Free copy of Acronis Backup Software

[GTS]

Quote from hcour:

I just went thru this w/my drives. Acronis will not work w/a "Dynamic" drive. You have to go into Disk Management and change it to "Basic".

Yep, looks like you have to upgrade to the True Image Server versions to get dynamic disk support.

 

[gnome]

Quote from traderNik:

hey gnome, you're the guy to ask this - I opened my newly installed TrueImage v 7.0 and got an error message saying that

'Acronis has detected unsupported hard disc drives. Acronis TrueImage does not support Windows Dynamic discs, EZ Drives etc.'

Now... I have an external HDD plugged in to my rig through USB - in fact this is where I was planning on making my image. It's a Western Digital Dual Option 120 GB backup.

Surely Acronis is not telling me that it can't make an image on this drive!

My main HDD is partitioned... maybe this has something to do with that since I remember seeing an option to convert my partitions to 'dynamic discs' when I was trying to eliminate the partition (something I still haven't been able to do).

Can you tell me anything about this error message? Do I need to convert my partitions to dynamic discs in disc management, and will that have any other repercussions on my system?

I will do a techguy.org search and posting to answer this myself, just thought I'd ask and try to save an hour

Thanks, I'll check back after 10:30 pm EST.

Hmmm... opened disc management and the 'C:' volume is of the type 'dynamic'.

Acronis help shows no hits when searching for 'dynamic'...

Sorry, out of my league. I never dealt with dynamic disks....

 

[FanOfFridays]

Quote from steve0617:

I have version 8.0 so I don't know if v. 7 will do this, but I make my images files right to the same partition that I'm backing up. Then I simply copy the newly created file to my external USB connected HDD.

Works perfectly. But again, this is v 8

hey Steve, Harold and gts

Okay... Harold, you said you went ahead and switched your discs to basic in WIN XP? So there's no particular problem with doing that, I guess, in terms of system performance?

Steve, imaging to the same partition and then cutting and pasting is also an interesting idea. I assume that this somehow works around the dynamic disc problem.

 

[BCE]

Quote from traderNik:

very nice, thanks. I got in there just under the wire, I think, because the offer was withdrawn at the first site above. However, I was able to get the serial number and if you can get that, Acronis will honour the offer. You won't find the right downlaod at the trials page, though - as mentioned above, you have to go to your Personal Account and there you will find the v 7.0 waiting for you.

Exclusive Computeractive Download Offer -TEMPORARILY WITHDRAWN

Due to widespread exposure of this free Computeractive download within public forums outside of the Computeractive readership, unfortunately we had been forced to temporarily withdraw this promotion due to a) the overwhelming demand placed on our server and b) that this is a closed download for Computeractive readers only.

 

[FanOfFridays]

Quote from BCE:

Exclusive Computeractive Download Offer -TEMPORARILY WITHDRAWN

Due to widespread exposure of this free Computeractive download within public forums outside of the Computeractive readership, unfortunately we had been forced to temporarily withdraw this promotion due to a) the overwhelming demand placed on our server and b) that this is a closed download for Computeractive readers only.

Yep. And anyhow, v 7.0 doesn't support dynamic discs; I did a Google search to find out how to change my WIN XP dynamic discs to basic and the procedure involves backing up all the data on the volume in question then deleting it. Unfortunately the 'delete volume' option is greyed out when I open disc management, so it is going to take me a while to figure out how to run TrueImage v 7.0 with WIN XP.

Of course, the thought has gone through my head...'just pay the $30, upgrade and then you will be saved an hour of goofing around and posting to techguy.org and waiting for an answer'.

I bill out at a hell of a lot more than $30/hour

 

[hcour]

Nik,

Are you signed in as administrator in your system? That might be the problem w/deleting the vol. Or maybe it's because it's the drive Win XP is booting/running from, so of course it wouldn't/couldn't delete itself.

H

 

[FanOfFridays]

Quote from hcour:

Nik,

Are you signed in as administrator in your system? That might be the problem w/deleting the vol. Or maybe it's because it's the drive Win XP is booting/running from, so of course it wouldn't/couldn't delete itself.

H

Aha. Errr, yes, that would be it. It's definitely the drive WIN XP is booting from. How I am supposed to access disc management (a Windows thing) without booting up from the volume that houses XP is beyond me for the moment, but Harold, don't bother spending 1/2 an hour typing up a response, I'll try to get the answer at techguy.org or something like that. I am signed in as admin.

I know how to enter setup mode, maybe the answer is to do it from setup...

 

[GTS]

Quote from traderNik:

Okay... Harold, you said you went ahead and switched your discs to basic in WIN XP? So there's no particular problem with doing that, I guess, in terms of system performance?

AFAIK, there is no performance difference between basic disks and dynamic disks (all else being equal)

Dynamic disks are a prerequisite for using some of the more advanced disk volume features, if you are not using these features then there is no advantage to having dynamic disks over basic disks
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...ddocs/en-us/dm_dynamic_overview.mspx?mfr=true

Dynamic disks provide features that basic disks do not, such as the ability to create volumes that span multiple disks (spanned and striped volumes), and the ability to create fault tolerant volumes (mirrored and RAID-5 volumes). All volumes on dynamic disks are known as dynamic volumes.

There are five types of dynamic volumes: simple, spanned, striped, mirrored, and RAID-5 Mirrored and RAID-5 volumes are fault tolerant and are available only on computers running Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, or . However, you can use a computer running Windows XP Professional to create mirrored and RAID-5 volumes on these operating systems.

Also see this: How To Convert to Basic and Dynamic Disks in Windows XP Professional
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309044/

This article describes how to convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, and how to change a dynamic disk back to a basic disk by using the Disk Management snap-in in Windows XP Professional.

 

[steve0617]

Also, you do NOT need to change your HDD to a dynamic drive to run version 8 of Acronis.

I just checked mine to make sure and all my HDDs that I use Acronis on are ALL basic drives.

Seriously, I know free rocks but consider buying the current version.

 

[GTS]

Quote from steve0617:

Also, you do NOT need to change your HDD to a dynamic drive to run version 8 of Acronis.

I just checked mine to make sure and all my HDDs that I use Acronis on are ALL basic drives.

Huh? The issue was that the non-server version of Acronis don't support dynamic disks, not that it doesn't support basic disks - I think you have it backwards.