Scat: What events have occurred in which you did a restore? Replace HDD? Restore to a previous version on the same HDD? Recreate everything on a completely new pc?
You know how every now and then you do an update (even a Windows update), delete a program, malware, or cleaner leaves something not functional? Have you ever turned on your computer only to find out that your HDD/SDD has died or that Windows now doesn't recognize you have the drive mounted? I've had that a couple of times. Just plop in another drive, restore latest image and update to current. Maybe 30 minutes, depending upon how much data the image was made from. Could be a lot longer than 30 minutes, of course, if you have movie or music library taking up lots of GB. On my market-dedicated machines, restoring an image takes <10 minutes. I've cloned from one drive to another to use in a different machine (all of mine are the same model, bios, mobo.) When you restore an image from Acronis, it's not the same as Windows Restore. Restoring an image is more like cloning. I prefer to clone when that works... it's a lot faster. But you can have many images stored. I've had a couple of situations where I had a problem and restored my latest image only to find out the latest image had the problem also, but I didn't know it at the time of making the image. So, restored an earlier image(s) until I found one without the problem. Then, update to current. A few months ago, I had a problem not too long after installing Kaspersy AV. In troubleshooting, I thought Kaspersky might be the cuplrit (wasn't), so I uninstalled it. In doing so, it knocked out part of the realtime charting in eSignal and MetaStock. Reinstalling the AV didn't fix that problem. So, I restored an image (to the same SSD) and regained function. Acronis has saved me hundreds of hours and lots of aggravation. Some people are saying Acronis isn't as good as it used to be. Besides, I think now it's a subscription software. If you're still using XP or W7 (don't know if it works on W8), check eBay for Acronis True Image v11. It's not subscription and still works.
More good stuff. +9.5 I didn't find an Acronis True Image v11 labeled as such yet on ebay. Is there another identifier that will help me snag one of these bad boys and know that it is the real deal?
I don't think there is. After v11, Acronis started naming their new versions by calendar year.... v2010, v2011 etc.
Macrium is "free" but it will install in either 30 day test mode or you pay for a license.. Acronis is getting bad reviews at Amazon [the only reviews I trust really]. Windows 7 and much of the imaging software will not make an image to a flash drive. I guess you can make a flash drive a network drive [somehow] and then it will but... too many moving parts, bound to fail right when it's needed the most... That bothers me, I have to mess with several DVD discs to get an image and I have to deal with microsoft's shitty instructions in the process. I can high level format and install windows and have the computer up and running pretty easily actually. It would be nice to have an image at the ready but not quite worth it nowadays. I only had to find one driver the last time I rebuilt my laptop, I think it was to get an external monitor to fire up.
I backup with both Macrium & Paragon, but I've only had to restore once. I used Macrium, and it worked out fine. marc
I use Easeus and I have no problems with them. I'm not crazy with the new interface chosen by Easeus but still use it for its reliability. They also have a lot neat tools to use. I stopped using Acronis after several images failed. I've used Paragon utilities in the past. Macrium is another good and popular choice. I use Easeus for backup and restore if there are any hard drive failures. I also use Rollback RX by Horizon DayaSys for any quick corruption repairs. Realize Rollback RX does quick rollbacks but does not protect from hard drive failures. It's like system restore on steroids.
Can someone please explain what a drive 'image' is - I gather it's not a full copy of the drive - so what is it?