Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Apr 2009 18:13:29 -0400, George <george@nospam.invalid>
> wrote:
>
>> I like the Acronis TI products for that.
>
> Why do you like it? Much as I value everyone's opinions, they're
> kinda useless without the attendent testimonials.


Trying to image a running machine always makes me wonder if I got a good
snapshot. Assuming Windows boxes then with TI it all depends on your
apps being VSS aware. A few years back they just weren't ready for prime
time. What I used to do previously was boot up on the recovery CD. Then
you were really sure nothing was open or uncommitted.

>
> I tried Acronis image backup about 2 years ago and had the same
> problem I had with every other image backup program that backs up
> while Windoze is running. Files that change during the backup appear
> on the image as corrupted garbage. What inspired my recent search for
> the one true backup solution was having two important hard disk drives
> fail after a relatively short running period (2 years).
>
> In one case, I had run a DVD backup using Farstone DriveClone 5.1:
> <http://www.farstone.com>
> back in Dec 2008. I just noticed that this product isn't offered on
> their web site any more (it was last week). When I restored from the
> backup, I received a boot error which indicated that the registry was
> corrupted. No problem as I was able to restore it from backups I made
> using ERUNT. However, there were a variety of other file corruptions
> that pointed to other open programs and files were also corrupted.
> Support was totally useless and could only answer my questions with
> more questions. To add to the confusion, the machine would not boot
> the XP CD or recovery console. Both resulted in a blue screen and a
> stop 0x0000007B error. The failed SATA drive was a Samsung, while the
> replacement was a Western Dismal. After much Googling (and 4 days of
> worrying), I discovered that I had to disable AHCI IDE emulation to
> get the Western Digital drive to work.
>
> A week later, another drive died (Maxtor 80GB SATA). For this
> adventure, I used DriveClone Express 6.0. This one did NOT run from
> Windoze but booted from a CD or USB flash drive. No open file
> corruption. It worked much better until I had to backup a failing
> hard disk. Drive Clone Express 6.0 would proceed until it hit a CRC
> error, and quit with an Error 0x17. My email to support (no phone
> support) asking for a list of errors and how to bypass a CRC error
> were answered with "run chkdsk /f /r". In addition, their built in
> chkdsk feature returned "invalid argument" if I checked the /F box.
> Nothing like customer debugged software. I quickly switched back to
> Norton Ghost 2003 (floppy disk boot) but the drive died in the middle
> of the backup. By pure luck, all was not lost. The customer had a 2
> month old backup on his SimpleTech backup drive using Arcsoft
> TotalMedia Backup. I reinstalled Windoze XP, updated, restored from
> the backup, and then spent the next 3 days untangling the mess. It
> was great for restoring the user files, but useless for system files.
> Fortunately, the really important files all came back. I also had to
> do it twice because I mis-spelled the user name. Yet another backup
> program that runs from Windoze that doesn't work quite right.
>
> I note that Acronis True Image:
> <http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/>
> offers:
> Live Backups
> Keep working right through your backup for maximum convenience.
> which in my never humble opinion, is an invitation to a repeat
> performance of my aforementioned backup horror stories.
>
> So, now you have what I consider to be typical problems with backup
> software. Back in about 2002, I tried using Acronis backup at a local
> ISP. I forgot the exact details but I have correspondence log
> somewhere that details a long and disgusting horror story. $500 and
> many hours wasted trying to make that mess work.


>
> I'll probably try Acronis True Image 2009 and try to break it. I have
> a few drives with CRC error floating around the office. At least I
> know some of the impending problems. However, it will have to wait. I
> have to deliver the restored machines and I'm out of diskspace on my
> assortment of USB drives because I've been furiously backing up
> everything in sight. I'm also headed for a colonoscopy on Weds, which
> is a good excuse for a few days off.
>