windows 7 preferred backup solution

[Jeff@nospam.invalid]

On 6/11/2010 6:14 PM, John McGaw wrote:
> On 6/11/2010 9:43 AM, Elden Fenison wrote:
>> A year or two ago when I researched it, Acronis True Image came highly
>> recommended when it came to Windows backup solutions.
>>
>> Anyone here have experience with that on Windows 7, good or bad?
>>
>> I heard that it initially had issues with Windows 7. But I presume that
>> Acronis has fixed those by now.
>>
>>
>> -=Elden=-
>> http://www.moondog.org
>
> I've been having good luck with Macrium Reflect on W7. It is available
> in a 64-bit version and is free. It allows you to create a recovery CD
> (a stripped-down Linux image) to recover backed-up data to a bare drive.
> Did I mention that it was free?
>
> Not that there is anything wrong with Acronis except that it is
> definitely far from free.

I too have excellent results with the 64 bit free Macrium - both backup
and restore - and it is faster than both the trial full Acronis and the
free Acronis versions I got from Seagate and and WD (I have both
drives). Maybe it is because it is a 64 bit version? Don't know because
I only tried the 64 bit version.

For me, the only thing the free Macrium lacks is the absence of
incremental backups - which are also lacking in the free versions of
Acronis I got from the drive manufacturer. I may end up getting the full
package when the next have a sale. (Do they?)

Jeff

 

[Dave \Crash\ Dummy]

Char Jackson wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 07:20:54 -0400, "Dave \"Crash\" Dummy"
> <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> <snipped for brevity>
>>>> Are these really brand specific? I have an internal WD drive and an
>>>> external Seagate drive. Which should I use to backup my internal WD
>>>> drive to me external Seagate drive?
>>> Since you have both it really won't matter. These free versions of
>>> Acronis have the limitation in that you have to have a drive from the
>>> respective manufacturer installed on your PC. Since you have both
>>> Seagate and Western Digital you can use either one you choose.
>> (Copied from elsewhere in this tree
>>
>> Catch-22. I downloaded both and created CD's. I tried the Seagate
>> version first. It wouldn't run because it couldn't find a Seagate drive.
>> My Seagate drive is a USB connected external drive. I installed the
>> optional USB drivers when creating the bootable CD, but the Acronis
>> utility apparently looks for a qualifying disk before those are loaded.
>>
>> Next I tried the WD version. It booted up and ran and I was able to
>> create an image file, which I saved to my Seagate USB drive. But what is
>> going to happen if I replace my internal drive with something other than
>> WD? I doubt that the WD Acronis will restore the image I have saved.
>
> How can you trust a backup that you haven't tried to restore?
> Instead of asking what will happen, you owe it to yourself to try it
> and find out what will happen. The time to do it is now, not after
> you've had a 'data emergency'.

How can I do that without replacing the WD hard drive with different brand?
--
Crash

One man's weed is another man's wildflower.

 

[Char Jackson]

On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 2157 -0400, "Dave \"Crash\" Dummy"
<invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>Char Jackson wrote:
>> On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 07:20:54 -0400, "Dave \"Crash\" Dummy"
>> <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> <snipped for brevity>
>>>>> Are these really brand specific? I have an internal WD drive and an
>>>>> external Seagate drive. Which should I use to backup my internal WD
>>>>> drive to me external Seagate drive?
>>>> Since you have both it really won't matter. These free versions of
>>>> Acronis have the limitation in that you have to have a drive from the
>>>> respective manufacturer installed on your PC. Since you have both
>>>> Seagate and Western Digital you can use either one you choose.
>>> (Copied from elsewhere in this tree
>>>
>>> Catch-22. I downloaded both and created CD's. I tried the Seagate
>>> version first. It wouldn't run because it couldn't find a Seagate drive.
>>> My Seagate drive is a USB connected external drive. I installed the
>>> optional USB drivers when creating the bootable CD, but the Acronis
>>> utility apparently looks for a qualifying disk before those are loaded.
>>>
>>> Next I tried the WD version. It booted up and ran and I was able to
>>> create an image file, which I saved to my Seagate USB drive. But what is
>>> going to happen if I replace my internal drive with something other than
>>> WD? I doubt that the WD Acronis will restore the image I have saved.
>>
>> How can you trust a backup that you haven't tried to restore?
>> Instead of asking what will happen, you owe it to yourself to try it
>> and find out what will happen. The time to do it is now, not after
>> you've had a 'data emergency'.
>
>How can I do that without replacing the WD hard drive with different brand?

I suppose you can answer your initial question by simply disconnecting
the WD drive and attempting to do a restore. My assumption is that the
'qualifying drive' check is performed before the 'target drive'
question gets asked. Beyond that, if you have an old non-WD spare
drive laying around, you could temporarily use it in place of the WD
to see if the restore image works.

 

[Char Jackson]

On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 18:26:58 -0400, "Jeff@nospam.invalid"
<Jeff@nospam.invalid> wrote:

>On 6/11/2010 6:14 PM, John McGaw wrote:

>> Not that there is anything wrong with Acronis except that it is
>> definitely far from free.

Far from free? $9.99 isn't that far from free. Or if you don't have
the promo code, it's still only $19.99 after a $20 MIR.

>For me, the only thing the free Macrium lacks is the absence of
>incremental backups - which are also lacking in the free versions of
>Acronis I got from the drive manufacturer. I may end up getting the full
>package when the next have a sale. (Do they?)

See above, there's a $20 rebate going on, plus an additional $10 promo
discount via Newegg, although the promo may have expired by now. So
it's either $19.99 or $9.99.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832200012

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 2157 -0400, Dave "Crash" Dummy wrote:

> Char Jackson wrote:
>> On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 07:20:54 -0400, "Dave \"Crash\" Dummy"
>> <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> <snipped for brevity>
>>>>> Are these really brand specific? I have an internal WD drive and an
>>>>> external Seagate drive. Which should I use to backup my internal WD
>>>>> drive to me external Seagate drive?
>>>> Since you have both it really won't matter. These free versions of
>>>> Acronis have the limitation in that you have to have a drive from the
>>>> respective manufacturer installed on your PC. Since you have both
>>>> Seagate and Western Digital you can use either one you choose.
>>> (Copied from elsewhere in this tree
>>>
>>> Catch-22. I downloaded both and created CD's. I tried the Seagate
>>> version first. It wouldn't run because it couldn't find a Seagate drive.
>>> My Seagate drive is a USB connected external drive. I installed the
>>> optional USB drivers when creating the bootable CD, but the Acronis
>>> utility apparently looks for a qualifying disk before those are loaded.
>>>
>>> Next I tried the WD version. It booted up and ran and I was able to
>>> create an image file, which I saved to my Seagate USB drive. But what is
>>> going to happen if I replace my internal drive with something other than
>>> WD? I doubt that the WD Acronis will restore the image I have saved.
>>
>> How can you trust a backup that you haven't tried to restore?
>> Instead of asking what will happen, you owe it to yourself to try it
>> and find out what will happen. The time to do it is now, not after
>> you've had a 'data emergency'.
>
> How can I do that without replacing the WD hard drive with different brand?

Download & install the generic free version of Macrium or Acronis, or buy &
install the paid version of one of those. Then do a complete backup.

It might be possible that the generic free or the paid version will read
the backups produced earlier by the disk manufacturer's version, so you
might be able to skip the complete backup.

I might have made a mistake above: I don't know whether Acronis has a free
generic version.

To be explicit about something else: Acronis can't read Macrium's files and
vice versa.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

 

[Roland Schweiger \(eternal september / motzarella\]

Experimented with both: Acronis True Image and Windows Backup, on Win7 32bit
and 64bit versions.

True Image works fine but i do not consider it as necessary as in earlier
Win versions,
because the Windows Backup program does a good job - and you can also mount
the created images.

greetings
Roland Schweiger