Acronis Experience

[Scott Hanna]

The problem with that method is if the drive is bad you can't clone it... you need is a incremental backup that can be restored to a new drive... opsys included.

this is very true. Cloning will simply copy everything. I thought from your OP when you said "upgrading", I thought you meant putting a larger hard drive into a computer, which is what I did. I didn't know you meant you needed to replace a bad drive. I have no idea how to back up and restore a HD after it goes bad

 

[jokerswild]

this is very true. Cloning will simply copy everything. I thought from your OP when you said "upgrading", I thought you meant putting a larger hard drive into a computer, which is what I did. I didn't know you meant you needed to replace a bad drive. I have no idea how to back up and restore a HD after it goes bad

Yes I was upgrading but, I still haven't figured out what to do if I had a bad drive.

 

[SoftJock Rick]

Yes I was upgrading but, I still haven't figured out what to do if I had a bad drive.

That's the easy part

You schedule Acronis to run nightly, so you have a full image backup every night (to an external drive). I don't do incremental, I just have it rewrite the entire thing. Every few days, I rotate out the external drives to another building. I have the Plus Pack, so I can restore to different hardware -- just buy a new lappy, insert startup disc, and up and running.

If yer in business, you have to follow this regimen religiously.

 

[DjDennis]

But rick its not backing up the WHOLE drive thats needed

you only backup what you have created and thats all thats needed..

for installed software and an operating system why back that up
if you stuff that up then all your doing is saving the stuffed software

so yeah - thats all I back up is the things that are created

my documents
music etc

no software or operating system period

I have even created pics on what I do to systems and what is to be backed up correctly
or you will end up stuffing things in the long run

but you do what you do i'll stick with the lower side so I know just the things I create is saved
my software can be reinstalled as I keep the original

 

[SoftJock Rick]

but you do what you do i'll stick with the lower side so I know just the things I create is saved
my software can be reinstalled as I keep the original

I keep the originals too -- but it takes too much time to restore each individual piece of software, get the OS to my requirements, etc.


If my computer bonked right now (let's say it got shot by a terrorist) -- I can pick up a new one, plug in my external with the backup image, boot Acronis from CD, and it will be up and running in half an hour. Exactly as it was before the axis of evil shot the old one.


I have hundreds of software products loaded on my machines, each configured just the way I want them. Why would I want to spend a week reloading everything, re-configuring my options, etc., when for $49, I can be up and cloned in half an hour while I have coffee...?

 

[DjDennis]

thats also what I do Rick

I keep special images of the WHOLE OS on a dvd as long as it doesnt go over 8.4GB DVD
then the whole system can be up again working in 30mins