Acronis True Image 11
Presented by: Frank Myers
This presentation is to show one main feature of Acronis True Image; how to exactly duplicate your hard drive or partitions onto external media.
True Image 12 (Home) can be purchased at Staples in Belleville for the current price of $49.95.
An upgrade from an older version can be downloaded from the Acronis site at 29.99 US$:
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/
Install True Image without any changes to the default settings as instructed by the installer.
After the installation the first action is to run the program.
Before you create your image:
I recommend you do a "full cleaning". (Run AVG Anti-virus CCleaner, SuperAntiSpyware, etc.)
You must also determine the media that you are going to use and have it available before your next step.
For example, if you have a USB external hard drive, plug it in and ensure that it is running properly.
If you plan to use DVDs, ensure that you have enough on hand to hold your complete drive or partition.
If you are planning to use USB sticks, you may need a 16 Gbtyte or if it's a relatively new computer, an 8 GByte.
I have never tried it with more than one USB stick but I'm sure it will probably work if more than one is required - similar to DVDs.
Select Disk Utilities
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Under Tools in the left panel, click on: "Create Bootable rescue media".
Click "Next"
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Place a "tick mark" in the box for "Acronis True Image Home"
Click "Next"
Click "Next"
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There are options, but because of the size of the required program, it is more efficient to use a CD or DVD. Insert one or the other in your DVD Drive.
Click Next to continue.
Click "Proceed" then Click "Proceed" on the following screen.
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When this operation is complete, remove the CD/DVD and label it "Acronis True Image "Boot" disk".
It is also advisable to add the date of the creation in case you have an update to the program and want to create a newer CD/DVD in the future.
Create your image:
- Insert the CD/DVD "Boot" disk in your CD/DVD drive and restart your computer. The first screen
that appears gives you a choice of selecting "Acronis True Image Home" or "Windows".
You would click on "Windows" if trying to resolve a problem with your normal booting into Windows. In our case, click on "Acronis True Image Home". - After the program loads, "Pick a Task" window appears. The two main options are "Backup" or "Recovery".
Before you can "Recover", you must make a back up image.
Click on "Backup" - The next screen says: "Welcome to the Create Backup Wizard"
As we follow the instructions of this "Wizard", the next screen gives you the option of backing up "My Computer" or "My Data"."My Data" option will show you a screen with all your folders and base files contained on your "C" drive with an empty selection box beside each item.
This method is used to back up specific folders or files by "Imaging" them to your external media. Because we want to image your complete "C" drive, we select the "My Computer" option. - The next screen will show you your hard drive(s) and or partitions with a selection box beside each item.
A "Tick Mark" will already be placed in your "C" drive selection box. If you have more than one item to
image, it is STRONGLY advised to do them one at a time and therefore there should only be one item with a
"Tick Mark" in the selection box.
Click "Next" -
Do not enter "Tick Marks" in any of the three boxes in this screen - just click "Next" to continue
to the next screen.
An information window pops up to tell you that if you have already created an image of your "C" drive, you can add an incremental file to that image which contains all the additions and deletions since you last created that image.
If you haven't created the first image yet, just click "OK". -
The next screen wants you to select the destination of the image of your "C" drive.
This screen will show ALL allowable media that is acceptable to Acronis such as CD/DVD unit, USB sticks (if inserted), USB external Hard Drive (if inserted and turned on), etc.
If your computer is "On-Line" to the internet, it will even display an item called "FTP Connections".
This will allow you to store your image via File Transfer Protocol to special sites, available for this purpose, on the internet - now referred to as: "Cloud Computing".
If you are going to want to use this, I strongly advise having a High Speed connection.
NOTE:
If you want to know what size the complete image is going to take so that you can make a determination of the destination media, just select any of the destination medias and continue to the point below where you have a summary of your choices. This summary includes the size of the destination image file. -
At this point you have the option of aborting the process or backing up to this point in the procedure.
Select the destination median and in the text box at the bottom of the screen - after the designated letter for the media, enter a name for the image file.
I use the following for my "C" drive: Percy6_CDrive_26May09.tib. The .tib at the end is the recognized suffix for Acronis True Image.
Click "Next" -
You have the choice of entering a password to protect the image or not.
Either way, Click "Next". -
On this screen there is a rather large text box for annotating your image file with pertinent information.
I usually enter the reason and timing of my image. For example: "This is the monthly base image to start
a new sequence of backups".
Click "Next" -
This is a summary screen of all your decisions and the last chance to ensure that you have done everything that you
wanted before you actually create the image.
This screen will also show you the required storage size of the image. If you are using media that has an absolute size, such as CD, DVD, USB stick, etc. This is your chance to ensure that you have enough items available to store the complete image. At this point you can abort the creation or go back and change the destination media. However, if all the selection criteria is correct to your satisfaction, click "Proceed".
This creation of the complete image could take an hour or more depending on the size of your "C" drive.
My "C" partition is 19.5 Gbytes and my base image takes about 2 ½ hours to create.
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If you recall from above, the second screen that appeared after you "Booted" with the Acronis True Image Boot disk, had two choices: "Backup" or "Recovery".
The process for "Recovery" is very easy. If you click "Recovery" after the program section loads, you just select the media location of your image and follow the Wizard.
The only situation that arises when you have to do something different, is if you had created the image on CD/DVDs. In this case you must remove the Acronis "Boot" disk in order to insert your image CD/DVDs.
This is not a worry because the Acronis program stays resident in your computer's memory during its operation.
If you have had no problem creating your image, then recovery will be no problem either.
The Acronis main program has an excellent help system that can resolve any problem you run into. It will also take you through all the procedures to do this backup or recovery.
I advise reading the instructions in the help section to get a much better understanding of this complete procedure.
Don't be afraid to try this. It is worth the effort to understand the incredible advantages gained with having an up-to-date image of your hard drive. It helps you sleep at night knowing that your computer data is safe and secure.
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The following questions were asked during the presentation so there might be duplicates from the text above:
What is "Acronis True Image?"
It is software that will take a complete image of your hard drive and store it on an external hard drive, a CD/DVD, or a USB memory stick, etc. It will also do backups of folders and files as well as clean hard drives, store sensitive data in secure folders, clean free disk areas, etc.
What does the software cost?
It is currently selling for $49.95 at Staples in Belleville. However, if you already have a version, you can buy an update which is cheaper ... in the $30 range.
Do you need to defrag?
You should defrag before you take your image. I misled the members during the presentation about this and it should be done first to save space within the destination image file.
What I was trying to indicate was that when the image is used to recover your hard drive, Acronis will put the image back on to the hard drive with some intelligent efficiency.
A member asked why it didn't come with a bootable CD in the beginning?
Another member suggested that it probably cost too much.
I think it is because a lot of users don't use the "Boot" method and are content to just create the image from the main program running in Windows.
A member asked me if I did a back-up of the back-up?
Yes, I do. I use DVDs to back up my image from my USB external hard drive. However, I only do this for the complete image of the C drive/partition. I do not include any incremental files.
A member asked if he could update to #12 if he has #11?
Yes, and it would cost around $29.95. If it is done, the member must have True Image 11 serial number because during installation the serial number for 12 is entered and because it is an update, the program then asks for the serial number of the older installed version such as 11.
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