Please confirm if I should redue my backup
OK... I made my first backup, but I think I may have already made a mistake.... but maybe not, so I want to check.
1) When I was preparing to make my first full backup I first went to the disc and partition section
2) i selected the multiple partitions option, which once it opened showed all my various hardrives
3) I have 2 physical internal drives on my computer that I always want to back up. The first 3 below all make up what is on my 1st physical drive. I then added a second internal drive that all my data is stored on (F:)
I checked each box that I wanted to back up.... those included the following on my system
-system
- windows (C:)
- Image backup ------ this is actually on the c drive, but is a factory recovery thing that came w/ computer when It shipped
-my second internal harddrive (f:)
4) I then selected the destination which is an EXTERNAL harddrive (g:)
But here is where I may have gone wrong. In the backup scheme section it was set to incremental. I did NOT realize there were other options and kept it set as that and did my backup.
This morning I checked and realized there was an option that said full which I think is what I should have selected since this was my first full backup. I do know that I infact selected everything noted above that I need backed up.
Should I redue the backup? or will I be OK with what I have done. Ultimately I want to be able to make incremental backups and then have full backups done after a certain # of incrementals.
Review this link.
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/28705
The first backup will be a full backup regardless of your settings. My concern would be to make sure that my backup did actually include all partitions on the system disk. Simulate another backup but this time, after you click on the "multiple partitions" option, click on the "switch to disk mode" at the top of the same screen. There you will see your system disk and it will show all partitions included in your disk. If your original backup included all the partitions listed, then your backup has all you need. However, I do suggest that you use the disk mode option so to make sure it really does include everything. This is figure 5 in my example.
Whether you want your backup to also include the 2nd Data disk is up to you but you may find it preferable to keep them separate and do data backups more frequently than backup of your system disk.
Based on what you want regarding keeping incrementals, I suggest you stop the existing task and start a new task using a custom backup scheme. In the reference link, note figure 11-inc. This illustrates how to create a custom backup task by creating a new full after x number of incrementals. The example a full after 6 incs and keeping 4 recent version chains which would be the 4 most recent full backups but you can change the 6 and 4 to fit your needs. Keeping x number of chains seems to work better for most rather than using x number of days or x amount of space.
Editing an existing task has proven unreliable for many. I do recommend that you start over with a new task pointing to a new storage folder or a new sub-folder on an existing folder. Acronis says it is ok to mix backups within the same folder but many users find this does not work and my recommendation is that you direct your backup to an empty folder--or one storage folder per task.
Examples of file names and folders:
http://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/mvp/user285/folders/win7-6…
http://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/mvp/user285/folders/win7-6…
http://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/mvp/user285/folders/all-te…
http://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/mvp/user285/folders/backup…
http://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/mvp/user285/folders/2011-d…
Thank you GroverH for taking the time to answer my question... I will take your advice and make sure I start a new task, rather than trying to edit an existing one.