Summary
Introduction
Disclaimer
Tests performed
Note about True Image bootable CD and True Image under Windows
1. How-to backup a whole HD with Acronis True Image 9.0 Home (build 2337) under Windows 2K/XP
2. How-to restore a whole HD with Acronis True Image 9.0 Home (build 2337) from True Image bootable CD
3. Performances
4. Some more tests
Conclusion
Introduction
People often worry about what happens when their laptop or desktop drive dies and needs replacement; I was worrying a bit myself. What if my laptop with tons of tools & fine system tuning crashes some day? What if my wife’s laptop with tons of shortcuts & fancy settings gives up one day? What if my sons’ hard gamer PCs with TONS of games & TONS of hacks go up in smoke one night after a LAN party? With my new ReadyNAS loaded with tons of GB, I began to google around to find some tools that’ll perform a unique yet simple & brutal task: backup my whole bunch of system HDs, bit by bit, from the first one to the last one, including any hidden data, Master Boot Record or boot information.
I came across a few tools (of course, this list is not exhaustive; I just mentioned here tools I quickly found that seemed to fulfil my needs):
- Free: g4u - Harddisk Image Cloning for PCs: pros: soooo simple; free; cons: potential lack of support; no GUI
- Commercial: Symantec Norton Ghost 10.0: pros: famous PowerQuest Drive Image heritage; cons: 157 pages manual; pricey (~$70)
- Commercial: Acronis True Image 9.0: pros: less features but far more understandable than Ghost; a dynamic support forum (yet not as impressive as the one we all know & love - if you see what I mean...); cons: not free
(~$50)If needed, a few links I found for deeper investigations:
- "Free Hard Disk and Partition Imaging and Backup Software"
- "Disk cloning: My suggestions for anticipating and dealing with a system hard disk failure"
Finally, I decided to go with Acronis.
Disclaimer
This how-to describes what I’ve done; not much more. In any case it is a complete description of True Image features, nor a benchmark of Acronis product.
Last but not least: I'm not associated with Acronis nor with Infrant in any way; I’m just a happy customer among many others...
Tests performed
i) backup a system disk on the NAS with True Image under Windows; remove disk and put a new empty & bigger one; restore disk image using True Image bootable CD; boot
ii) with 2 IDE HD in a PC, the biggest being empty: backup the system disk on the NAS with True Image under Windows; restore disk image on the other disk, using True Image under Windows; disconnect first disk; boot
iii) with 2 IDE HD in a PC, the biggest being empty: backup only the system partition of the system disk on the NAS using True Image under Windows; restore partition image on the other disk, resizing it to fit the whole disk capacity, using True Image under Windows; disconnect first disk; perform Master Boot Record recovery as described by Acronis; boot
I fully describe in this how-to test i. Tests ii & iii are briefly described at the end.
Note about True Image bootable CD and True Image under Windows
You can run True Image either under Windows or from a bootable CD. The bootable CD version has a very nice GUI, very similar to Windows based GUI, with mouse support, etc.; it loads all needed drivers, esp. network drivers.
You can easily create a True Image bootable CD directly from True Image menu under Windows (select "Create Bootable Rescue Media" from "Tools" menu). But beware: you need a valid licence of True Image to create a True Image bootable CD that allows you to go through the whole process of image creation and restoration; with True Image trial version, bootable CD won’t let you achieved these operations.
1. How-to backup a whole HD with Acronis True Image 9.0 Home (build 2337) under Windows 2K/XP
Note: this task can be performed while booting from True Image bootable CD or from HD and running True Image under Windows, even if the HD to backup is your boot HD.
Select "Backup" in the main window.
Select "The entire disk contents or individual partition". Notice here the ability to backup only some files & folders.
Select a whole disk or a single partition to backup. In my case, I selected the whole disk in order to backup also the Master Boot Record and boot information. Some tests performing a single system partition backup are described at the end of this how-to.
Browse through "Computers Near Me" to find NAS and select the destination image file.
Select "Create new full backup archive". Notice here the ability to do incremental backups, even for disk images.
Select the backup options you want; for my test, I left the options unchanged. Compression level was thus left to "Normal".
Type a comment if you wish. Then select "Proceed"… and you’re gone!
2. How-to restore a whole HD with Acronis True Image 9.0 Home (build 2337) from True Image bootable CD
In case of drive complete failure: replace your defective HD with a new one (same size or bigger); there’s no need at all to format it. Boot with True Image bootable CD (in case of HD failure, you obviously won’t boot from HD
)Select "Recovery".
Select source image file. Here’s a trick: a bug in True Image bootable CD (True Image from Windows worked fine) prevented me from browsing through "Computers Near Me". By typing NAS name/address, it instantly found the NAS and directories through which I could browse by giving a valid share "User name"/"Password".
(Yeah! Bananas is my NAS!
)Select "Restore disks or partitions". (Notice here the ability to mount a partition image and to restore only files inside that partition; sometimes useful.)
Select a partition or the whole disk to restore. I selected the whole disk. Notice that if you choose to restore only a partition, you’ll be able to specify its size and location in destination disk, its type (Active, Primary, Logical) and its drive letter. But be aware that, in that case, you’ll have to cope with Master Boot Record re-creation (see the end of this how-to).
Select the destination disk.
You can restore another partition or continue (that’s what I’ve done).
Then select "Proceed"… You’re gone (backwards this time)! At the end, remove your bootable CD from CD tray and reboot: THAT’S IT!
3. Performances
Here are a few performance measurements:
PC: Sempron 2600+ CPU, 512MB memory; 35GB system partition, newly formatted & filled with 13GB of data.
OS: Windows XP (I made some backup/restoration under W2K too; worked nicely)
Network: 100Mbps wired local network (should upgrade to 1Gbps, I know...)
Image size: 11 GB (with compression level set to "Normal")
Image creation onto the NAS through network: 21 minutes
Image creation onto another IDE connected disk: 7 minutes
Image restoration from NAS to the new IDE connected raw disk: 21 minutes
Image restoration from system HD to the new IDE connected raw disk: 15 minutes (surprisingly slower than image creation)
Note: these figures are given using True Image under Windows to create and restore an image. I noticed a performance issue while booting from True Image bootable CD. It took me nearly one hour and a half to restore the same image from the NAS (to compare to the 21 minutes under Windows). Maybe something to do with NIC driver. It didn’t bother me too much though as the restoration process should be a rare event (keep fingers crossed
). See also test ii for an alternative: restoring PC1 system disk on PC2, always using True Image under Windows.4. Some more tests
Test ii
With 2 disks in a PC, I tried to backup the first disk then restore it on the second one, always running True Image under Windows. Nothing much to say about this test which went perfectly & fastly. This may be a good solution when a PC fails: restore its system disk on a new disk on another valid PC running True Image under Windows and put back the new disk in the defective PC. Quite effective!
Test iii
I tried to backup a single system partition, ignoring Master Boot Record and other boot information. The process went smooth, I was even able to resize system partition to fit the exact new HD capacity but… the new HD couldn’t boot. A simple procedure is given by Acronis to fix this well known issue:
Boot up from the Windows Bootable CD, then go to the Recovery Console (the first Repair option you come to). From the command prompt please type:
FIXMBR DISK
FIXBOOT DISK
where DISK is the partition letter of the new hard drive/partition where you have restored the image.
BOOTCFG /rebuild
I tried and succeeded. Nothing more to say.
Conclusion
I was very impressed by the smoothness of the whole process, from creating HD image under Windows to PC booting after image restoration. All in all, the most difficult part was to find a time period in the day when PCs were not used by somebody at home!
After a few hours, I was ready with a bunch of disk images on my NAS that would one-click restore my PCs in case of disk failure. I was able to breath again, waiting for the next geek’s distress to come!...
And voilà!
Luc.
That's how things go in software industry...