A little discussion about TIH and Windows Backup
I used to be a firm beliver in Acronis and would stongly suggest to every user I came in contact with to also make use of this software. So very easy to insert the disk, boot the system, make your choices then make your system image. Easy, cut and dried and no reason to install anything on the machine. Fast forward to ATI 2011, the last edition I purchased, that had to be installed and, being unaware, that it also over wrote Windows Backup, which I had planned to use as a second image backup option as a fallback. Now that Windows 10 has arrived, I feel that I need to go back to my 2 image plan. I really miss my Acronis and would like to come back if possible.
(1) Can ATI 2017 be installed and not over write the Windows image backup? (2) Can I install a basic ATI 2017 ala carte with out all the bells and whistles. (3) At one time a CD/DVD could be created that it's sole purpose was to create and/or restore an image backup. Is that still possible? (4) What is the advantage of a subscription over a 1 time purchase?


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Hi Ian,
Thank you for such a quick and informative response. I think I might of misled you about the over writing. At the time I installed ATI 2011, it over wrote the windows backup program, not any backup's already made. I had wanted to have images by Acronis AND Windows Backup but I was forced to accept one over the other. You talked about using CD/DVD or Memory stick for the recovery media. Could the recovery media be put on the same external drive used for the backup's? I have a 1TB Western Digital that is reserved only for disk images that is kept off line except for making images.
Thanks again for your response,
Dave
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Dave, any of the current versions of ATIH (2016 - 2017) do not replace or overwrite Windows Backup function or files. I have used both types of backups on multiple systems using these versions.
Some earlier versions did replace Windows Backup and could also create .VHD files but this was dropped from ATIH in later versions.
You can put the recovery media on your WD 1TB backup drive but to do so is not as straight forward as making this on either CD or USB stick.
ATIH will not offer any option to create the rescue media on an external HDD drive as looks for removable media with FAT32 format.
If you want to do this, then first get hold of a 1GB memory stick and create the Acronis Rescue Media on this.
Next, make a backup image of the memory stick to another backup location.
Next, create a 1TB (or space equal to your memory stick size) space on your WD 1TB drive by using one of the free Partition Manager tools (or Acronis Disk Director if you have it), such as Easeus PM, AOMEI, etc.
Restore the backup image of the memory stick into the free space on the WD drive, so that you should then have a small FAT32 partition on the drive, ideally this should be the first partition on the drive, with the rest of the drive formatted as NTFS to hold you backup images.
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Hello Steve,
Thank you also for your response and suggestions. Based on your knowledge I see that it would be better to put the rescue media on a disk or memory stick. How big is the rescue media going to be so I know what size stick or disk to use. As an MVP do you use and/or reccomend the single disk or subscription from my stand point. All I really want to do is make solid disk images from 2 sources, windows backup (not bad as a stand alone application) and Acronis, that I have really missed. Looks like both of use have been using Acronis for a while.
Nice to meet you and thanks
Dave
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The Rescue Media will happily fit on a 1 GB flash drive. You could also use a multi-boot utility to contain multiple bootable utilities on a single flash drive, though this is somewhat more complicated. I have the ATI Rescue Media and other utilities including a disk management/partition tool, anti-virus tools, etc. on a 1 GB flash drive.
I believe in redundant protection, so I create both file-based backups (using Robocopy) and ATI system images to two external USB hard drives. I rotate the external hard drives, keeping one in a bank safety deposit box. That way if there is a fire or theft from my home, I still have the off-site backups.
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David wrote:As an MVP do you use and/or reccomend the single disk or subscription from my stand point. All I really want to do is make solid disk images from 2 sources, windows backup (not bad as a stand alone application) and Acronis, that I have really missed.
Dave, the choice about the license version depends on what you want here. You can buy a perpetual license which equates to buy once use for as long as it works, versus a subscription license which will only work with full function for as long as you keep the subscription active, but which includes updates to any new versions released.
Once a subscription version is not renewed then the software can only be used to restore previous backups already created.
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My thanks to Ian, Steve and Tuttle. All of you folks gave me great advice and information. This by far has been the most gentle forum I have run into in a long time and had no need to throw technical babble at me. I will be looking forward talking with you in the future, and I am confident enough to finally return to Acronis.
Happy Holidays to you and yours.
Dave
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Dave, glad to have been able to help, Seasons Greetings to you and yours too.
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