Kamphiker wrote: one problem I see with most computers trying to boot from external hard drives is that their Bios does not support external booting.
True, but with Acronis, you could create a backup drive that is an exact bootable mirror of the primary, then swap it in.
For example, I had a 75GB drive in my laptop running out of space, but had a spare 100GB drive laying around...
I put the 100 in an external drive enclosure connected via USB then used Acronis to create an image..
swapped the drives and now have 100gb drive in system..
you could create this image periodically, then in case of a drive failure, swap it out, or since the external drive is a complete file structure use it to recover damaged or deleted files between re-image...
Bryan
Yes Acronis calls it Clone Hard Drive, I don't know if the current version still has the same limitation of version 8 in that you can not clone to a smaller size Hard drive. I'm still using version 8 and have to use equal size hard drives (Or larger than original) to be able to clone (mirror image).
Many people will setup a new computer the way they like it, clone the Hard drive and store the clone for not only emergency use but also when their computer slows down, swap out the clone for the original (and make another clone) that way they return their computer to a new state. Of Course this means you have to backup added programs / files in a external source to be able to continue to use them. Works better for computers where you can run more than 1 hard drive.
All great responses, and valuable information. Thank you all.
So should I return the Seagate Free Agent, buy One Touch (to get the boot disk it comes with), AND buy Acronis, or keep Free Agent, and buy Acronis? Free Agent is a USB hard drive with an external power pack, and comes pre-loaded with a little software program which only allows copying 1.) selected files & folders, or 2.) All files & folders, but not applications or op sys. It does not create a bootable drive that could be swapped with the failed system drive.
I'm not sure if Free Agent will let you just used the hard drive as an external drive with a different software program like Acronis.
Keep it coming.
Bill, (aka Capt.Bill)
Indian River, De
2002 Horizon 36LD, Cat 330 Practicing retirement!
I've used a lot of these type of backup programs over the years, and yes, Acronis is good... some others are pretty good as well. However, the best one out there today is called Shadow Protect Desktop. You don't have to take my word for it either, just read this PC Magazine review of backup programs and you'll see what I mean.
I gave up on backups a long time ago out of frustration, I just always image the entire partition.
The flaw that turned me off was that the few that I looked at were very poor in their restore capability.
Once you take a full image copy, after that you should only be taking incrementals. If the file or files that you want to restore are kn the incrementals, then there is no reason to be mounting the original full image. This is a reall bummer when the image is damaged but the incremetas are good.
Perhaps they have all gotten smarter and I should revist them again.
Most of these usb drives come as format FAT32. This is an older format that limits the size your files to 4GB minus 2 Bytes. When doing a full backup the file size, most of the time, will be greater than that allowed by a FAT32 format. To change this limit you need to reformat the drive to a NSFT format. This format is only limited by the size of your free space.
The following steps should be taken when you are going to use a new drive for backup and other things.
1. Copy all the files on the new drive a folder on your pc. That way you will still have them after the reformat. BE sure to write down the location and name of the folder that you use to store these files.
2. If you can go to the Manufactures web page and follow the instruction on how to reform the drive to NSFT format. If you cannot do that then reformat the drive with the standard reformat tools on your PC.
in VISTA do a START… a right mouse click on computer, select manage… storage… Disk Management, select Action… All Tasks… Format…
In XP do a Start… Computer… Select the disk drive and Right mouse click select format…
Select the quick option.
Note: Format will destroy all the date on your drive.
3. After you have formatted the disk to NFTS then copy the files from step 1 back to the disk drive.
4. After doing a backup be sure to do a validate the file. It’s not going to do you any good if it cannot be restored.
Note: Most backup programs will delete the file before doing the backup, because not all backup are good, or a there can be a power failure, do not backup to your only good full backup. Either rename the file or have a daily, weekly, monthly full backup so that your only copy is not destroyed. Don’t delete a backup before you know that you have a good backup to replace it.
Acronis is a combination Windows/Linux program the disk is linux but it can install a Windows version on your system (NOTE that this is not needed)
You pop the CD in the drive, plug in the USB drive, boot, follow the on-screen prompts and it makes a full image of your drive.. EVERYTHING, soup, nuts, boot sectors, everything.
You then pop the CD out and exit, it will re-boot in windows
If you choose to install the "Acronis save zone (optional) and software on the computer (I suggest this) then you can make back ups without using the boot CD.
If you should suffer a hard drive crash (I have) pop in a brand new Formatted drive (Formatting may be done from within Acronis IIRC, Linux has a great formatter) and choose restore.. It does it all. Saved my data more than once.
Nothin adds excitment like something that is none of your business John is Near Kenwood TS-2000 housed in a 2005 Damon Intruder 377
OK, I'm convinced. I just ordered Acronis, and now just need to figure out if it will work with the drive that I bought last week, which is more than just an external drive (Free Agent). I'll have to try uninstalling the FA software, and then see if it will be recognized as just another storage device.
No problem though, as I bought it in Sam's Club, and have months to return it, for any reason. (It's a Seagate 500gb USB hd).
I am a fan of WinClone but it is free. It works great for me. Also for the Mac OS users SuperDuper will clone your primary partition to a bootable clone on a usb drive. If any thing ever fails just hold down the option key on boot up select your usb drive and you are good to go on the last backup, damn macs are easy!
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