Restore Procedure Question
I am a first-time user of ATI 2013 Home, and am attempting a first-time full-circle backup and restore to assure myself that my rescue disk works, and that I think I know what I am doing. ATI has indicated to me that my backup was successful, and that the rescue disk creation was successful. My difficulty occurs during the restore, at the wizard step, "Specify the recover settings of Partition C".
For background, I have a C: drive, with only the basic partition; and an external USB drive to which my backup was sent (Actually, the C: drive is removable, for cloning, but I will try not to complicate this discussion unless it becomes necessary.) During the restore procedure I was able to browse the USB drive to locate the backup, and I selected it.
Here are two issues that I don't understand:
1) During the restore procedure, ATI assigned drive letter D: to my USB disk, even though I had previously reassigned it in Windows to letter Z:, and also I used the same USB port for both the backup and restore procedures. (I don't know whether this is relevant to the following issue.)
2) When I reached the wizard step, "Specify the recover settings of Partition C , (partition location required)", it listed my USB disk (drive letter D:) as the default location. At this point I stopped the restore procedure, thinking that I must have done something wrong. (I can't even imagine why I would want to wipe my USB drive, (that contains a lot of valuable data, including the backup file itself), and restore onto the USB drive.) Surely I am doing something wrong, as that should not even be an option, much less the default option.
Can someone please give me some guidance?
Thank you very much,
~~zapatero
These links could be helpful to a new user of 2012/2013. Also the 2013 help links along the left margin of this webpage.
It seems your recovery CD doesn't see the target disk containing the current C:\, correct?
If correct, please explain:
(Actually, the C: drive is removable, for cloning, but I will try not to complicate this discussion unless it becomes necessary.)
Thank you all for your responses.
Pat, et.al., I think, (given that I am a first-time user), that indeed it does see the target disk C: that I want to restore to. I appear to be able to select it. However I am afraid to proceed because it shows my USB drive, (which includes my backup file), as the default target. That scares me, because I can't see any reason why it should even be an option, much less the default option...(?) Thus I am fearful of accidentally losing everything on my USB drive.
To answer your second question, I actually have two removable hard drive bays in my machine. And I have four hard drive caddies. Until now my backup procedure has been simply to cyclically clone these four drives, so that I effectively always have three bootable cloned backups at any time. This has worked well for half a dozen years now but I am trying ATI to determine if a more robust backup solution makes sense. If I can get this first test restore to work, without destroying something, then I will feel a whole lot more comfortable with further testing.
Colin, with my cloning procedure mentioned above as preface, I have indeed tried to label my drives in the past. However, unless I am doing something wrong, the cloning procedure just overwrites my label. Please do tell me if I am doing something wrong though.
As to whether I have made a disk image or only a partition image, I cannot be sure. I just followed all the steps, as best I could understand, to make a FULL disk backup. (I haven't yet tried to complicate things with diffs and incs.)
Grover, thank you very much for your links and references. Please be assured that I will get onto them ASAP!
Thank you very much,
~~z
We need to agree on terminology here, from a True image point of view there is a big difference between cloning and imaging, much confusion will result with us here if the wrong terms are used.
A clone is where the structure of a disk is directly copied to another disk with no inbetween tib image file.
An image disk or partition is where the contents and structure of a disk or partition are copied and compressed into a container file, in Acronis' case this si a tib file. You can recover a tib file many times, you cna also explore or mount it as a disk and most importantly you can schedule imaging so you have a sequence of images covering different states of your drive contents.
Could you post a screen shot of what you selected, it is very easy to make an image of your 'C' partition when you intended to make a complete disk image because TIH doesn't default to complete disk when a task is first created.
A screenshot of what True Image shows from the recovery option would be helpful as well, obviously unless you have a camera phone that will have to be from the Windows based version rather than the recovery CD.
Thank you for your reply, Colin.
We need to agree on terminology here, from a True image point of view there is a big difference between cloning and imaging, much confusion will result with us here if the wrong terms are used.
A clone is where the structure of a disk is directly copied to another disk with no inbetween tib image file.
An image disk or partition is where the contents and structure of a disk or partition are copied and compressed into a container file, in Acronis' case this si a tib file. You can recover a tib file many times, you cna also explore or mount it as a disk and most importantly you can schedule imaging so you have a sequence of images covering different states of your drive contents.
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I understand your distinction above and am sure that I am cloning. I have been using Norton Ghost and have done this probably a hundred times by now. The cloned disks are bootable and there is no recovery/restoration process involved.
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Could you post a screen shot of what you selected, it is very easy to make an image of your 'C' partition when you intended to make a complete disk image because TIH doesn't default to complete disk when a task is first created.
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I am attaching three screen shots that I took during the backup setup. Hope these are able to tell the story.
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A screenshot of what True Image shows from the recovery option would be helpful as well, obviously unless you have a camera phone that will have to be from the Windows based version rather than the recovery CD.
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I don't have a screenshot, but took some notes:
Under "Recovery Method", I selected "Recover whole disks & partitions"
Under "What to Recover -- select items to recover", I checked Disk1 (which auto-checks NTFS (Unlabeled)(C:), and MBR and Track0)
Please forgive my inability to manage the quoting procedure -- you can see that I am a beginner in a lot of things... Please tell me if you need additional information.
Zapatero,
From the screenshots you've posted I would say you have made an image of your 'C' partition only. What you are missing is the MBR and disk signature, this is why you are being asked for a partition location.
All you need to do is to click on the 'Switch to disk mode' link as shown on your screenshot 'acronis_5.jpg', you'll know you've got the right mode because instead of showing partitions 'C' and 'Z' it'll show disk names instead, and index them as Disk1, Disk2.
After you have selected the entire disk within disk mode,
you are in fact making a full disk image and then restoring the same. When you go to restore the disk image you can choose either the complete disk or just the 'C' partition. The difference between these two options is that the complete disk will restore the MBR, the disk signature and if present the hidden system and or utility partitions, the partition only option will only restore the partition. You would use the partition only method if your Windows OS becomes corrupted or you wish to restore to the same disk. If you need to restore to a new disk or the hidden partitions (if present on your PC), you would recover the complete disk.
As I mentioned in my previous post, cloning in Acronis speak, is where you copy the contents of your current drive to another drive as is, this is not the same as cloning can mean in Ghost speak. If cloning is what you want to do the cloning option is under the utilities menu. However, if you clone to your 'Z' drive it will lose everything else that is currently on it, whereas if you make a complete disk image this is treated as a file, similar to a Zip file but more sophisticated and all the contents of your 'Z' partition can remain for you to use as well as contiaing a copy of your main drive.
I hope that makes sense, if not questions.... :)
****Edited to make a paragraph more clear******
I have indeed tried to label my drives in the past. However, unless I am doing something wrong, the cloning procedure just overwrites my label. Please do tell me if I am doing something wrong though.
In acronis speak:
A. using the TrueImage cloning function utility will create a 2nd identical target disk which will assume whatever disk volume name and contents that existed on the source disk at time of cloning.
B. using the Acronis backup and Recovery process, the restoring of a backup file onto the source disk will change the volume name on target disk to whatever name that existed at time of backup creation.
C. Thus, if you assign or change the volume name to any disk and then include that disk within a backup, the next time that specific backup is restored, the target disk will assume whatever volume name existed at time of source disk backup file creation.
As to whether I have made a disk image or only a partition image, I cannot be sure.
Note in the upper right corner of your screenshot attachment #5 there is an option "switch to disk mode". If you retrace your steps and click on that option, the resulting picture will display your existing disk and will display all partitions within the disk. In order for your backup to be a full disk backups, the backup will need to include all partitions shown in that display. If your system disk is checked, the resulting backup will include all partitions. This example is also illustrated under figures 4 & 5. in the link below which I had included before.
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/28705
With your current backup of C only, you can restore your existing backup overtop your current drive . Your recovery Drive C (C only) will assume whatever content that existed at time of backup creation.
An example of how to do this is included as example 3 in the link below (link previously included).
Once you have created a full backup of all partitions, you can use example #2 to restore your entire disk (all partitions) ; or use example 1 if restoring to a new larger or smaller replacement disk.
Colin and Grover, thank you so much for your kind attention!
Please give me a day or so; I've got an emergency that I cannot escape.
I am most certainly still interested!
~~Z
Colin and Grover, apologies for my delay -- things were really out of my control.
The bottom line: Success!
Just let you know, I have reread all of your thoughtful and detailed responses many times; as well as your "How to ... " guide Grover, (good job!), and I believe that I have successfully completed a first full-circle test of backup and recovery. I am using the recovered system right now, to create this post. Both of you were right on when you advised me to "Switch to Disk Mode" on my 'acronis_5.jpg' screenshot.
I must confess that much of this was/is way out of my comfort zone, but thanks to you folks I now have a pretty detailed set of notes, so hopefully things will go smoothly next time.
Thank you again for your assistance!
~~z
Thanks for letting us know how it all went. Now you are up and running :)