Basic requirements; product confusion; unhappy customer
I have just purchased ATI Home 2010. Like a mug, I also purchased the two additional packages offered including "Plus Pack". I received two confirmation emails. The following are the related reference numbers. Note that though I have purchased three products, there are TWO confirmation mails only.
14334176
14334238
That's the first of many anomalies.
Nowhere, NOWHERE, can I find any reference to the second and third elements, including the Plus Pack. No installer, nothing.
I have installed the ATI Home 2010 application. Have I also installed the other elements I've purchased or not? No idea.
My requirement for these applications, initially, is simple. I have a failing HD. I want to make a system image (os, apps) on an external device (eSata HD) and a boot CD, replace my system HD (with a different make/model) and reinstall the system on it. I would have thought that this was a scenario that would apply to many, many users of this application.
Can I work out how to do it? NO. Bear in mind that I've been using PCs professionally and at home for 30 years.
Let me give an example: The backup wizard offers the partitions to be backed up with the C drive selected by default. However the (System Reserved) partition is not checked. So, do I select it or not? OK, I'll look at the instructions (rtfm). Search for the string "System Reserved". NOTHING.
By now I should be used to this sort of nonsense - it seems to be virtually universal - but at my age (>60) it just drives me CRAZY. Yes, I'm shouting, but only at the software's authors, not the forum users.
I need to make this backup before the drive fails completely. I need to be sure it's going to work. Please, someone direct me to a short-form location for the required procedure. I'm well aware that this stuff is complex, but a short description is essential.
Any help available would be appreciated.
roy
I'd like a refund really, this is just too difficult to use and, predictably, the documentation isn't usable without devoting half my life to study of options that are irrelevant.
Any possibility of a refund?
Roy,
I sympathize with you because I am in a similar predicament to yours except that my hdd has already failed. I too have been around computers for over 30 years and am 65+ yrs of age. But my problem lies with the forum moderators(s) who have deleted all three of my posts over the past few days. I had asked some basic simple questions for which I was not able to glean answers to from all the references provided and directed to. The result was that the post were there for a few hours - perhaps a day - then ... pfffffffttt. They were gone with no word of explanation or warning. I followed all the forum policy guidelines.
Hi Ray
By now this sort of situation should be no surprise, but it still is. A simple decision tree enabling users to locate the procedure required to accomplish their backup requirements is the way to deal with this problem. I'd say 75% of users have a need for a small subset of the functions the program offers. To have to digest ALL the functionality of the entire program and extract the required functions is no way to design a user manual. I speak as someone who spent about 10 years implementing and maintaining custom software in a major media environment.
There are innumerable holes in the documentation; for example the PDF refers to "Rescue Media Builder" however no such reference is present in the UI. This one is easy to reinterpret, however why should it be necessary?
I was under the illusion that this application was well designed. It's certainly a market leader these days I believe (Ghost was even worse of course).
And of course like so many other software packages the vendors are hoping that users will help one another and save them some money. That said, the downloader having failed to download the "PlusPack" the online guy in India sorted it out for me efficiently.
I'm currently waiting for his promised short-form backup procedure. Why on earth they don't have something of the sort already is a mystery.
Annoying huh? Did you buy yours or just download the trial version?
Roy
Roy,
I purchased TI Home 2009 over a year ago at Best Buy. Ironically, in January 2010, just as I was in the very first stages of getting ready to partition and format my new external hard drive for backups, 4GB of my 8 GB RAM Dell computer went bad. After spending hours with Dell in replacing the RAM under warranty and testing it and then testing the 500 GB HDD (about 20 hrs of constant grinding by the machine) it was time to deal with Dell again to try to do a recovery. It turned out that Windows would not fully load and the bootable CD they sent me did not see success either. So I have been left to try to recover some of the data files from the main hdd. Due to months of preparing for an Alaska fishing and canoeing trip (still not done with that) I have returned to the computer problem. Fortunately I have my wife's laptop to use for these communications and to process the external 1 TB WD hdd. However, I have been stopped by this forum and I have only five days before I fly to Alaska for 6 weeks to futher prepare for next summers five month stay (drivng the truck-camper there).
The questions I asked in this forum (which were deleted by the moderator) revolved around whether or not I could clone both these computers onto the 1TB hard disk - hopefully into separate partitions - and how much space would be required for a half full 500GB internal disk in one partition and a half full 250 GB laptop hard disk into another partition. I need to know this before I partition my backup drive.
Given the lateness it appears that I will have to put this computer stuff off until late October.
In looking at a new forum post with multiple replies some people are mighty unhappy and are having lots of difficulties with TI 2010.
I'm not miffed YET by the deletions., but am puzzled. The were originally posted; I observed them there among the others after I posted.