Update on my Disk Imaging Woes

So, here’s where I’m at. Acronis has offered me a product, but unfortunately not the “server” product commented on in my prior post. They say wait a couple of weeks. Meanwhile I’ve been trying other products.

I’ve tried Paragon Software Groups Drive Image Professional. It also uses Linux and what they call PTS-DOS for their boot CD so I’m leery of this. And my trials have not been too successful. So that I could try restoring a drive with it, I tried imaging an external USB drive. Not something I would normally do, since they are mostly for backup, but I tried it anyway. I/O fault both times. Either from the boot CD or from Windows. And there’s nothing wrong with the drives, since I checked them and I used Norton Ghost 9 on them (more later).

I also tried DriveImage XML. This is freeware. It images from Windows just fine, but in order to create a boot CD you either have to use Bart’s PE or the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows. If I then boot with the created CD one of my systems will crash. Otherwise, it works. This is a possibility, but I’m still stuck with one system (of course, it’s my lamest system) that I couldn’t use it on.

I had a copy of Norton Ghost 9 that I had used at work previously. I had purchased it with my own funds and hadn’t had the company reiumburse me so when I left the company I uninstalled it and took it home. I tried this.

Unfortunately, it’s the most successful thing I’ve tried so far. I say unfortunately because I hate activated software will generally refuse to use it. But in this case I bought it for work since TI8 wouldn’t work on that hardware. So right now Norton Ghost 9 (yes, I know there’s a 10, but from what I read its only advantage over 9 is encryption) is in the lead, DriveImage XML second, and I await for the next TI9 update. Still more later.

Disk Imaging Woes

I wrote an article in October of last year, in which I said you should backup OR image your PC … either one, but at least do something.

 

At the time I had just used Acronis True Image 8 to restore one of my PCs. And it was great.  Since then I’ve upgraded to 9.  And what a mistake that was!

 

To restore a drive with TI9 you use a boot CD which boots into Linux and then allows you to restore the drive (you can’t restore from Windows because if you booted your PC into Windows your drive would be in use … and locked).  All imaging programs require you to boot by CD or floppy to avoid this.  But when you boot with the CD, TI9 sees external hard drives (which is how I and many users … check the Acronis forums here … back things up), it sees the drive, but every image is corrupt … according to the boot CD.

 

However, if you verify the image from within Windows … it’s fine.  If you hook the drive up to a networked PC and restore over the network … it’s fine (but it takes a lot longer and sometimes you get the old (back as far as TI8) Acronis bug where it asks you to login to the shared drive … even if there’s no password associated with the drive.  And sometimes even if you type a password associated with a user on that PC, it doesn’t recognize it … it just keeps asking over and over again.  Then I have to take the HD and attach it to a different networked PC.   Aaagh!  And that’s not even taking into account that it would normally take about 15 minutes to restore via a USB external drive, and it takes over an hour via the network!

 

I’ve tried older versions of TI9 … and they are worse.  Also, since they now offer “differential” backups, TI8 can’t read the new files.  So I’m stuck.

 

Support has been working with me and acknowledges the problem.  However, I must note they had me jump through hoops to give them info with debugging tools, then told me “I spoke to the developers and they know about this.  They are working on it.”  And just why did I have to do anything to help you then?  If you already knew about it, save me the time and effort and just tell me!

 

They offered me a free product.  Whoopee.  Nothing on their site interests me except True Image.  I am seriously looking into alternatives right now.  I need a solution that works 100% of the time.  More later.