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Is ATIH 2012 the right product to purchase to make a backup of system and user-installed software to quickly restore as needed?

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Hello!

Please advise me. I am considering buying ATIH 2012 and want to make sure that is the correct program to buy as opposed to one of the other Acronis products. These are my questions:

1) I have many programs that I use daily that I have installed on the computer (Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking, Norton 360, Lexmark printer software, etc.). Periodically my computer starts acting unstable and I would like to be able to quickly restore the computer to "day one" conditions when I first installed all of the software and everything was in working order. Which Acronis product is right for this?

2) I am also wondering how to keep my data files preserved so that when I restore to "day one" conditions, I can separately reload my data files also in a simple manner? My data files are in the C drive in the My Documents folder. Is partitioning the hard drive prior to using Acronis an option? Are there instructions to do this? (I have a Toshiba Tecra A10 laptop; Intel dual core processor (2.4 GHz); 4 GB RAM; 64-bit operating system; Windows Vista Business Service Pack 1.) If partitioning is not advised, how do I manage this so that I can have my "day one" system and user-installed softwares in one place, and easily restorable, and my data files, which change everyday, in another place and also separately, easily, restorable?

2) I currently back up my data files using Seagate GoFlex external hard drive, which comes bundled with Memeo backup software. The support documentation says Memeo does not back up program files. Is there a way to use Acronis (and override Memeo) so that I can have a separate section (partition?) in my Seagate hard drive where I keep my "day one" image and a separate place in Seagate where I keep my regularly updated data files? And then be able to easily restore that "day one" image as needed?

Thank you.

Jasmine

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If you do a full disk restore, from a full disk image, you do not have to restore data files separately. A full disk image includes everything.

Yes, I use Acronis True Image for exactly that purpose, to roll back to a previous good state if something goes wrong.

Be aware that there are some issues with the current version 2012. Not everyone experiences problems, but some do and they can include losing communication with USB devices. What you might want to do is to just download and use the Recovery disk, which you can burn to bootable CD-R or use on a bootable USB flash drive (that's what I do). Once you buy and register the product, you'll be able to download that Recovery disk ISO from the Acronis site. Then, wait until after some issues are fixed before installing the Windows version. You may have no problems, but that would be a way to go if you are concerned.

If you do want to install, at least use the Recovery disk ISO to make a full disk image first. Then if you do have issues with the Windows version of ATI, you can roll back by restoring the previous image.

Hi Tuttle, thanks for your response.

The thing is I do want to be able to restore data files separately because I don't want to have to figure out at what point in time one of the installed softwares got fussy, I just want to roll it back to day one when the computer worked great. And then restore the data files which I want to be current to whatever the last changes I made on them. Will one of the acronis softwares allow me to do that?

Can you explain what bootable means? This means that it will restore things like system files and user-installed software?

When I purchase the flash drive, I should look for one that says "bootable"?

Thank you,
Jasmine

Hi Tuttle, thanks for your response.

The thing is I do want to be able to restore data files separately because I don't want to have to figure out at what point in time one of the installed softwares got fussy, I just want to roll it back to day one when the computer worked great. And then restore the data files which I want to be current to whatever the last changes I made on them. Will one of the acronis softwares allow me to do that?

Can you explain what bootable means? This means that it will restore things like system files and user-installed software?

When I purchase the flash drive, I should look for one that says "bootable"?

Thank you,
Jasmine

Yes, you can do that with Acronis True Image. You could, if you want, roll back to restore a very early full disk image, then after booting into Windows you could mount a newer image and restore data files. It's even simpler if you have data on a separate partition, but you can do it even on a single partition.

Restoring a disk image restores everything to an earlier state: yes, system files and user-installed software, and everything that was on that disk when you created the image.

If you want to boot the Acronis Recovery disk from a USB flash drive, youo don't need a special flash drive. It is made bootable by using a tool such as Grub4DOS or Xboot. I prefer Xboot, as it is simpler to setup. It's a free download.

Actually come to think of it, if I do want a separate partition for data and for system files/user-software - does that mean purchase True Image with Disk Director will take care of my needs? I'm not computer savvy so if purchasing these softwares will make it easier for me to do this, I would rather do it.

I have not used Disk Director, but I'm sure that would allow you to partition the drive.