Originally posted by: Doomer
Didn't know Vista had an image feature. Does Win 7 have it also?

Version 11 home edition. It's just totally flakey. Hangs, aborts with cryptic error messages. Most just stops imaging whenever and wherever it feels like it. acromis has really dropped the ball. They once owned the market but now their rep is mud.

Have you tried updating your version 11?

I was deeply disappointed with the Vista back up btw. It's really really inflexible. I tried to transfer my Windows image from my old Samsung 500gb drive to a new WD 640gb drive, no go Windows could not do it.

Basically it needs the same exact drive that images were made from.

 

[Nothinman]

I have heard good things about Ghost For Linux:

Last I checked it was just a dumb sector-by-sector copy tool, it didn't understand any filesystems.

 

[Doomer]

Finally got around to trying the one that's built into Win 7. Ended up with a little rats nest of folders and files. Not very clean it all. But it did work. The drive is a 320gig with about 120gig used and I backed it up to a network drive.

I also did one with Trueimage 11 Home just for S&G. It too went off without a hitch so I guess it CAN work correctly occasionally. either that or Vista is to blame and everything's cool with Win 7.