Backup data files in readable format

What you seem to be looking for is 'cloning' or just straight forward copying of a drive, however in practice this isn't a good idea. Cloning will reboot into the Linux environment (starting form Windows) to perform the clone, you might find this irksome, you also can't schedule this, it has to be performed manually.

You have said this is not what you want to do, but you could perofrm a files and folders backup which would put everything into a tib container file (compression can be disabled), this file could be 'explored' using Windows Explorer or any other file manager you have installed and you can drag and drop files back. The same could be done and with less work by either imaging the disk or partition, in which case you can then mount the drive and access the contents of the image file as though it were a physicial disk.

Having said that, I'll have to check about the rebooting bit, it has to reboot if you are cloning the system drive (your c:), but I'm not so sure about an non system drive, it might be able to do that without using Linux.

As I think you concluded, I do not want to go through a Linux boot to recoveer my data. Here's my setup:

Drive C - a SSD for Windows 7/Pro/64-bit + programs
Drive D - Backup #1 to Drive C
Drive E - a 1TB drive for data -- mostly websites that I administer
Drive F - Backup to drive E
Drive G - Backup #2 to Drive C

I also backup E to Mozy Home, and backup material for one of my websites to their Dropbox.

I'd like to be able, whilst editing a file on Drive E, to recover the latest Acronis backup from Drive F, using the same

directory/subdirectory structure to navigate to the data on F. And I want to do this from my ASCII editor (NoteTab Pro). So

I can't have it zipped.

Got an Acronis solution? Thanks for your help.

Other than cloning all other options use the tib container format, the only other option I've just thought of might be to use the sync function or online backup, however of course the latter would be 'in the cloud' rather than on your drive but it would be in un containered format.

Using Sync though has its own drawback -

For: Layout will be a direct copy of the originating structure.

Against: You would have to make a top folder the sync folder or make a special folder and drag your files into that for sync purposes. Worse, there is at the moment no way to make the sync one way, that is all changes on either drives sync files will automatically change the others. The only way around that, would be to have either a batch file or PowerShell commandlet that copies the files out of the folder - rather a pointless exercise.

The only way you can use your ASCII editor on these files would be to make a partition image and then mount this image. As this would now appear as a disk drive, NoteTab Pro would have no difficulty reading and writing data to that virtual drive. Other than that, I would suggest True Image is not the product for your needs. I realise you don't want a solution that uses intermediate container files, but this would have an advantage in that you could make incremental copies of your work so could if needs arrive use it as a poor mans version control utility.

Another option would be to use Replicator to copy your files from E to F.
http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp
When completed, Drive F will mirror drive E. When editing a file on E, its copy would be found in the same path location on drive F.
If data changes, the Replicator bat file can be run at your schedule and all changes can be mirrored into the data on Drive F.
For:
Fast, accurate and flexible. Also *.tib backup files of drive e could also be stored on Drive F as the *.tib backup file is just another file to be stored wherever you want alternate storage.
Against:
Bad changes can be copied over good data. Should have another backup of the data before changes made.

Grover, I have a Replicator question: Source drive is "E" and backup drive is "F" ... If I did something stupid and actually edited a file on "F" -- would that be automatically updated on "E" -- that is, does Replicator work in a "sync" mode to keep both drives alike?

There is no sync. It is a plain copy and F will stand "as is" and a future copy will not change it unless its original is edited and the edited version copied overtop of F.

When a subsequent copy of E is made, only the changes on E will be copied to F. If the original on E is not changed, the changed copy on F will remain.

If you're worried about drive failure, why not setup a RAID?

My strategy is a NAS running RAID and using TI to backup my computers to the NAS. The RAID is tolerant of up to two disk failures. If a single disk fails you just hot swap in a new one and rebuild the array. If one of my networks computers crashes I just install a new drive and restore from the NAS.