Do I need to manually exclude pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys when making a disk/partition image backup ?
Hi
I'm using Acronis True Image Home 2009, build # 9770. (This is the latest build for the UK, and according to some email correspondence with Acronis Customer Central: "the build nos. 9796 and 9770 are exactly the same in respect to any technical specification or features. The reason why they are given different build nos. is for us to able to able to distinguish between different regions. In the same way the latest build nos. for France is 9769.")
Section 3.1 of the manual (which I've quoted at the end of this post) says pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys are excluded by default.
But when I make a disk/partition image backup, pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys are always included irrespective of whether I check the "Back up sector-by-sector (requires more storage space)" option or not.
Is the manual wrong and do I need to manually exclude pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys?
Or was Acronis Customer Central lying when they said that "the build nos. 9796 and 9770 are exactly the same"?
Should I (can I) use build 9796 instead of 9770?
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I'm also confused about what a disk/partition image backup is. The manual says:
"Backing up disks and partitions is performed in a different way: Acronis True Image Home stores a sector-by-sector snapshot of the disk"
but if ATIH2009 is already doing a sector-by-sector snapshot of the disk, what does the "Back up sector-by-sector (requires more storage space)" option do? Isn't it already doing that?
What difference does it make if you check the "Back up sector-by-sector (requires more storage space)" option?
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I understand what the "Back up unallocated space" option does, but that is greyed out unless you select all partitions on the disk.
Surely it should work if you just select 1 partition on the disk ?!
Sorry for the long post. Thank you very much for any insights!
3.1 The difference between file archives and disk/partition images
A backup archive is a file or a group of files (also called “backups” in this guide), that
contains a copy of selected file/folder data or a copy of all information stored on selected
disks/partitions.
When you back up files and folders, only the data, along with the folder tree, is compressed
and stored.
Backing up disks and partitions is performed in a different way: Acronis True Image Home
stores a sector-by-sector snapshot of the disk, which includes the operating system, registry,
drivers, software applications and data files, as well as system areas hidden from the user.
This procedure is called “creating a disk image,” and the resulting backup archive is often
called a disk/partition image.
By default, Acronis True Image Home stores only those hard disk parts that contain data (for
supported file systems). Further, it does not back up swap file information (pagefile.sys
under Windows XP/Vista) and hiberfil.sys (a file that keeps RAM contents when the
computer goes into hibernation). This reduces image size and speeds up image creation and
restoration. However, you might use the Create an image using the sector-by-sector
approach option that lets you include all of the sectors of a hard disk in an image.
A partition image includes all files and folders. This includes all attributes (including hidden
and system files), boot record, and FAT (file allocation table); as well as files in the root
directory and the zero track of the hard disk with master boot record (MBR).
A disk image includes images of all disk partitions as well as the zero track with master boot
record (MBR).
Therefore, what does the tick box "Exclude system files and folders" actually do? I thought this was to exclude the pagefile etc! Have I made a backup without the Windows system files which is therefore useless as a rescue medium?
Therefore, what does the tick box "Exclude system files and folders" actually do? I thought this was to exclude the pagefile etc! Have I made a backup without the Windows system files which is therefore useless as a rescue medium?
Your image wouldn't be useful for restoring Windows. In my opinion, it's best to not exclude anything (don't check any of the boxes). The exception is if you know you have a lot of large files that you want to exclude (.MPG, .MP3, etc.). However, if you do, it's generally best to have them on a non-system partition as it makes things easier to manage.
Apart from this topic, there are other topics where users report/claim that the pagefile will always be excluded. But pagefile.sys is not excluded (by default) when making image backups, at least not on my system with ATIH v11 (build.8082, Dutch) or with v2010 (build 7046, Dutch). And adding the file name to the (default) exclude list, don't work too.
Note. My Operating System is Windows XP Pro SP3 (Dutch).
With v11 excluding did only work when I entered that filename every time manually at the File Exclusions screen (during the Backup Wizard). However with v2010, even that 'trick' works anymore. The file excluding option was and is still a messy situation.
And Seekforever, it's not only the pagefile.sys name in the image. After mounting the image, the copy result is a large file.
Note. I've now located that file at another partition and the difference in the backup file sizes confirms too, that pagefile.sys was not excluded previously.