Acronis
Thread Starter
Plastic PPRuNer
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 1,902
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From: Rochechouart, France
Acronis
This isn't a puff, O Mighty Mods, just a tip for good software.
Richard has several times mentioned disk imaging and partitioning software from Acronis. I didn't investigate further, assuming that Norton's "Ghost" was pretty much the standard and relying on free/shareware for imaging and juggling partitions. Bit of a pain but gets the job done.
I never managed to get my RAID working and got fed-up screwing around with it. Actually I was scared of messing up my quite complex and (I reluctantly admit it) very stable WinXP Pro installation. I didn't really need RAID for 24/24 365/365 redundancy anyway and was planning to use RAID 1 anyway for security. It's easy to store file backups offsite (I just copy the directories to one of the spare HDDs I have in drive caddies and store them in a safe in the garden shed) but what if the O/S goes tits-up? Just couldnt stand the idea of reinstalling everything and trying to restore a painfully tuned system. It seemed more sensible to periodically image the drive onto an identical drive and store it.
So I downloaded Acronis "TrueImage" and (since they offered a discount) "Disk Director" - gotta say, I'm very impressed. Not cheap, but obviously very carefully designed software. Good interface, multiple restore modes (including a boot floppy or CD system), support for Ext2/3 and Reiser partitions, simple partition resize/move/copy and lots of other goodies. Some overlap between the two utilities but worth getting both. I haven't used Norton that much but this looks cleaner, faster and with many many more useful corners. First thing I did was shift my son's system to a bigger drive - quick, easy no hiccoughs (through Norton did pop up and ask to be reactivated and was with no probs) booted first go. Then imaged my system - same story, even GRUB survived and Linux boots nicely too.
Definitely overkill for Joe Sixpack but very much worth it if you juggle a lot of drives and systems.
Richard, thanks for the tip.
Richard has several times mentioned disk imaging and partitioning software from Acronis. I didn't investigate further, assuming that Norton's "Ghost" was pretty much the standard and relying on free/shareware for imaging and juggling partitions. Bit of a pain but gets the job done.
I never managed to get my RAID working and got fed-up screwing around with it. Actually I was scared of messing up my quite complex and (I reluctantly admit it) very stable WinXP Pro installation. I didn't really need RAID for 24/24 365/365 redundancy anyway and was planning to use RAID 1 anyway for security. It's easy to store file backups offsite (I just copy the directories to one of the spare HDDs I have in drive caddies and store them in a safe in the garden shed) but what if the O/S goes tits-up? Just couldnt stand the idea of reinstalling everything and trying to restore a painfully tuned system. It seemed more sensible to periodically image the drive onto an identical drive and store it.
So I downloaded Acronis "TrueImage" and (since they offered a discount) "Disk Director" - gotta say, I'm very impressed. Not cheap, but obviously very carefully designed software. Good interface, multiple restore modes (including a boot floppy or CD system), support for Ext2/3 and Reiser partitions, simple partition resize/move/copy and lots of other goodies. Some overlap between the two utilities but worth getting both. I haven't used Norton that much but this looks cleaner, faster and with many many more useful corners. First thing I did was shift my son's system to a bigger drive - quick, easy no hiccoughs (through Norton did pop up and ask to be reactivated and was with no probs) booted first go. Then imaged my system - same story, even GRUB survived and Linux boots nicely too.
Definitely overkill for Joe Sixpack but very much worth it if you juggle a lot of drives and systems.
Richard, thanks for the tip.
Last edited by Mac the Knife; 8th August 2004 at 19:44.
The Oracle
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,902
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From: Naples, Florida U.S.A.
Mac the Knife,
Glad to hear it worked for you.
I recommend it over Ghost, since it will let you clone to External Drives and does complete backups of the OS within Windows without having to reboot.
The final feature which really makes it worth it, (I use for businesses), is the automated daily backup to an External Hard Drive.
Take Care,
Richard
Glad to hear it worked for you.
I recommend it over Ghost, since it will let you clone to External Drives and does complete backups of the OS within Windows without having to reboot.
The final feature which really makes it worth it, (I use for businesses), is the automated daily backup to an External Hard Drive.
Take Care,
Richard
The Oracle
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,902
Likes: 0
From: Naples, Florida U.S.A.
Mountaineer,
It can make an image of your entire system and compress it for storage.
You can find the full list of features here:
Acronis True Image 8.0
Take Care,
Richard
It can make an image of your entire system and compress it for storage.
You can find the full list of features here:
Acronis True Image 8.0
Take Care,
Richard
Thread Starter
Plastic PPRuNer
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 1,902
Likes: 0
From: Rochechouart, France
Briefly, yes it can.
A boot manager is included that is reputed to pick up the boot code for eah bootable partition and configure itself automatically (haven't tried it).
The Acronis boot manager (which looks easy to modify manually) WILL replace the original one so you would be well advised to have boot floppys or CDs for the other OSes before you start tinkering with it.
They do warn you about this in no uncertain terms. If you get stuck in Linux you an always use a Knoppix or any run-from-CD distro to start Linux and then chroot into your Linux and fixup GRUB or LILO from there.
In Windows you may need to modifyy boot.ini
A boot manager is included that is reputed to pick up the boot code for eah bootable partition and configure itself automatically (haven't tried it).
The Acronis boot manager (which looks easy to modify manually) WILL replace the original one so you would be well advised to have boot floppys or CDs for the other OSes before you start tinkering with it.
They do warn you about this in no uncertain terms. If you get stuck in Linux you an always use a Knoppix or any run-from-CD distro to start Linux and then chroot into your Linux and fixup GRUB or LILO from there.
In Windows you may need to modifyy boot.ini
