How do you backup your system?

Quote from kowboy:

....But there appears to be a limitation in that Acronis "cannot create and restore a disk image when launched from the bootable rescue media." ..
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The "bootable rescue media" is usually a CD you have to create before you can use True Image in a real crash: When your harddisks crashes, your PC cannot boot from it, you will have to boot your (any) system from another medium, usually a CD. True Image will create such a CD with all the drivers needed to restore your system from an external drive connected e.g. via USB.

The Limitations mentioned can only refer to the Trial version, the full version does not have these limitations.

Regards

Bernd Kuerbs
 
Anybody having trouble recovering from DVD in True Image 9?

I can backup and recover off my usb drive fine.

I burn this same image to DVD. I check the image with Acronis and all's well.

But when I boot into Acronis (from the bootable CD) I can't recover from the DVD. I get a "not the latest" warning, then a E400040012 error, and then the "Processing" screen hangs for hours.

Funny, I can boot into Acronis and recover from the same image off the usb drive.

I'm on the latest build of Acronis and it's a small image file (at this point) so multiple DVD's is not an issue. I'm not burning to DVD within Acronis (whole other can of worms there). I'm just burning the image file from drive to DVD.

I have been round and round with Acronis support. They've had be try everything short of a stripping naked and doing a rain dance (that's likely next).

The recovery from usb drive is nice, but I'd feel better if I could recover from my somewhat trusty DVD (which I keep in the safety deposit box). The DVD feature is why I went with Acronis (versus Casper, etc.). Heck, even Windows Backup can recover from DVD.

Any ideas out there?
 
Quote from AmbushHillbilly:

Anybody having trouble recovering from DVD in True Image 9?

I can backup and recover off my usb drive fine.

I burn this same image to DVD. I check the image with Acronis and all's well.

But when I boot into Acronis (from the bootable CD) I can't recover from the DVD. I get a "not the latest" warning, then a E400040012 error, and then the "Processing" screen hangs for hours.

Funny, I can boot into Acronis and recover from the same image off the usb drive.

I'm on the latest build of Acronis and it's a small image file (at this point) so multiple DVD's is not an issue. I'm not burning to DVD within Acronis (whole other can of worms there). I'm just burning the image file from drive to DVD.

I have been round and round with Acronis support. They've had be try everything short of a stripping naked and doing a rain dance (that's likely next).

The recovery from usb drive is nice, but I'd feel better if I could recover from my somewhat trusty DVD (which I keep in the safety deposit box). The DVD feature is why I went with Acronis (versus Casper, etc.). Heck, even Windows Backup can recover from DVD.

Any ideas out there?
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1. I'm not a fan of imaging to optic media (had it fail too many times), so maybe you want to take my view with a grain of salt.

2. Rather than imaging, why don't you just clone to a separate HD. Much faster and much more reliable.
 
Quote from gnome:

1. I'm not a fan of imaging to optic media (had it fail too many times), so maybe you want to take my view with a grain of salt.

2. Rather than imaging, why don't you just clone to a separate HD. Much faster and much more reliable.
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agree 200 percent!
nono
 
Quote from gnome:

1. I'm not a fan of imaging to optic media (had it fail too many times), so maybe you want to take my view with a grain of salt.

2. Rather than imaging, why don't you just clone to a separate HD. Much faster and much more reliable.
More...

Can I clone to a partitioned usb drive (have three partitions on it, one for each computer and another for separate backups)? Not much documentation with TI9 for the uninitiated.
 
Sorry for the late report on my journey. But I am happy to say success! I had several problems and with some email support and trail and error I accomplished my goal.

First the setup:

M$2000pro
Office2003
Other misc. software/Data
ZoneAlarm free
AVG free
Etc…
Partition magic

Used this partition:C:5gigs May change this to bigger
F: 2 gig Page file
G: 20 gig Programs all programs other than the os
H: 20 gig data storage
The rest of the hd is unused
I installed a removable hd drawer. I used StarTech because they have metal drawers and I read reports that some makers use plastic and have a tendency to break.
Problems:
Could not get Office to clone. Tried several times/methods. Not sure where my problem was but suddenly it worked. What I did was format the hd and install M$2000 , Partition Magic. Partitioned the hd. Install ZoneAlarm and Office 2003 in the program partition. Updated all. Installed all addins I use and installed the other programs. For some reason the clone worked. Tried this several times after making changes to make sure everything was working correctly. To make sure the clone hd is not updating, you can setup ZA to ask for permission before anything tries to update. So I know that the clone is not updating or contacting anyone unless I allow it to.

I also had a persistent problem with my page file. I kept getting a “Page file not large enough” error. I kept increasing it till the error went away. Don’t know what the problem was.

What I do now is Saturday morning I update all data, software, virus software,etc… and clone the hd again. Like I said earlier, this setup has been working for several weeks now and no known problems.

I do have a question. Is there a way for me to access my “master hd” to update it without disturbing the cables to the hd’s? I have them both on cs but at the moment, I slide the master hd in and unplug the cable to the cloned hd. When I am done updating, I turn the computer off, plug in the clone drive, and clone it again.

tia,

nt
 
Quote from AmbushHillbilly:

Can I clone to a partitioned usb drive (have three partitions on it, one for each computer and another for separate backups)? Not much documentation with TI9 for the uninitiated.
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Not sure about that. You could image to a partition. I'm sure imaging to a USB HD will be much more reliable than to an optic medium... however it still might be slow due to the algorithmic conversion of the process.
 
I'm using ReadyNAS NV from infrant. This is network attached raid array for up to 2T. You can get it diskless and grow as needed. It can fetch your data automatically from your shared folders over network. I got it just 2 days ago and happy so far (but I'm still testing it).
 
Quote from 64c2:

I run Windows 2K and need a good way to backup my 2 PC's -- any recommendations that are easy and not too expensive?

Can both computers be backed up to 1 external drive?

I did buy an external drive but don't know which software is best.

I am not interested in an online system where my data is offsite.
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I bought a Maddog external drive and use Win XP to schedule the task of backing up the data every Monday around 2am. Then I tell it to back up again on Thursday at the same time. The backups to the external hard drive overwrite each other. Why two times?

Suppose the Mon backup gets interrupted or bombs with an error (i.e., a power outage). The Mon backup becomes useless. Without the Thursday backup I'm screwed if I happen to crash before the next Monday backup. Its a remote chance but not worth taking.

Good luck.
 
I used to be a system engineer/consultant. Used to troubleshoot the server setup/backups. The more I do the more that I have to maintain/support.

When it comes to my own setup, I'd like to K.I.S.S. I have a mobile rack installed in my pc for the second HD. Every week I copy my data under 3 folders to the second HD. Every month I burn my data to a DVD. In case of any disaster that I have to leave in a hurry I can grab either the DVD or the second HD.

Right now I use 1 pc & 1 laptop. They are plenty for me to update the patches. I also have a server not been used. Any time my pc or latop crashed & beyond repair I can always install/bring up the server in a short time.
 
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