ACRONIS - Its been real.............

Hi Jerry, i am not sure if such postings like yours are welcome or allowed on this forum *LMAO*

i've been testdriving (for me and for business) DD11 bootmediaCD and BackupAndRecovery10 bootmediaCD, latest download versions. i found out that

DD11cd doesnt have a disk editor. (If you follow my past posts, ppl will know that i was making heavy use of disk editors).
DD11cd crashes shortly before the final screen (GUI with display of partitions) finishes loading.
BR10cd doesnt seem to be able to restore my *.tib-images created with TIH11. The image comments are shown/displayed, but when i try to validate them, error message comes up "cant find archive" (???).
OSS looks beautiful (the fresh blue colour) ((ok, i dont like the little files OSS distributes all over my system, and i dont appreciate OSS "taking over the system", but that's secondary)), no doubt. however i got hooked with the new hardware (new pc, new usb sticks) which supports booting from USB flash drive, so my bootmanager is on the flash (powered by grub4dos): whenever i need to switch the OS, i plugin my usb key and ..etc.. Apart from that story, i liked OSS -- it is a very intelligent piece of software. (but now, after learning to code in grub4dos, i've become 'intelligent' ;) too.. so i take control (with my code written in grub4dos) over the boot process, and i know what i am doing (we never know what OSS is doing, right? ;), and so sometimes i would want to manipulate the MBR by hand. Too bad that DD11 has no more disk editor. maybe it's too dangerous of a tool to have.

Well, im saying that BootItNG is an even more dangerous tool to use. Too powerful, and i never got along with it. for sure, i personally cannot recommend it. and i dont see the need for an overpowered (and possibly dangerous) bootmanager.. if the sole purpose is to select your boot partition LOL

So, i am happy now with my bootmanager.

as to B&R programs, i've testdriven them all, products by the major competitors. And i had issues with all products (I didnt have any issues 10-15 years ago DriveImage..) -- that's why we have this big support forum with thousands of posts and that's why we are here, right now, arent we? Because of the issues. B&R programs should not, but they do cause issues. (Didnt seem like it 10-15 years ago). One reason is the progress of technology. Hardware becomes more complex, hardware drivers more exotic, so software (DD11, DD11bootcd, etc.) have to compensate for all possible hardware/driver combinations. 10-15 years ago that was much easier for PQ to handle. It all fit onto a single diskette. Furthermore, the modern bootCDs want to offer additional support (for restore/backup locations: e.g. network drives, ftp drives) so they're getting themselves more complex.

To cut it short, as to B&R programs there is no such a thing like "the best and really outstanding" products nowadays (10-15 years ago, there was one. because it was the only one available -- and when Acronis came into public awareness it was always second choice). I wish there was, and i wish i could give a clear recommendation, and i wish, since we're on an Acronis forum, i could name it TrueImage or BackupAndRecovery.

I would love to discuss different version releases of Symantec Norton Ghost, Paragon, PowerQuest, etc. compared with the functionality, stability and perfection/imperfection of Acronis products -- but this is not the right place to do so (see Acronis forum terms of agreement), since this is a support forum for Acronis users (and not a discussion forum).

In summary,
i find OSS beautiful, cant recommend BootItNG, and love my grub4dos.
i cant 100% recommend any B&R product currently on the market.
so like you, i am not convinced of Acronis products/quality, yet ive chosen to use them and live with the imperfections.

i am not happy with.. but rest in peace with Acronis :)

Hi Peter,

Thank you for the reply and insight. I had been a loyal and vocal advocate of all Acronis products
for many years. It seems that the "NEW" team has lost sight of their customers needs and desires.

I like to be able to depend on a product year after after year.....

I had always used OSS and started with it as an independent product back at version 7 or 8.

I will keep an eye on Acronis to see if they can pull back from the brink, but will use other products
till i am convinced they are back on track.

If you would like to PM me outside of Acronis Forms I am at acronis4833@yahoo.com

Jerry

Hi Jerry,
thanks also.
[...]
I enjoy test driving good software products (or good books or good ..etc.. ). 2 months ago my PC was all new and i had to employ (deploy) such kind of software to establish a robust system (with partitions, multi-OS, bootmanager, backup images of fresh installed OS's), so i ran into some questions and trouble with the software (Acronis, and others..) which were resolved promptly here on the friendly and generous support forum (Thanks to all to whom it may concern! ;). Due to that opportunity, i learned a lot about booting process, MBR's, and boot managers.. so it took me a while to say goodbye to OSS. Finally i did. And now my system is setup all stable and running and i am immersed into do some actual productive work with it.
The point of Acronis (and related) software is, once you have used them in the beginning and your system is all setup, you dont need them anymore. (That's why official/public reviewers of Paragon software criticize the pricing of their products). So I dont expect needing the software (Acronis, etc.) anytime soon (e.g. total crash, hardware transfer/migration.. not likely to happen anytime soon at my place), so, sorry, i'm out of this subject matter or area of interest (forums, discussions, test drives) ;)

We'll see each other in future - im sure ;)) .. Meanwhile we will continue to observe the Acronis releases, sometimes test drive them (when we've got time to do so and are in mood), maybe re-become a fully convinced Acronis fan, and for sure return to this forum and start discussions and questionings anew (and chitchat about such type of software products) as soon as we run into trouble when using them.

My system is setup with DD10 and TIH2010. Worked, but not flawlessly. But sokay.
So i test drove DD11.. didnt work out well for me (and was lacking Disk Editor), so i said
"What the h*ck, i'll be b*ck!".. and continued/continue with life ;)

hehe.. btw, it is fascinating to see how BIG this forum is (compared with the small support forum community at Norton Ghost. apparently NG users have less trouble with NG. my interpretation ;) ;) ;)

Best regards
Peter

here i am. back. :P

today i am a happy acronis user. i received a call from my old pa, windows refuses to start. although i installed his system new (fresh, from scratch) only 2 weeks ago, somehow the winxp got unstable again (corrupt/missing system files, reboots in an endless loop, no chance to see the XP desktop). i asked him if he had stored/saved any important data (it's got only 1 partition C:\, sized 10GB. total (theoretical ;) capacity of the hdd is 40GB, though ) and he said no. so i went and looked for the TIH2010 bootcd (CD-RW) and the dvd+r with the *.tib-file (burned 2 weeks ago). found the two discs.
The restore process (months ago it took 19mins with PQ DriveImage2002; restoring to the unhealthy area of the HDD (the first 30GB's (sectors) of the 40GB-small hdd)) was really fast. Felt like less than 1min. My dad's hdd is sized down to 10GB (hehe..), namely the 'rear area' of the 40GB hdd, but it is the healthy area (with no physically corrupt tracks/sectors ("scratches")) so that must be the main reason why the restore took only < 1mins.

Anyway, i found that amazing. my dad's happy. and me too.

Thanks to Acronis.