Acronis 2011 - Full HDD Backup - Best Method Question

Scoop wrote:

Hi

I've been using the Clone utility with Acronis 2011 True Image version with good results but I'm interested in using the "Backup & Recover" utility as well as periodic cloning for recovery in the event of a problem with my primary desktop HDD.

I'm running Windows 7 64-bit on my Desktop.

I have a couple of questions.

I have run one full-disc Backup a couple months ago to an external USB HDD with no errors. When I ran the 1st full-disc backup, I ran it from within Windows (not booting from my retail Acronis bootable CD, outside of Windows).

Thanks to the forum here, I learned, when cloning, that I needed to boot up Acronis from my bootable CD when running the Clone utility to remain outside of Windows.

Question 1: Does this also apply to the full-disc Backup utility? In other words, is it recommended to run a full-disc Backup action from outside of Windows, booting up with the Acronis CD?

No. It doesn't apply to creating disk and partitions backup in Windows. Except in specific cases like Bitlocker encrypted disks, or presence of partitions using a non supported file system, backing up in Windows is perfectly fine.

Question 2: I started running another full-disc Backup recently and then cancelled it after I observed (I expected to see this but wanted to verify) that the full-disc Backup had created a newer version of my full-disc backup, similar to how my daily custom incremental file backup operates...a rolling daily version of my file backups.

I'm only interested in keeping an updated full-disc backup version on my external USB HDD and not mutli versions of full-disc backups.

Does the full-disc Backup utility automatically run incremental full-disc backups after the initial backup, only backing up any new or updated files, to include any OS files and other system/registry, boot sector, etc that has changed since the initial full-disc backup?

Each backup in ATI is now setup as a task. A task can be full, increment or differential. Regardless of the type, the first backup in an empty directory is always a full. The following backup will be of the type of the task.

Since I'm only interested in keeping the latest full-disc backup version, would I need to format my external USB HDD each time before running a full-disc backup?

No. A backup is just producing a TIB file. TIB files contain all the information you need to restore your disk. Backup + restore = clone

I'm assuming that If I allow the full-disc Backup to run similarly to my daily files, I would run out of free disc space on my external USB HDD after 1-2 full-disc backups.

I'd say keep as much history as you can. Using an incremental task, creating an new full after a few X incrementals, and keeping the most recent Y chains is the best setting from a space/performance/risk perspective. Make sure you always have enough space to do a new full, since ATI will not erase an older chain before completing a new full.

Make sure that you include all the partitions of your system disk in the backup, including the active partition. Many computers have hidden partitions (you can see them with ATI and with Windows Disk Management, but not with Windows Explorer). Some computers have their active partition on another disk.

Also make sure you can boot your computer on the recovery CD and recover a couple of files from that backup.

Pat,

Thanks for the info :)

I tried running my first full-disc Backup & Restore with Acronis 2011 with mixed results.

Here's how I ran the first attempt at this:

- I ran a full-disc Backup from my "C" HDD onto an external USB portable HDD. That ran ok as far as I could determine. I viewed the contents on the portable HDD and from what I could see, it all looked good. The "My Partitions" contents were there. I saw that both the "boot/system" partition and the normal partition was present on the USB HDD.

- I inserted a spare (internal) HDD that was formatted before installing it into my Desktop Tower (installed in my hot-swap Sata rack).

- I booted up to my PC into my Acronis retail bootable CD.

- Here's where things got confusing for me, as this is the 1st time that I have tried using the Backup/Restore utility, having prior to this, always used the Clone utlility.

- I selected "Restore" from the bootable Acronis CD. The program then asked me "full disc" option. I clicked that box since I want to basically duplicate a "clone" action onto my formatted internal HDD from the external USB HDD.

- The next section of queries is where I wasn't able to understand the choices from the "Restore Wizard" options. It was asking me "which partitions", choices that I'm not familiar with. Since I had previously seleted "full-disc" recovery mode, I wasn't expecting the Wizard to ask for specific partitions, etc. So I tried to select all partitions, since that's what I'm trying to do, simulate a "clone" action using my external USB HDD as the "source" HDD and the intermal HDD as the "target".

- After several attempts to navigate this part of the wizard (selecing partitions), I thought I had it figured out but it appears that I didn't select the "boot sector" part of my Backup HDD (see below). The "Recover" action started so I wanted to allow it to run and see the results.

- After the Recover procedure completed ~ 3.5 hrs, due to, I assume, USB 2.0 slower data speeds and perhaps the (normal?) speed of how the Acronis .tib recovery speed required, I tried to boot up my PC with the internal HDD.

- "Boot Mgr not found" msg appeared on the screen. I wasn't really surprised since I don't fully understand how to navigate the "Recover" wizard options regarding the Partition-select section in the Wizard.

I thought it would be simpler for me to navigate this, as the Clone navigation is (to me, that's a lot simpler than the Recover wizard).

As I mentioned above, I'm sure that I didn't select all partitions on my USB HDD before starting the "Recover" step but it's not straightforward to me as to how to select all partitions from the Recover Wizard setup.

Perhaps you can help me with that part of the navigation of the "Recover" wizard choices.

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I was also curious regarding the part of your post above that mentioned the problems that some other members have encountered with the "source" (master) HDD when cloning.

I can see how a power interruption or loss would affect the Source HDD during cloning, sort of... since it's my understanding that the Source HDD isn't being written to during a Cloning action, only the Target HDD is getting written. Is that currect when using Acronis Cloning?

Is the Source HDD being accessed in a way other then a "read" action when cloning with Acronis?

I'm also wondering what other problems that members have encountered, when using the Clone utility. I've been using the Cloning utility for a while with good results. I did encounter a couple of glitches when I first began to clone (about a year & 1/2 ago) but that was due to not cloning with the recommended method prior to my last 2 clone's. I had previously been cloning from within Windows and not from the bootable Acronis CD. After receiving help from this forum, I've been cloning with the recommended method and it's been working ok.

The only thing that I have noticed, after cloning, is that occasionally, my Source HDD will have minor issues when booting up the first time after a Clone action has completed. I'll sometimes have to reboot 1-2 times to get Windows to complete its "Welcome" screen initialization and getting to my "Desktop" screen. After that initial boot-up after cloning, my Source HDD runs without any further issues. I'm wondering if the initial boot glitches are related to the Windows OS "Signature" occurring or something similar relating to the initial boot after a cloning operation.

The strange part of this, is that the Target HDD will usually boot up without any glitches after a clone operation. I always boot up with the Target HDD to insure that it's a working backup HDD copy.

Other than that, I've had no problems when cloning. I clone every 2 months, mainly for a plug-and-play backup HDD in the event of an unforseen virus/malware issue on my Source HDD that can't be cleaned, and also to have a recent HDD backup ready in case of a Source HDD failure.

I'm cloning with both HDD's installed in my tower via "hot swap" Sata plug-in racks.

Boot mgr not found could be because the active partition was not marked active at restore time. For each partition, you have restore options. For the system reserved partition, make sure it is marked primary, active.

Make sure that there is no other hidden partition on the system disk. It is best to switch to "disk mode" when you do the backup (at that point, ATI shows you disks, not partitions, to include in the backup).

We see many issues with the clones. Some users get confused by the fact that the recovery CD might show them drive letters different from Windows, so they clone an empty disk on their source disk. Some users shutdown the process after a while when they believe it is stuck. Some others reboot the comptuer with both the clone and the source in the computer, and it messes up Windows registry and boot records, etc.

Pat,

Thanks again for your info.

I'll try the Backup/Restore method again soon with your info in hand. I don't recall selecting "disc" mode when I ran my 1st Backup to the external HDD so I'll format my USB HDD and re-run the Backup with "disc" mode enabled.

Regarding the other step that you mentioned, I'll insure that both partitions are marked as "active". I didn't recall seeing that option during my 1st attempt at this but I'll look carefully for it next time.

Regarding Cloning, I've had good success with it but I understand the potential issues that others have encountered with it.

Before I clone, I do a couple of additional steps that make it easier to avoid some of the issues that you mentioned that other members have encountered during the cloning process.

- I format my target HDD (if it contains previous files). I do that to make it easier to determine the correct HDD letter designations when I'm booted into the ATI CD and am selecting the Source & Target HDD letters. It makes it easy to determine Source & Target when the Target HDD is empty. I format the Target HDD outside of Windows, usually with a free HDD Utility program. I use "Gparted", a free Iso image utility. I burned that to a CD so I can boot with it to format the clone Target HDD. This way, Windows will not see identical HDD's at any step in my cloning preparations or the cloning operation.

- I disconnect any additional HDD's that I may normally have connected to my PC. I have an external portable USB HDD connected via a hub that I use for my daily ATI incremental file backups. So I disconnect that HDD as part of my pre-cloning steps. That way, the only 2 HDD's that will be seen by the ATI Cloning tool will be the Source & Target HDD's.

Scoop wrote:

Pat,

Thanks again for your info.

I'll try the Backup/Restore method again soon with your info in hand. I don't recall selecting "disc" mode when I ran my 1st Backup to the external HDD so I'll format my USB HDD and re-run the Backup with "disc" mode enabled.

You don't need to format the USB HDD to redo your backup. SImply delete the task within ATI and it will delete the corresponding TIB file(s).

Regarding the other step that you mentioned, I'll insure that both partitions are marked as "active". I didn't recall seeing that option during my 1st attempt at this but I'll look carefully for it next time.

Only the partition that contains the boot files should be marked active. Right click on the computer icon on your desktop, choose manage, storage, disk management. You will see which one is active. Make sure you mark that partition active when you restore it.

Regarding Cloning, I've had good success with it but I understand the potential issues that others have encountered with it.

Before I clone, I do a couple of additional steps that make it easier to avoid some of the issues that you mentioned that other members have encountered during the cloning process.

- I format my target HDD (if it contains previous files). I do that to make it easier to determine the correct HDD letter designations when I'm booted into the ATI CD and am selecting the Source & Target HDD letters. It makes it easy to determine Source & Target when the Target HDD is empty. I format the Target HDD outside of Windows, usually with a free HDD Utility program. I use "Gparted", a free Iso image utility. I burned that to a CD so I can boot with it to format the clone Target HDD. This way, Windows will not see identical HDD's at any step in my cloning preparations or the cloning operation.

- I disconnect any additional HDD's that I may normally have connected to my PC. I have an external portable USB HDD connected via a hub that I use for my daily ATI incremental file backups. So I disconnect that HDD as part of my pre-cloning steps. That way, the only 2 HDD's that will be seen by the ATI Cloning tool will be the Source & Target HDD's.

Good practice!

Pat L wrote:

You don't need to format the USB HDD to redo your backup. SImply delete the task within ATI and it will delete the corresponding TIB file(s).

Thanks, I didn't know that feature was available. Nice.

I ran the Backup portion of the "Backup/Recover" operation yesterday in "full-disc" mode. I see now what you were referring to earlier as I can now see the boot mgr sections on the Backup HDD and the dafault Backup name is the same name (Seagate Part #, etc) as my Source HDD.

Pat L wrote:

Only the partition that contains the boot files should be marked active. Right click on the computer icon on your desktop, choose manage, storage, disk management. You will see which one is active. Make sure you mark that partition active when you restore it.

Ok. I think I see what you were referring to earlier. I had thought that the "active" enable was supposed to be done during the ATI "Recover" Wizard dialog. I'm familiar with Windows (7) Disk Manager. I launch that with a hotkey since it's a useful quick way to get a snaphot of my HDD's.

I have 1 question though, about that part:

After I complete the "Recover" step from the ATI bootable CD, how can I boot up into Windows with my 2 HDD's (the Source HDD and the newly-restored Target HDD) if I need to make the boot partition active using Windows Disk Manager? Will that cause Windows conflict issues since Windows will be seeing these 2 identical HDD's simultaneously?

Or, there won't be a Windows conflict since since I've already booted up into Windows with my Source HDD, thus I'm not running Windows from the newly-recovered Target HDD?

The Recovery should be done when booted from the TI Recovery CD.

After the Recovery or the clone, shutdown and disconnect the data cable on either of the two disks.

You should boot only with ONE disk attached. Either one but only one.
If you boot with both disks connected, Windows will get confused as there are two identical disks and may boot the wrong one or may not boot either of them and mess-up the source as well.

Click on line #3 below and look at items 1 and 2 for examples of how to create a replacement disk.
You are getting good help from MVP Pat L but his timezone could be different than yours.

Grover,

Thanks for the post & links. I haven't proceeded with my "Recover" step as it requires about 3.5-4 hrs to complete on my Desktop PC.

I looked your links but didn't have time to read them completely. The screencaps appear to be from a different version of ATI. I'm using ATI 2011 Plus Pack. I think I can navigate the differences as the 2011 version has the same tools (I think) regarding full-disk Backup/Recovery.

I'm a "clone" guy :) but I want to learn how to do the full-disk Backup/Recovery to have a 3rd HDD (effective) clone copy available in the event that I encounter unrepairable issues when cloning.

I'm primarily interested in doing a full-disk Backup & Recover (effectively doing a 'clone' by using this part of ATI to do so) but I want to also become familiar with the Backup/Recover tools in ATI. At present, I'm using an incremental (specific files) daily Backup to another external USB HDD but am not backing up full partitions daily since I have a shelf clone HDD that's always no more than 2 months old as my failsafe backup in case of a virus/malware or HDD failure.

Since I clone regularly, I know about the importance of booting up with non-identical HDD's to avoid any Windows boot issues but thanks for mentioning that one as it's important to avoid when cloning and as you mentioned, with full-disc Backup & Recover.

The part where I was a little unclear is where Pat was saying to make the System partition active from within Windows Diak Management. I may have misunderstood what Pat was referring to but I read it to mean that, after I complete the Recovery step into my "Target" HDD (from the booted up ATI CD), then I would need to insure that the "System" partition of the Target HDD is "active" and I don't know how to do that without Windows OS (Disk Management).

Is there a way to insure that the "system" partition of the Target HDD (after Recovery has completed) is "active" by staying booted into the ATI CD?

Thanks again for you guy's help here :)

- Jeff / Dallas, TX

Look at the Windows Disk management graphical view of your system disk.
It will identify which is the "act" (active) partition.
It is this partition which must be marked as active during the restore process.
During the restore, the user is responsible for making sure the program marks the correct partition as active.
The program may select the wrong partitions and it is up to the user to make the correction during the partition restore process. This is illustrated within my guides in how to restore to larger or smaller disks.