How Can I Test an ATI 2016 Restore without Actually Doing a Restore?
I know that may sound like a crazy question, but here's my situation. I purchased a new computer a few months ago with Win 7 Pro installed. It came with a 512GB Samsung 950 Pro SSD and with a UEFI BIOS, both new to me. After getting most of my programs/utilities installed, I used ATI to create a system image on both another internal drive and an external drive.
Then with much help/advice from this forum, I got my UEFI settings correct and I finally generated a bootable WinPE disk using the Acronis plug in and the ADK components (I also generated a bootable flash drive). I was able to boot from the bootable WinPE disk and arrive at the Acronis Recovery menu.
But that's where I stopped. I never did an actual restore/recovery because I was 'chicken', and I still am. Since my new computer is running so well I didn't want to chance doing a restore from my Acronis backups.
Now to my question. Is there anyway I can test my backups without actually doing a restore over my perfectly running Win 7 system? For example, can I test it by doing a restore to yet another internal drive, and not back on my SSD C drive? If so, exactly how should I go about this?
Thanks in advance......


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Thanks, Steve. I never thought about just restoring a few files/folders someplace as a test of the backup. I'm going to learn how to do that and try it, as that would certainly make me feel more comfortable.
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Durago,
You could remove the 950 Pro and put in a standard Sata drive (spinning or SSD) and restore to it and it should boot. You may have to change the bootorder in the bios after changing drive types, then again, maybe not.
I had an 850 EVO to start with, I've imaged and restored to it and other drives on this system countless times. I upgraded to a 950Pro and had a few hiccups, but only do to figuring out that my new motherboard needed to have the "windows boot manager" as the first option and not to try booting directly to a specifidc disk which resulted in generic Windows 10 frowny face bluescreen that made me think it was a driver issue (but it wasn't). By restoring to a different drive an removing the original (even if the new drive is not a PCIE NVME drive) you have no risk of corrupting the original drive and can really verify your recovery on a different disk. If it absolutely causes issues with that drive, then remove it and put int eh original and no damage done.
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Bobbo, I learned a few months ago when you all were helping me adjust my UEFI settings that the 'Windows Boot Manager' had to be first option. But then after I exited UEFI I could press F8 (for my computer) and arrive at the boot menu......there I could select the drive I wanted.
I was trying to avoid opening my tower case right now, as it voids the warranty without prior approval and 'guidance', but it may come to that.
Thanks for your response.............
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Bummer - I would think that replacing standard items like disks or memory would not void warranty, but better to be safe than sorry. Does your system have E-Sata? I'm wondering if e-SATA would still allow booting of an external drive (whereas USB 3.0 definitely does not). I've never actually tried and my current system does not have an eSATA port, but in my old one, I had an eSATA drive connected that was failing and when it was plugged in, the system would hang (because the drive was bad) and removing it would allow it to boot then - it was almost like it was treating it like an internal drive. Might be worth a shot if you don't have any other options - if it does work, cool, if not, well, no harm done, just some wasted time :)
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Bobbo, that is definitely something I will consider. My new computer does have an external eSATA port. Do all USB external drives permit eSATA connections, or just USB? Or would I need a special external drive?
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You would need an external case or drive that specifically has an ESTA port as well. Some systems double as eSATA and USB, but if your external drive is USB only, it's going to be read like a USB so probably won't work.
This one is a little pricey as far as external enclosures go (I'm sure there are cheaper ones), but it has a dedicated USB 3.0 port and a dedicated eSATA port so you have the option to use either.
http://www.amazon.com/Anker-Aluminum-External-Enclosure-12-5mm/dp/B005B…
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I believe a docking station would be easier to use...but a bit more expensive.
http://www.amazon.com/Anker%C2%AE-External-Docking-Station-Support/dp/B…
Durago...if you give this a try, please report back with your success (or failure)...a lot of us would like to know. Thanks.
FtrPilot
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Yes, I will report back if I decide to go the external enclosure or docking station route. But more than likely at this point I am just going to bite the bullet and do an actual restore just to make sure everything works.
Thanks for your comments and website references.
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Durago,
Do you have another computer you could practice on? If you could do a backup & restore on another computer, you would then have confidence you created the backup properly and are able to perform a restore.
When you made the backup, did you use "full partition list"? See picture below.
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Pilot - Yes I used the full partition list, because I like to pick/choose the partitions I backup.
I currently own two copies of ATI 2016. On my new Win 7 Pro computer, I have 4 image backups but I am hesitant to restore any of these because this new computer with UEFI BIOS and Samsung 950 SSD is running so well.
On my old computer I have 3 image backups, and one of these backups is for Win 10 OS running in dual boot mode with Win 7 Ultimate on that computer. So I could restore my Win 10 image as practice, since I only upgraded to Win 10 so I could play around with it. Basically, I am a Win 7 guy.......IMHO, best OS Microsoft ever developed.
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