Windows 7 won't recover onto spare hard drive
Hi
I have started using the trial Acronis Home 2012 and the instructions don't seem to be right and confusing when restoring Windows 7.
Starting from the beginning, I created an Acronis backup of my Windows 7 Home drive C onto my external drive in a folder called My Acronis Backups. The backup file is called AcronisBUHOmeHDD.tib. I created an Acronis Rescue disk. Then I deleted the partitions on my Windows 7 drive that held the System Reserved and drive C stuff, using a Windows 7 DVD. Whoops silly me. Now I want to recover using my Acronis backup. I boot on the Acronis rescue disk and select Recovery. Then I browse to my Acronis Backup file and right click the file. Nothing happens. OK let's try Validate backup. Nothing happens.
When I go the other way with Home - Revovery - My Disks it get's too technical and anything I configure won't work anyway. No error codes or useful error messages are given. On top of this the instructions are in French on the rescue disk. The instruction manual mentions you have to do something different for Windows 7 because it has an additional partition called System Reserved partition, but doesn't suggest how to do it for Windows 7. Really useful. This is a bit concerning. Windows Image Recovery doesn't bother you about 2 partitions and I had no problem using Microsoft. It just gets on with it. But the Microsoft way won't allow you to give the backup a name or select folder to put it in. That's why I went to Acronis. Can anyone help please as I have run out of hair now.
ATI is quirky when you want to recover from the bootcd--and the bootcd is the recommended method of recovering a system disk. Whether you start the recovery from within windows or with the bootcd, either way, your machine will be booting up into linux to do the restore.
You'd think you wouldn't have to but I find that I do have to browse to the file from the recovery window and then right click it and select restore or recover (I forget which ati calls it on that screen).
The userguide assumes you have already chosen the backup file to restore from and guides you through selecting partitions, etc. for restore (see p. 74 of userguide)
http://www.acronis.com/support/documentation/index.html
Sometimes the Recovery window will show the backups and sometimes you have to browse to the one you want. But if you find the userguide somewhat confusing, you'll probably find Grover's guides more user friendly.
Thanks guys. I will do a fresh backup and report back. My backup got 3 out of 5 stars according to boot CD instructions. Not sure why. Definitely will checkout Grover's instructions thanks. Having a manual only available in French for trial software is quirky as well. Do they only want to sell to France? I'll be back.
Supposedly something about the quality of the backup or some such nonsense -- but generally, either the backup is good or it's bad. Ignore the stars. I heard once what they meant but threw away the information as quickly as I learned it. Just think of them as needless chrome doodads on the hood of your car in the style of the 1950s and 1960s. They serve no useful purpose except that they pleased the designer one afternoon--and unlike the hood ornaments they don't present sharp pointy dangers in case of accident. ;)
Well I hope Acronis Workstation is more business like then. I don't know what Workstation is all about yet. If it does cost more, but does a pro job I might get that instead.