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Confused Newb Needs Serious Help

Thread needs solution

I am using Acronis Home 2011.
I've read through the help files but am still confused.
I want to accomplish 2 things. I wan't to do a complete system (OS) backup.
Then I want to back up my files, programs, folders etc..
I then want to manually back up both the system and files, only backing up the files that have changed since the previous backup.

I am using the trial version, for a day now, and plan on purchasing as soon as I figure this out, hopefully immediately if I'm able to get some advcice here.

So, in summary:
I want to manually back up everything to my USB external drive. I have figured out how to turn of automatic scheduling.
Then I want to do weekly, (manual) of only files that have changed.

Any help you could give me, on how to accomplish this, is greatly appreciated in advance.

Thanks,
J.

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Easiest and safest way to do this is the following (check out post http://forum.acronis.com/forum/18081 for illustration)

- go to the main program interface,
- choose "disk and partition backup"
- in the upper right of the "configure disk backup process" window, click on the link "swith to disk mode"
- select the disk(s) you want to backup
- if the destination that you see is not the one you want, click on the destination, choose "browse", navigate in the left panel to the drive/folder you want, open it by double clicking, click OK,
- In backup options (link in the bottom left of the window)
- In Advanced, validation, choose validate after backup,
- In Backup scheme, choose custom, incremental, create a new backup after between 4 and 8 backups (you choose, but keep it low), turn on automatic cleaning, store no more than 1 recent version chain,
- CLick OK to close the backup options windows
- Click backup now

You will get a chain of incremental backups (only changed files) and periodically, you will have a new fresh full backup

Once the backup is finished and validated, create your recovery CD, try to reboot with it and verify you can start the restore wizard, abort at the last step.

Later, when you are familiar with the program, you can tune your setup.

 Create one task and set it for weekly.  First week will be full backup; next week  for x weeks will be differential (or incremental) until your criteria tells it to start the process over. Your criteria tells it whether to keep the first chain (chain=1 backup set which is 1 full plus x diff) or not.

A full disk backup is the best type of backup to have because it will enable you to create a duplicate disk or larger disk if needed as everything is in one backup.  The differential backup will backup only the changes  across your entire disk since the last full backup. So each differential will contain changes since the last full. This means for restoring, you choose the last differential and the restore will restore the last plus the full backup so everything will be restored that occurred since you made your last full backup.

This will get you started. 

Lot's of help at this link.
Acronis TrueImage Home 2011
Check out the "How to's"
http://kb.acronis.com/content/13414#

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How to create a "disk option" backup which includes all partitions including recovery or non-lettered partitions.

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Thank you much for your help. After reading your step by step instuction, I was much more able learn the basics, than all the reading of the help files alone. Really helped me alot, and I appreciate it. Like you said, once I get the basics, I'll be more able to understand the advanced features. So, I got my system backed up, and ordered a paid copy tonight. Thanks again.

Jim

Once you get your serial number, it can be input into the trial version so it becomes fully optioned.

You might want to look at the schedule screen under advanced options. It is preset for a backup to occur at bootup when a backup is missed. If you do not want that happening, you will need to uncheck tht option and save the changes.