Do Not Use This Software
Do Not Use This Software! It is the road to ruin! The backup portion seems to work OK, but over several hours of trying, I could not figure out how to do a restore. The screen images in the on-line help do not reflect what you see in the product. More curiously, I repeatedly would go into the product and then close the program and restart with the same set of mouse clicks and get difference screens the second time. I used the 2010 version of this product for years, but, I must confess, I never tried to do a restore. Clearly the 2015 version needs more work.
Hello Robert,
could you please clarify what difficulties you have with restore using Acronis True Image 2015?
These guides provide you with step-by-step instructions on how to restore your system and separate files and folders:
Recovering your system to the same disk
Recovering files and folders
If you' need any assistance please let me know. I'll be glad to help you with support case creation!
Of course the fact that the program changes the drive letters during restore should not be a factor if you know the size and location of all your drives individual volumes and if you have multiple drives, all of their individual volume settings and locations, the MBR location on the drives and a few other inconvenient issues that can, without much effort on your part, wipe out partitions that can not be recovered completely unless you have the ability to use forensic tools and a lot of time.
I completely agree with the original poster. Don't buy it right now.
To do a proper backup of your system you want to boot off of a recovery CD or DVD, and then backup your volumes to a removable drive. Acronis provides a few different ways to create these recovery discs, but in the current software at least two of these methods are worthless. One approach generates a boot disc that hangs when you try to enter the TrueImage software.
To circumvent this, Acronis offers a burnable ISO recovery image. You would think it's a no-brainer to just burn this image to a CD and then boot into True Image. The real problem is if you are trying to deal with USB 3.0 media -- the stuff they sell in every office supply store for backing up your computer. Turns out Acronis screwed up the ISO. It boots okay, and it even runs True Image 2015, but due to some kind of problem compiled or configured into the Linux system on the boot disc image, the system is unable to recognize USB 3.0 drives -- like the one you might want to back up your system to (or worse, like the one the OP backed his system onto before it failed, and which he is now unable to access from the recovery load).
Acronis knows what the problem is, but rather than publishing a new ISO they are sitting on it -- and collecting $50 from every new subscriber -- until Windows 10 is released. Don't take my word for it -- search the forum and you'll see users have been trying to get the bootables to work with USB 3.0 drives for a couple of months. Or better yet, call Acronis support and ask them yourself. But do it in the first 30 days, because after that you have to pay $20 for the support call to tell you they won't be releasing a new ISO.
And yes, in case it's not obvious -- I was fuming when I learned this has all been figured out and Acronis is just sitting on it waiting for the next Microsoft release. Well, "fuming" might be a little strong. That didn't kick in until I tried to contact them to urge them to release the new image without waiting for Windows 10, at which point I was told it would cost me $20 for support because it's been more than thirty days since I bought this defective software (January 10th). Now I'm fuming. They've got a lot of nerve.
Today I did a restore from my Synology NAS to my computer, and it was harder than anticipated. It is the first time I actually try to restore using the wireless connection of the Linux recovery CD. I was able to connect to the wireless network, but not to the NAS, probably because the recovery medium was not capable to assign an IP address in the same subnet as my home network.
I copied the TIB files to a USB 3.0 disk to encounter the issue above. The Linux recovery CD doesn't see my USB 3.0 disk, even if it is plugged in to a USB 2.0 port.
"No problem" I thought, I am going to create a WinPE based recovery media. Unfortunately, the wizard doesn't see all my portable flash drives... After I have found one that works, I was able to create a recovery media that can see my local USB 3.0 disk.
I was then able to recover the image... Whew!
I have to agree with OP, if you are happy with what you've got don't upgrade yet.
Where is the log?
I tried some of the utilities and most would not even start.
Seems simplified to the point of uselessness.
I'll wait to see if my previously scheduled backups run and if I can determine their status but so far it is really lame.
I just restarted ATI to see if I could update to a later release and got a message about unexpected error in the last run" and immediately a white/blank screen covered the message - so now I can't even start ATI.
This version sucks...
This morning the white/blank screen was gone and ATI window was available so I quit and started it again.
1. First get screen saying last run failed unexpectedly - report to Acronis
2. Immediately covered up with white screen
3. after about 15 minutes the Acronis window appears and the "last run failed" screen flashes in front of it several times and disappears - no way to report to Acronis.
I'm not sure what ATI does when it starts up but it sure would be nice if it gave a wait or progress window instead of no indication that it is doing anything at all. The last version at least displayed a screen so you knew it was running.
I tried a backup and it seemed to work, I tried a recovery of a file from a prior version of ATI and that worked.
I can not find the log of backup failures or problems with scheduled backups. The old version had a calendar which showed when backups occurred and put red x's on days where there was a problem - haven't found that either.
I could not find the virtual mount of a partition - is it still supported?
Last night I tried to create a Rescue media and it failed not enough space available on DVD - today it worked to the same DVD?
I also started the non-stop backup (using the hidden icon) which was stopped and the ATI display for that backup showed progress then the screen went blank/white again for 10 minutes. When the ATI window reappeared there was an exclamation mark which indicated the backup was stopped - no indication of error reason or why it was stopped.
And I spent many hours last night configuring email notifications - which used to work just fine prior to 2015 - and finally got the test message to work. This morning, my scheduled backup has run but no email notification! THIS IS JUNK, DON"T BUY IT.
And I spent many hours last night configuring email notifications - which used to work just fine prior to 2015 - and finally got the test message to work. This morning, my scheduled backup has run but no email notification! THIS IS JUNK, DON"T BUY IT.
I much prefer the older versions. The 2015 GUI is not good. Its like a Windows 8 app', instead of a proper Windows Desktop application. I don't know if this was intentional, but it sucks.