# Solved: Acronis alternative



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

I've been having trouble for quite a while with the Acronis Trueimage boot disk, and Acronis can't seem to solve it. Are there other alternatives ( not Ghost) out there which I could try and which you have personally used and could recommend? I never thought I would ever think of not using Acronis but now it has let me down rather badly, so please help if you can.


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## raybro (Apr 27, 2003)

What version of Acronis are you using?

Raybro


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

The only ones I've tried are Paragon, Clonezilla (worked fine for restoring Vista), O&O, and HDClone. Those all work. I tried Partition Saving but did not complete the backup because I could not easily follow the directions (a dummy file needs to be created ahead of time on NTFS drives because the program cannot create new files on NTFS--a real pain).

Free Drive Cloners/Imagers:

EaseUs Disk Copy (Copies disks or partitions)
XXClone
CloneZilla GParted LiveCD (Complete partitioning and drive imaging/restoration tools)
CloneZilla
Partition Saving
PCI CloneMaxx
Drive Image XML
HDClone
DriveClonerXP
Self-Image
copyr.dma (Copies disk with bad sectors for recovery)

Commercial Apps:

O&O DiskImage
Acronis True Image Home
Keriver Image
Avanquest Copy Commander
Paragon Drive Backup
NovaBackup
R-Drive Image
Norton Ghost
HDClone Pro or Enterprise
Terabyte Image for Windows
Terabyte Image for DOS (can directly access FAT, FAT32, and NTFS partitions)
Spotmau Disk Clone & Backup


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## Cyps (Jan 3, 2006)

Sorry wrong thread


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## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Raybro, v11 build 8053. Elvandil, thanks for the comprehensive list, I'll check them out. Is there any one of those you prefer disregarding Acronis or Ghost?


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## fairnooks (Oct 1, 2007)

Drive snapshot is as good or better than Acronis, yet since you have had trouble using Acronis, maybe I should say its as bad or worse than Acronis?

Seriously though, I don't know about most of the others but Drive snapshot offers the convienence of working from within Windows as Acronis does, and both Leo Laporte and tech savvy extremist Steve Gibson rate it at the top of the list.


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## jasonguy (Sep 16, 2007)

I am using Acronis 9.0 and also discovered Drive Image XML recently. This last one is very good and I recommend it, and besides it is free!!!. However, keep in mind the following: you need a separate partition to store the files that Drive Image will generate. Restoration is pretty easy too.

I have 4 partitions in my Win XP machine and one is used exclusively for backups. Once they are done I generate an MD5 checksum and burn them to DVDs. Then I check the burned files against the MD5 checksum to make sure that I got a good transfer. I have not experienced any problems.

In regards to Acronis 9, my initial problem with it was that one of my memory sticks was bad so I always got corrupted images. After I got the bad module replaced, my problem was resolved. I also found out that the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows is a darn good utility to have around. That along with Drive Image XML saved my bacon a couple of times. I am talking about doing a system restoration in about 1 hour versus many hours without a good backup. Hope this helps. Cheers


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

I have noticed that from one update to the next, some drivers on the Acronis boot disk get changed. I've had problems with a couple and no GUI with one of them. But reverting to an earlier version of the disk (and the next one worked OK, too) solved the immediate problem. So long as the CD can validate an image, even if it was created with a slightly different version, it can restore the image, even if it was created with a different version installed in Windows.



fairnooks said:


> Drive snapshot is as good or better than Acronis, yet since you have had trouble using Acronis, maybe I should say its as bad or worse than Acronis?
> 
> Seriously though, I don't know about most of the others but Drive snapshot offers the convienence of working from within Windows as Acronis does, and both Leo Laporte and tech savvy extremist Steve Gibson rate it at the top of the list.


Thanks. I am not familiar with that one. I'll try it on my test machine. I figure that if it can back up and restore a Vista partition, with its new and non-standard parameters, it will work on anything.  Trouble is, with no bootable media, how do you restore an image? You'd need UBCD4Win or a parallel installation of an OS, which is a major problem for some. Images are very easy to create by any number of methods, but the real test of an imaging app is how and how well an image can be restored to a new or empty drive.

(Interesting adjectives for SG. I run hot and cold about that guy. He's an alarmist, sells some junk software, but also gives away useful things and is smart in a diabolical sort of way







).


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## pcguy999 (Feb 24, 2008)

Does Drive SnapShot read and write to NTFS volumes outside of Windows?


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

pcguy999 said:


> Does Drive SnapShot read and write to NTFS volumes outside of Windows?


That's my whole point. It appears that it runs from Windows, so that makes restoring the image difficult. But it appears that you can restore images from a DOS environment, too.

http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/makebootdisk.htm


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Ok sorry but i just had to chime in on a few things, first, maybe you could tell us the problem with acronis. I have run it for a while on version 10 and have no trouble. And im sorry but i had to comment on the SG statements. Yes, in his podcast, he is a bit of a walking ad for his software but you have to kind of let it slide as they really just run that whole thing on donations so they need some way to support the stuff. And i am assuming by sold software you speak of his spinrite? I have it and so far when i first ran it on my dad's laptop it said it found 2-3 bad sectors on it which it cleaned up but then again they may have been false readings from something else. And when ran on mine after firefox went south at one point, i was able to load up firefox without any trouble after running the software on my drive. However, i do realize that any peice of software probably could have achieved the same result. Im waiting for a drive to fail in my house to really test its metal. I do agree on some of what elvandil said. If you listen, every time there is a big security leak in M$. He acts like were in grave danger. Im sorry just wanted to comment on the securitynow podcast statements. .


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## fairnooks (Oct 1, 2007)

Yeah I think someone has to be very familiar with where SG is coming from to "get" him. From that perspective I don't see him as alarmist at all, just the "what could happen" guy. By analogy its like I could go buy the latest $1000 processor but I WILL buy the $350 processor and get 85% of the performance for a third of the price and do just fine...its like SG reveals where the edge is so I then know where I'm comfortable.

As for his bread and butter software, yeah, there's a fundamental, philosophical difference when it comes to how that data on a drive is treated. The problem is, the only thing I've ever heard is the opposition to the method of recovery and I haven't ever seen a good study of some sort that breaks down the actual cases or instances where SpinRite was absolutely the wrong way to go and that an image reocovery would surely have worked in its stead, because if its hardware both methods are moot anyway, one just because it won't work and the other because measures are too exorbitantly expensive for most people to follow through on and no sure thing if they do.

I'm on the fence but I guess if I did have a problem and recovery was paramount I probably couldn't resist trying SpinRite.


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## SB305 (Sep 20, 2007)

I've run mainly Win98SE since 1999. I've been using Power Quest Drive Image (which came free on a PC magazine cover disk) to back it up for about as long. In all that time Drive Image has never failed even once.


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## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

To put things in perspective, my Acronis boot CD fails even to get to the GUI where you choose the mode of operation, or as Americans might say, first base. Acronis have made available to me no fewer than 9 different CD ISO's, some of these gave a verbose display to show what was going on, and I had to to take a digital snapshot at the point where the screen froze and then I would email it to them for analysis. 

Their last effort was two weeks ago and I only got the last reply from them because I insisted they inform me if their investigation was ongoing or if they had just abandoned it. They did reply, and asked me to wait a while longer for the problem to be solved. I have been using Acronis Trueimage since version 7 and have always admired it's performance but can't believe it has come to this, a boot Cd which won't boot. 

There is nothing exotic about my computer setup it's just a Philips Freevents laptop with Vista Home Premium installed, so it should be a straight boot. Other CD's boot OK. I wondered if it's something to to do with the Linux orientation of the CD which conflicts with Vista, so I suggested they create a Vista or XP boot CD, but maybe I'm ranting. It's just very strange, all previous Acronis CD's never gave me this problem from Win98 through WinME then XP, and on different computers, only now with Vista I get this boot failure. 

I surely can't be the only person with this experience, that would be weird, but at the moment I feel like I am. Anyway I live in hope (just). I don't know enough about boot CD technology but any opinions on my Vista or XP based boot CD idea?


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Hi SB305 

I too used to use Drive Image when I had 98se. Version 4 got me through some tough times when I was first learning what not to do with/to a computer


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Oh ok, yes my old desktop cannot boot that disc. It tries, then restarts. Hmm try one of the things elvandil dug up possibly.


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## SB305 (Sep 20, 2007)

Stoner said:


> Hi SB305
> 
> I too used to use Drive Image when I had 98se. Version 4 got me through some tough times when I was first learning what not to do with/to a computer


Hi Stoner! :up:


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## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

OK, I decided to cut my losses and get Paragon Drive Backup and guess what? The boot CD booted, I backed up my hard drive then later did a restore, everything worked fine. Now at least I can rest assured if the worst happens I'll be OK. Acronis now have no excuse, even if they fix my problem I doubt if I'll trust their product again. It has cost me money, and now more money, time and hassle and the worry of how to restore my hard drive if it fails. I'm calming down now but they won't get another chance, they've just had their last one.


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

Plantsman said:


> OK, I decided to cut my losses and get Paragon Drive Backup and guess what? The boot CD booted, I backed up my hard drive then later did a restore, everything worked fine. Now at least I can rest assured if the worst happens I'll be OK. Acronis now have no excuse, even if they fix my problem I doubt if I'll trust their product again. It has cost me money, and now more money, time and hassle and the worry of how to restore my hard drive if it fails. I'm calming down now but they won't get another chance, they've just had their last one.


Glad you got it worked out, in any case.

The problem I had with a couple Acronis boot CD's was what seemed to be the driver for the video. I'd get a very faint screen or none at all. I know they must have changed drivers between versions (actually, subversions) since both the CD from the next release and the previous one worked fine.

I've always had good luck with Paragon products (and 7-Tools, which is the same company). If it works for you, stick with it. Personally, I like to have at least 2 products that work just in case.

I doubt that the problem has anything to do with Vista. Even with other bootable Linux CD's, I get the occasional one that won't work on a particular machine due to graphics driver incompatibilities, even though the same disk works fine on my other 3 machines.


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## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Thanks Elvandil for the list, it helped me get an alternative, so thanks again.


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

Plantsman said:


> Thanks Elvandil for the list, it helped me get an alternative, so thanks again.


Glad to help. I'm not here for the money or the glory. So it must be to help.


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

It probably is the same there. Incompatible drivers. Be nice if acronis was smart enough to build a boot disk using the drivers installed on the machine so there would be no video drivers. Better yet, give that option just in case a user has trouble. I think you probably hit the nail on the head with those non booting disks, elvandil.


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