Need an OS Backup Software

[Alan_B]

Some years ago I believe there may have been a conflict between by security/malware protection and the actions of a Partition Manager "tweak".

The result was that my Laptop lost the partition tables - everything was lost.

The ancient version 4.? Minitool Boot Rescue CD quickly located the partition boundaries

and the only partition that proved troublesome was the "Acronis Secure Zone" which I had not used for years,

so I gave up on that and restored the rest of the partitions.

 

With partitions restored it failed to boot.

I knew that Macrium would fix the problem but chose to gain alternative experiences.

I plugged in the Minitool Boot Recovery CD again and used this to repair the MBR,

and then WIndows was able to boot.

 

After the excitement I realised that when I used Acronis it provided the "Acronis Secure Zone" as a rudimentary "Recovery" partition,

and that the MBR and been twisted by Acronis to visit their zone during the boot process should the user be hitting a key,

and otherwise it would then got to C:\ and start Windows.

The MBR was trying to start-up via a partition that was no more..

[login123]

Alan I did almost the exact same thing. 

I set Acronis to go straight to its own boot option and made a big secure zone to save backup files.

Had some boot failure issues, and the secure zone takes up too much space anyway. 

 

Too clumsy, too many changes, too much trouble, not really necessary. Didn't know that then.   

 

Soon I am going to reinstall win xp and Acronis (TI ver. 11 still works well on xp). 

After 12 years I have finally figured out what softwares I need for xp  and when those are in and xp is updated I intend to "freeze" it. 

I'll store the Acronis backups on an external USB drive, and use the boot CD to restore from there if need be. 

 

One lives & learns, eh, and storage space has gotten cheaper, so that sounds like a good option, do you think? 

 

Still haven't settled on a backup software for win 7, its between Macrium and Image for Windows, I guess. 

[DennisD]

With partitions restored it failed to boot.

I knew that Macrium would fix the problem but chose to gain alternative experiences.

I plugged in the Minitool Boot Recovery CD again and used this to repair the MBR,

and then WIndows was able to boot.

 

 

I'm pleased you contributed that experience Alan, and I was also tempted to experiment. I thought to use the utility I backed up the MBR with to restore it.

 

http://www.trojanhunter.com/products/mbr-backup/

 

I'm pretty sure that would have worked because that utility has a "View Partition Table" option which shows exactly what partition info is stored in the backup, and all three partitions were indeed properly recorded.

 

As it turned out I went with the sure-fix of the Macrium Image.

 

All the same it's valuable to know that MiniTools would have fixed it.

[adamminorgeek]

i've used Norton Ghost for over a decade.

easy, reliable.

yes, includes boot disc/usb

 

the latest version is now named:  Symantec System Recovery.

looks just like ghost to me.

 

runs incrementals automatically.

manages backup destination automatically.

backs up to network disks (NAS)

 

on my 6-mo old toshiba satellite u845t-4155

it's hardly noticeable when running in

background.  it does go significantly

faster using Gbps ethernet (rather than

old skool fast enet, 100Mbps)

 

i haven't used acronis.  i have used 

have used paragon and ms DISM.

prefer ghost.

 

also allows mounting a recovery image as if it were a disk.  very useful.

 

have fun!

 

 

[login123]

Thanks, adam.