Rating: 
Summary: Two Days Later I'd Rate It At Four Stars
Review:
I downloaded/registered Acronis True Image 8.0 and although it still has some fairly serious flaws in the UI it is now working, and working much better than any other disk imaging software I've tried (and I've wasted my money on at least a dozen different programs).
I have three older machines (circa 1998, 2000, and 2002) that completely thrashed the UI when the True Image restoration CD was booted. Purely by accident I discovered I could correct this problem by dragging the app window around the desktop until the windows were redrawn correctly. Acronis really needs to redesign the entire UI on their boot CD to (a) work with standard VGA and (b) fit in a 640x480 screen. The other problem I had was getting the boot CD to recognize an older CD-RW (circa 1998). I can live with it, but a lot of other folks can't, I'm sure.
But now that I have it working I have to admit the 8.0 version of Acronis True Image is the best drive imaging and recovery program I've ever seen. The "restore from network" feature alone is worth it's weight in gold -- and it's the ONLY time I've ever seen "restore from network" working correctly no matter what system their CD is booted on.
If not for the UI problems I'd give it a 5-star rating. But aside from that it's the best I've ever seen, and well worth the $50 asking price.
Rating: 
Summary: OUTSTANDING FOR PORTABLE DRIVES
Review: Great Program for backing up Desktop & Laptop systems to Portable Hard drive. I had been using Dantz Retrospect, that came with my Portable Hard drive and had great difficulty restoring my Backups. The Acronis True Image 7 allows you to burn a CD (or disketts) for a great Emergency Restore that allows connection via USB. I did have occasion to use the Emergency CD and the Restoration was perfect. I do like the capability of the Emergency CD to recognize USB. I also like the ability to control the file compression and the ability to break up the Back Up data into a couple of files or to do a complete disk image.
Rating:
Summary: OUTSTANDING FOR PORTABLE DRIVES
Review: Great Program for backing up Desktop & Laptop systems to Portable Hard drive. I had been using Dantz Retrospect, that came with my Portable Hard drive and had great difficulty restoring my Backups. The Acronis True Image 7 allows you to burn a CD (or disketts) for a great Emergency Restore that allows connection via USB. I did have occasion to use the Emergency CD and the Restoration was perfect. I do like the capability of the Emergency CD to recognize USB. I also like the ability to control the file compression and the ability to break up the Back Up data into a couple of files or to do a complete disk image.
Rating:
Summary: Acronis 7.0 Trial
Review: I downloaded the trial software for 7.0 and it seemed to work flawlessly. To my surprize, Acronis came out with 8.0 a few days after I downloaded the 7.0 trial software, which I will download and give a test run.
My only comment other comment - I hope Acronis now gives us the ability to automatically verify an image after it is created, as is the case with other backup software I have used.
Once this one item is included, I believe I may have found my perfect answer to having a full and accruate image of the hard drive.
Got an email offer from Acronis with a reduced price for 8.0 for the summer. I just might take them up on this.
Rating:
Summary: True Image 7 rocks on my machine
Review: I had a previous version. Didn't use it. Liked another product more. But now I have external harddrives for backup and wanted a product that would support external drives on a USB port.
Reviews said Acronis 7.0 was the only program that supported USB drives when one boots from CD or diskette, though others support them when running in Windows. So I decided to upgrade my existing software to the new version. Also, the website promised a free copy of another product in the package. The bonus software didn't come. The product couldn't complete the initial install. It kept encountering errors trying to write the bootable CD. Bypassing creating the bootable, I did complete the install and tried to run it. It could not, in two attempts, go successfully to completion. No restart ability on a 2 hour job, just a curt message and quit. Figured there might be a fix. Went to the site, and there was. Dated July, 2002. Seems strange for software downloaded today. Got the fix. When I installed it, it reverted me back to the former version. Tried several times. Did a new download to be sure I had the right one. Same result. I did a CRC on the 7.0 update and found it was identical to the 6.0 update. Explains why it kept reverting, and also how poor the tech support is. Left a message. I'm asking for my money back.
Rating:
Summary: Asked for my money back
Review: I had a previous version. Didn't use it. Liked another product more. But now I have external harddrives for backup and wanted a product that would support external drives on a USB port.
Reviews said Acronis 7.0 was the only program that supported USB drives when one boots from CD or diskette, though others support them when running in Windows. So I decided to upgrade my existing software to the new version. Also, the website promised a free copy of another product in the package. The bonus software didn't come. The product couldn't complete the initial install. It kept encountering errors trying to write the bootable CD. Bypassing creating the bootable, I did complete the install and tried to run it. It could not, in two attempts, go successfully to completion. No restart ability on a 2 hour job, just a curt message and quit. Figured there might be a fix. Went to the site, and there was. Dated July, 2002. Seems strange for software downloaded today. Got the fix. When I installed it, it reverted me back to the former version. Tried several times. Did a new download to be sure I had the right one. Same result. I did a CRC on the 7.0 update and found it was identical to the 6.0 update. Explains why it kept reverting, and also how poor the tech support is. Left a message. I'm asking for my money back.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Product
Review: I have not yet needed to restore my entire hard drive, but have restored individual files successfully. This is much easier to use than other disk imaging products. When I had a problem with an earlier version I sent an email to Acronis tech support and received a response within 48 hours. They provided a free upgrade to the latest version. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding design
Review: I have successfully used this program to restore the System partition from a "live" image. (For the noobs, that is an image taken while Windows is running. In the old days, you had to boot to DOS before imaging the system partition.) The process took about 5 minutes and went without a hitch. If you have been depending solely on XP's System Restore feature to protect your system for too long, then this is the program for you. As far as ease of use goes, this program is top notch. Everything is laid out beautifully, with easy-to-follow wizards. It is a snap to schedule automatic backups. TI7 has the ability to do 'incremental' backups (this is probably available in all current imaging software). Incremental images save you time because they take less disk space. First you take a primary image. Then when you want to update the image, TI7 will make a new image file that contains only the changes. I usually let about 7 incrementals accumulate in my backups folder before I delete the lot and start with a new primary image. While my wife was writing her thesis I accidentally took out some of her files. This lead to a sweaty recovery process, and my resolution to find a good backup method. This is what I settled on: 0) buy a good imaging program.
1) separate the System files from the Documents files by creating partitions on the main hard drive.
2) install a second hard drive to store the backups on.
3) use TI7 to schedule daily incremental images of the Documents partition. Back up the System partition after major changes only. Some notes:
- For the partitioning I used Bootit NG, an excellent shareware product.
- For a good disucssion on how to move Documents to the new partition see http://www.pulborough.freeuk.com/movedata.htm - it works for XP as well despite what the header says.
- You can also store the backups on CD or DVD, but installing a second HD is quicker and give you more flexibility.
- I moved the system page file to the second hard drive. There is no reason to include the page file in your System partition backups. Ditto for the Internet Explorer temp files.
- I have several large media files I keep on the hard drive (home movies). I created a separate partition for these. Keeping them in the main Documents partition would make backup of that partition take longer.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding design
Review: I have successfully used this program to restore the System partition from a "live" image. (For the noobs, that is an image taken while Windows is running. In the old days, you had to boot to DOS before imaging the system partition.) The process took about 5 minutes and went without a hitch. If you have been depending solely on XP's System Restore feature to protect your system for too long, then this is the program for you. As far as ease of use goes, this program is top notch. Everything is laid out beautifully, with easy-to-follow wizards. It is a snap to schedule automatic backups. TI7 has the ability to do `incremental' backups (this is probably available in all current imaging software). Incremental images save you time because they take less disk space. First you take a primary image. Then when you want to update the image, TI7 will make a new image file that contains only the changes. I usually let about 7 incrementals accumulate in my backups folder before I delete the lot and start with a new primary image. While my wife was writing her thesis I accidentally took out some of her files. This lead to a sweaty recovery process, and my resolution to find a good backup method. This is what I settled on: 0) buy a good imaging program.
1) separate the System files from the Documents files by creating partitions on the main hard drive.
2) install a second hard drive to store the backups on.
3) use TI7 to schedule daily incremental images of the Documents partition. Back up the System partition after major changes only. Some notes:
- For the partitioning I used Bootit NG, an excellent shareware product.
- For a good disucssion on how to move Documents to the new partition see http://www.pulborough.freeuk.com/movedata.htm - it works for XP as well despite what the header says.
- You can also store the backups on CD or DVD, but installing a second HD is quicker and give you more flexibility.
- I moved the system page file to the second hard drive. There is no reason to include the page file in your System partition backups. Ditto for the Internet Explorer temp files.
- I have several large media files I keep on the hard drive (home movies). I created a separate partition for these. Keeping them in the main Documents partition would make backup of that partition take longer.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding design
Review: I have successfully used this program to restore the System partition from a "live" image. (For the noobs, that is an image taken while Windows is running. In the old days, you had to boot to DOS before imaging the system partition.) The process took about 5 minutes and went without a hitch. If you have been depending solely on XP's System Restore feature to protect your system for too long, then this is the program for you. As far as ease of use goes, this program is top notch. Everything is laid out beautifully, with easy-to-follow wizards. It is a snap to schedule automatic backups. TI7 has the ability to do 'incremental' backups (this is probably available in all current imaging software). Incremental images save you time because they take less disk space. First you take a primary image. Then when you want to update the image, TI7 will make a new image file that contains only the changes. I usually let about 7 incrementals accumulate in my backups folder before I delete the lot and start with a new primary image. While my wife was writing her thesis I accidentally took out some of her files. This lead to a sweaty recovery process, and my resolution to find a good backup method. This is what I settled on: 0) buy a good imaging program.
1) separate the System files from the Documents files by creating partitions on the main hard drive.
2) install a second hard drive to store the backups on.
3) use TI7 to schedule daily incremental images of the Documents partition. Back up the System partition after major changes only. Some notes:
- For the partitioning I used Bootit NG, an excellent shareware product.
- For a good disucssion on how to move Documents to the new partition see http://www.pulborough.freeuk.com/movedata.htm - it works for XP as well despite what the header says.
- You can also store the backups on CD or DVD, but installing a second HD is quicker and give you more flexibility.
- I moved the system page file to the second hard drive. There is no reason to include the page file in your System partition backups. Ditto for the Internet Explorer temp files.
- I have several large media files I keep on the hard drive (home movies). I created a separate partition for these. Keeping them in the main Documents partition would make backup of that partition take longer.
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