By Gene Barlow
User Group Relations
Copyrighted December 2004
This is the third article in a series on backing up your hard drive. The first article introduced the Perfect Backup Approach (see www.ugr.com/nl0804.html) and the second article told you about Building an External Hard Drive (see www.ugr.com/nl1104.html). This article will focus on the best way to Use Acronis True Image 8.0.
When you install True Image on your system, a good manual in PDF format is installed on your hard drive. I would advise you to read the manual to fully understand the power of this excellent backup utility. Just be aware that the manual is intended to describe all of the function of the product, but not to tell you how best to use it. I hope to cover that side of True Image in this article, so that you will not only know how to do things, but what are the best ways to do them.
Installing True Image
Acronis True Image is normally available only as a download software product. The download facilities used by Acronis seem to conflict with some download accelerators on the market, so turn all of these off before trying to download True Image. You can download the product from the following web location:
http://www.acronis.com/files/trueimage8.0_s_en.exe
The download is about 23MB in size and should take from 5 minutes to 15 minutes to download, depending on the speed of your internet access. For most users that have high speed internet access, this should not be a problem. Even if you are limited to slower dial-up speeds, the download time is reasonable and worth taking to get this excellent product. I would download the file and save it on my hard drive. Then you can burn it to a CD later if you want to have a permanent copy of the download.
Once you have downloaded the product, you can install it by simply double clicking on the downloaded file and it will start the installation process. I normally install hard drive utilities like True Image in the same partition as my operating system and not in a separate partition for application programs. Installation normally takes only a couple of minutes and seldom fails.
During installation, you will have a couple of options to choose from. First, you will be asked if you want to create a bootable rescue media CD. You can do this later by clicking on the "Create Bootable Rescue Media" menu item on the left side of the main True Image screen. While it is important that you eventually create this CD, it is not necessary to do it immediately. Just don't forget to do it soon after you start to use True Image. Some peoples run into problems burning this CD, so send me a note if you have problems and I'll help you resolve them.
Another option you will be given is to register the product with Acronis. It is not required to install the product and many users have problems using the registration form on the Acronis web site. So, you may want to skip this option for now. You can always register your copy later if you need to.
At the end of the installation process, you will be asked to enter in your serial number. Make sure you get your serial number from us before you start to install the software. The serial number is a collection of five sets of five characters that need to be entered in correctly at this point. Enter each set of five characters in each of the five boxes. When you enter them in correctly, the Next button will darken and let you click it. I would enter in the letters in upper case and be careful of numbers and letters that look alike (zero and the letter O, for example).
Most of our user group customers prefer to have their software delivered on a CD. So, as a convenience to them, we have downloaded the software for you and have burned it onto a CD. This is not an official Acronis CD, but simply a download convenience we offer our customers. If you received one of these download alternative CDs from us, all you need to do to install the product is to copy the True Image file to your hard drive and then double click on that file to start it to install on your system. The serial number you will need to install True Image can be found on the bright yellow sheet of paper that came with your CD.
We were also able to obtain some boxed copies of True Image from Acronis for our 2004 holiday promotion. These CDs are packaged in a nice plastic DVD case with a cover and a small pamphlet inside the case. These CDs are printed with a blue label on them and are the official Acronis CDs. To install these, simply insert the CD in your CD reader and they will install automatically. The serial number you will need is located on a white sticker on the back of the pamphlet inside the case.
Upgrading True Image
If you installed True Image from a CD, be aware that the CD was probably created a few weeks ago. Acronis does an excellent job of correcting problems with their products and publishing new versions of the software about once a month. So, depending on when your CD was created, there may be one or more updates to the software since your installed version.
The way to tell if you are current is to run Acronis True Image and when the main window appears, click on the Help menu and then the About menu item. At the top of the Information box that will appear is the name of the product and the build number. Compare this number with the one you will find at thewww.acronis.com/enterprise/support/updates/ screen. If your build is not up to date, I would recommend that you download the latest build and bring your software up to date.
To download the latest update to your system, you can follow the steps outlined on the Acronis web site or simply download True Image again as I described above. When you start to install the software, it will find an earlier version installed and will do an upgrade to the software instead. This is what I normally do. I normally check about once a month to make sure I still have the latest upgrade of the products. I use them all of the time and want to keep my copy up to date, so you may want to download upgrades less frequently than I do.
Acronis Secure Zone
During the installation process, you may be asked if you want to create an Acronis Secure Zone to store your images in. If you go ahead and create a Secure Zone, True Image will create a hidden partition on your main hard drive and will save all of your image files to this partition. I would recommend that you avoid using the Acronis Secure Zone. It is an interesting, but ill conceived idea that has more problems with it than advantages. So, don’t do the Secure Zone and you’ll be happier.
There is one final step that you need to take before you are ready to create your backup images. This is to create a bootable rescue media to use in case your main hard drive should fail and you need to restore an image without an operating system to run on. Acronis True Image will make either a bootable CD or a set of bootable diskettes for your rescue media. If you have a CD burner on your computer, I would recommend that you burn a bootable CD. Otherwise, have plenty of blank diskettes to use instead of a CD.
To create this bootable CD, bring up True Image and on the main screen click on the Create Bootable Rescue Media menu item on the left side of the screen. Take the Full version option and then select either a CD burner or a diskette drive. If you chose the CD burner, place the blank CD in the tray, but do not close the tray. Leave it open. Click on the Proceed button and Acronis will close the tray and burn the CD for you. Some users have had problems closing the tray early and not being able to burn the bootable rescue media on a CD. If you receive one of the boxed copies of True Image, the blue labeled CD is bootable and you can skip this step if you want to. Personally, I would prefer to have a separate bootable CD from my product installation CD, so I can store it with my external hard drive away from my computer.
Testing Your External Hard Drive
Once you have your Acronis True Image software installed and up to date on your computer with a bootable CD made, you should ready your backup media to save the backup images to. I recommend that you use an external hard drive to safely guard your important backup images. Acronis True Image will work with many other types of backup media, but an external hard drive is by far the best to use. The nearest alternative to an external hard drive would be an internal hard drive that can easily be removed from your computer and stored away from your computer. This article will assume that you follow my advice and have an external hard drive to save your backup images to.
Many users will purchase a new external hard drive to run with Acronis True Image and run that hard drive for the first time when they use True Image. I recommend that you install and test your new external hard drive before you try to run True Image. If you do this, then you can be confident that your hard drive is working if you run into any problems. The easiest way to test your external hard drive is to open up Windows Explorer and make sure you can see the hard drive listed. If Windows Explorer cannot see the external hard drive, then you need to figure out what is wrong with the external hard drive before you try to use True Image. Send me a note if you are having problems doing this and I will try to help you. I would also copy a small file to the external hard drive with Windows Explorer and then close Windows Explorer and open it back up and see if the file is actually on your external hard drive.
External hard drives are designed to be easily attached and removed from your computer. However, there is a procedure to follow to do this correctly. If you don’t do this right, then your external hard drive may not function correctly, even if it worked perfectly a day or two ago. So, quickly check out your external hard drive quickly each time you attach the drive to your system and before you try to run True Image. True Image will not be able to use your external hard drive if Windows Explorer cannot use it.
I have found that if you attach your external hard drive in the following manner, it will work most of the time. If your external hard drive has a on/off switch on it, make sure it is turned off before you try to attach it to your computer. Place the external hard drive near your computer and first attach the power cord and converter to the drive and then the wall plug. Now switch on your external hard drive. Next, attach the USB2 cable (or Firewire cable) to the external hard drive and then plug it into the USB2 (or Firewire) port on your computer. If all went properly, your computer should recognize the drive and tell you that it is detected and attached.
The problem most users get into is they simply pull the plug on the external hard drive when they are done using it. This could cause you problems with the drive and make it non-workable for a while after you do this. Instead, you need to disconnect Windows from the drive before you physically remove the drive. To do this in WinXP, look for the small green and blue icon that looks somewhat like a vacuum cleaner. Click on this icon once and it will display all of the removable devices that are attached to your computer. Find the external hard drive in this list and double click on it to disconnect the device. Wait until you get a message that says it is now safe to remove the device. Once you get this message, you can unplug the device and remove it without causing any problems to Windows.
If you get a message saying that the drive is currently in use and cannot be stopped at this time, try it again. If you continue to get this message, then you will need to shut down Windows and power off your computer before you can remove the external hard drive. Once power if off on your computer, you can safely remove the external hard drive.
Creating External Hard Drive Folders
Your external hard drive should be partitioned and formatted with one large backup partition. I recommend that you use FAT32 to format this partition. This will let you attach the external hard drive to any computer that runs Windows. If you format it only with NTFS, then you can only attach it to a WinNT/2K/XP system. It will not work on Win98/Me systems. In this large backup partition, I would create a folder for each of the hard drive partitions that you will be backing up to this external hard drive. So, if your computer has two partitions on it, I would create a separate folder for each of these two partitions. If you have another computer with three partitions that you plan on backing up to the same external hard drive, you should create three more folders on the drive for these partitions. Then, you should save your image files from each of these various partitions and computers in the appropriate folders on the external hard drive. This will help to keep your image files well organized on the external hard drive.
If you use True Image to backup more than one computer, you should have installed True Image on each of the computers you will backup. Since True Image is licensed for use on one computer, you should legally have a separate license for each of your computers. True Image will not prevent you from installing it on each of your computers, but you will not be valid in following the license agreement if you do.
Getting Ready to Create Backup Images
You should now have your software installed and up to date with a bootable rescue media to use in case your operating system is not usable. You have also tested your external hard drive and know that it works on your computer and have setup folders on your external hard drive. So, now we can start creating backup images of your main hard drive.
While Acronis True Image permits you to backup all of your hard drive at once, I recommend that you backup each partition on your main hard drive separately and save them in their own folders. I would suggest that you backup all of your partitions at approximately the same time and not at different times. This helps to keep your partitions in sync if you should have to restore them later.
In the Perfect Backup Approach, I recommend that you create a full backup of each partition once a month and then create incremental images of each partition each week. At the beginning of the next month, you would start again with a full backup image to be followed by weekly incremental images. If you want the added protection of daily backups, I would recommend instead that you do a full image each week with daily incremental images. Then start the next week with a full image. How you do these two options is identical. Only the frequency is changed.
A full backup image followed by several incremental backup images form what is called an image set. The full image that starts the image set contains a backup of all of the files on the partition. The incremental image that follows is a backup of only the changed portion of the partition since the full image was created. Incremental backup images created later contain only the changes since the last incremental backup image. The full image and all of the incremental images are linked together and are needed if you want to restore the partition.
All of the images in an image set need to be contained on the same backup media and not spread across multiple media, like multiple CDs. That’s one of the reasons why an external hard drive is the ideal backup media to use and not CDs. Also, all of the images in an image set need to have the same base name so that they can be identified as part of the same image set. True Image will add a sequence number to the end of this name to make each image file in the image set uniquely named.
The name you choose for the image set can be anything you want, but let me suggest a naming convention that might help you identify the images better. The first part of the name should identify which computer this image is from. The next part of the name should identify what partition the image is on that computer. Finally, the last part of the name is the month it was created in. For example, a name like PC1_PART1_DEC04 would be from your first computer (PC1), the first partition on that computer (PART1) and was your December 2004 backup (DEC04). True Image will add the extension of .tib to this name so you will find a file saved in your external hard drive folder named PC1_PART1_DEC04.tib. If your image file gets to be too large, True Image will have to split it to save it in segments on your external hard drive. So, you may find that your full image will come in two or more pieces, named PC1_PART1_DEC041.tib, PC1_PART1_DEC042.tib, etc.
When you make your next backup image in this set (an incremental image) it will be saved as PC1_PART1_DEC042.tib and the one after that as PC1_PART1_DEC043.tib, etc. If your full image is in more than one segment, then the numbers added to the incremental images will be one number higher than the last number used. The number at the end of the name is added by True Image to identify the sequence that the images need to be put back together again when you restore the partition.
With that as background, let’s now start to create the backup image of your partition. The sequence to creating a full backup image and an incremental backup image is somewhat different. So, I will cover how to create a full image first and then show you the differences when you create an incremental image. The product is a bit confusing in this area, so follow my steps carefully and you’ll be fine. Let’s start with a full image of one of your partitions.
Creating a Full Backup Image
Start up Acronis True Image 8.0. When you get to the main screen, double click on the Create Image icon on the screen. This will bring up the Create Image Wizard which will guide you through the process of creating this backup image. The first screen is a welcome screen that you can read and then click on Next. On the Selecting Partitions to Image screen, you check which partition you want to create an image of. If you select the Disk 1 box, it will cause all of the partitions on that hard drive to be selected. As I stated earlier, I recommend that you create a separate image for each partition, so select only one partition to create an image for in this step. Click Next when you have checked the partition to image. You may get an information screen next to explain what to do. Click on OK to skip that screen.
The next screen you will see is titled Image Archive Creation. I find this title a bit confusing. I would rather see it called Image Storage Location or something like that. On this page you pick where you will store the image file and what name you will give it. Since this is a full backup image, use the directory tree on the left of the screen to find the folder where you will store this image file. Click once on that folder name to highlight it. You will notice that the drive letter of your external hard drive and the name of the folder on that drive are now placed in the File Name box below the directory tree. Place your cursor at the end of the folder name and enter in the name of your full image file. For example, key in PC1_PART1_DEC04 to complete the path and file name of this image file. Click on Next to continue.
The next few screens you can simply select the default options and go to the Next screen. In order, you will first indicate you want to create a full backup image, next you let True Image split the image automatically, next you select Normal compression, next you can enter a password if you want to or click on Next to proceed without a password on your image file. Then you can add some comments about the backup if you want to and you come to the final screen before you start the actual backup image creation. Again, I would recommend that you simply select Next on each of these screens to move on to the next screen. The default is usually what you should choose in all cases. Later you can play with some of these options is you want to, but for now, keep it simple and just take the defaults. On the last screen, check the options you have selected and then click on the Proceed button to start the backup image creation. You can watch the backup progress and complete. When it is done, you will return to the main True Image screen.
It shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes to create a large image, so if it seems to be stalled, cancel the job after about an hour. Something didn’t go right and so you need to get in touch with me to find out what went wrong. In most cases, it will complete just fine and you will want to see that you have a new file on your external hard drive in the proper folder for the partition you were backing up. Use Windows Explorer to check this out.
The next step is optional, but one that I highly recommend. That is to check the backup image to make sure it is in good shape. If the image is not a good one, you want to find out now so that you can recreate it before you need it. To check a backup image, click on the Check Image menu item on the left side of the main True Image screen. This Wizard will guide you to check your image file to make sure it is good. The check function will take almost as long as it did to create the image, but you will feel better if you know all is ok with your backup image. I highly recommend this step.
Having created a full backup image of one of the partitions on your hard drive, I would now backup all of the other partitions on that drive one at a time. Do all of them together and don’t wait until next week to do the other partitions. If you have to restore your hard drive, you should restore all of your partitions at the same time from images taken at the same time. Your operating system partition and your application program partitions are interrelated and keeping them in sync is important. Partitions containing only data files can be backed up more frequently than your other partitions if you want to do this. When you complete all of your backups, you should remove the external hard drive and store it away from your computer till you need it for the next backup.
Creating an Incremental Backup Image
The steps to creating an incremental backup image are much the same as a full image until you get to the Image Archive Creation screen. On this screen, you simply find the last backup image you created in this image set and click on that file to highlight it. Then click on Next to continue defining your incremental backup image. Do not change anything in the File Name box under the directory tree. The next few screens you can take the default options as you did before. At the final screen, check that the options are correct and then click on Proceed to start the incremental backup image. This backup should proceed much faster than a full image and when you find the image after it is completed, it will be much smaller than the full image.
Don’t forget to check the incremental image just like you checked the full backup image. Better safe than sorry.
Starting with a New Full Backup Image
Your image set (full backup image followed by one or more incremental backup images) must all be used in order to restore your hard drive partition. Acronis True Image will combine your full backup with the following incremental images to recreate your hard drive. All of the images in this set are important and needed to restore the partition. If one of the images in an image set were to become corrupted, then you could not restore it or any of the incremental images that followed it. They are all linked together and must be used to rebuild your hard drive. So, you do not want to risk your backup by letting your image set get too big before you start a new image set with a new full backup image of the partition.
I would recommend that you create fewer than a dozen or so incremental images before you start a new image set. That will keep your risk of a broken image set chain to a minimum. You should definitely take advantage of incremental images, but don’t overdo it. A happy medium is what you want to achieve. If you follow my recommendations of a monthly full backup image and then weekly incremental backup images, you will only have 4-5 images in your image set. If you do weekly full backup images and daily incremental image, then you will only have 7-8 images in your image set. Both of these are about right in the size of your image set. You could do a full backup image each month and then incremental images every other day for an image set of 16-17. That’s pushing it a bit, but will most likely be just fine.
Starting a new image set is very easy to do. You simply create your next backup image with a new image name and you will get a full backup image. This starts a new image set. Use the new image name when you create the incremental images and they will be linked to the new full backup image. Save it in the same folder as your last image set for that partition. Do not delete the last image set you made, but keep it on your external hard drive until you start to run out of space on that drive. This will build up a historical archive of your entire hard drive. A very powerful capability that will let you see your hard drive exactly as it was at any point in the past. So, you can go back to a prior image set to find a file that was later deleted from your hard drive and retrieve that file and put it back on your computer. More about this later in this article.
When you start to run out of space on your external hard drive, you will need to find the oldest image set (full backup and following incremental backups with the same name) and copy this image set to a CD for archival storage. Once you have that image set captured offline (on a CD or DVD), you can safely delete it from the external hard drive. A reasonable sized external hard drive should let you keep a year or so worth of backup images that you can dig into any time you want. Having older image sets stored off line on CDs will let you retrieve that history if you really need it without too much work. Simply copy the image set from the CD back to a hard drive folder to open it up with True Image and retrieve any files from it.
Retrieving and Restoring Individual Files from Image Sets
This next function is one of the more powerful functions of Acronis True Image and one that you will use frequently. It gives you the ability to go back to any backup image in the past, open up that image and look at files in that image or copy them back to your main hard drive. True Image can do this without having to recreate your entire hard drive and destroying your current files. Here’s how it works.
Let’s assume that you have been using True Image to backup your main hard drive for 2-3 months. You have on your external hard drive the following files:
PC1_PART1_OCT04.tib
PC1_PART1_OCT042.tib
PC1_PART1_NOV04.tib
PC1_PART1_NOV042.tib (file created after this image)PC1_PART1_NOV043.tib (file available in this image)PC1_PART1_NOV044.tib (file deleted before this image)
PC1_PART1_DEC04.tib
PC1_PART1_DEC042.tib
PC1_PART1_DEC043.tib
Now, let’s say you want to find a file that you deleted in the last part of November and it is no longer on your main hard drive. Using Acronis True Image, you can look inside your November image set to find the missing file. Since you deleted this file in the last half of the month, it is no longer in your last incremental image. That’s ok, as you can tell True Image to only build the image set up to the second incremental image in the set (PC1_PART1_NOV043.tib). In other words, you can look at your hard drive as it was at any backup point in the past; full backup images or incremental backup images.
To look at how your hard drive looked like at any point in the past, you would bring up True Image main screen. Then double click on the Explorer Image icon which brings up the Explorer Image Wizard to guide you through looking inside any backup image from your external hard drive. The first screen tells you what this wizard will do, so read the short screen and then click on Next. At the Image Archive Exploring screen you find and select which image from the past you wish to look at. Highlight the full or incremental image that you want and then click on Next. If the image file contains multiple partitions, you can select which partition to look into. If you follow my recommendation to put only one partition in each image, you will not have to make a choice here.
Then pick a drive letter to use to display this file in Windows. I usually pick m: as the drive letter to show me this mounted file, but you can pick any letter you want to. When you have selected your drive letter for this image file, click on Next. That brings you to the last screen before you mount this image file so that you can look inside of it. If all looks correct, click on Proceed to build the image and mount it. It will take less than 30 seconds to complete this and then you will see a Windows Explorer screen with your image file open in the screen. You can open any of the files to see what they contain or drag any file from your image to your main hard drive to replace it on your computer.
The image file will remain open on your computer until you reboot your computer. You can see the image file just like any hard drive with Windows Explorer or My Computer but looking at the drive letter you assigned to this image file. You can look at individual files or copy files or folders to your main hard drive. The only thing you cannot do is try to change any files in this image. The image is read only and not available to be changed in any way. Since it is a history from the past, you should not want to change this backup file.
Another neat trick is to share this image file with others on your network. So, others that are linked to you on a local area network can actually look at a backup image file that you have mounted and shared with them. To them it looks like another hard drive on your computer. They can retrieve files from it if your sharing permits this.
After you get through Exploring the image file, you need to Unplug (dismount) the file in order to let True Image do other things with the image set. To do this, you double click on the Unplug Image icon on your main True Image screen and in a couple of steps and a few seconds, the image is no longer plugged to your Windows system. Restarting your computer will force an automatic Unplug of all mounted image files. Just don’t forget to unplug the image before trying to create more images with True Image. If you forget and try to create a new image on the same image set, you will stall waiting for the open image to be closed in the unplug process. So, Unplug images immediately after you are through using them.
Restoring Entire Partitions to Your Hard Drive
If anything should happen to your hard drive that requires a complete restore of the partitions on the drive, you will see the full power of Acronis True Image. While you can restore individual partitions separately, I recommend that you restore all of your partitions one after another, so that your operating system and application programs remain in sync. A partition that only contains data files can be restored separately if you need to. In fact, having all of your data files in one separate partition is a very good way to organize your hard drive. This would let you backup your data partition each day and only have to backup your operating system and application programs once a week.
With Acronis True Image, you can restore a partition while Windows is running if the partition is not currently being used. This lets you restore your data partition at any time if it becomes damaged in any way. If a partition is being used, then it must be restored by bringing down the computer for the restore process. Since your operating system partition is always being used, you can only restore that partition offline. Also, if your hard drive has crashed and you have installed a new empty hard drive on your computer, it will definitely need to be restored offline. We will look first at online restores and then at offline restores.
To restore a partition that is currently idle, you can run True Image under Windows and double click on the Restore Image icon on the main screen. This will bring up a Welcome screen which you can read and then click on Next. On the next screen, use the directory tree to find the image file for the partition that you want to restore. You can select a full image or an incremental image from any of the image sets on your external hard drive. Normally, you would want to select the most resent image to restore, but you could pick any of the other images you have on your external hard drive. It would restore that partition to exactly the way it was when the image was taken. The Wizard will guide you through defining the image restore. In general, I would take the default option unless you understand what you want to do. Acronis True Image gives you lots of choices on the restoring of a partition.
The offline restore is similar to the Windows restore, but you must boot from the CD or diskettes that you created when you first installed True Image. This lets you restore your operating system after shutting down Windows in order to boot to the CD (or diskettes). You also use this approach when your main hard drive has crashed and you have installed a new (empty) hard drive in your computer and need to restore your image from an external hard drive. Again, you boot from the CD (or diskettes) and run True Image to retrieve the image files from your external hard drive and to create and restore all of the partitions on the main hard drive. The Restore process of True Image is vastly easier than trying to restore from a file backup utility. You simply install the empty hard drive in your computer and run True Image to rebuild it in one easy step. You don't have to build and format partitions on your hard drive or reinstall the operating system before the restore. It couldn’t be easier to do.
Other Functions of True Image
Acronis True Image has some other functions that you may want to consider using. Since they are not part of the Perfect Backup Approach, I will not cover them in any detail in this article. True Image has the ability to Clone a hard drive. You would use this function if you want to copy your entire hard drive in order to replace your main hard drive with a larger one. Some individuals will use this to backup their main hard drive, but this method is not the best backup approach, so I am not covering it here. True Image also has a Schedule Task that will let you schedule a backup to occur in the future instead of being done right now. This is convenient if you want to complete some work on your computer and then have the backup occur in the middle of the night. This function is new to True Image and not quite powerful enough to do the Perfect Backup Approach as described in this article. So, I do not recommend it at this time. Acronis is working to enhance this function in the future.
That completes this article on Using Acronis True Image 8.0. If you have questions on this article or other questions about your hard drive, send a note to gene@ugr.com and I will try to assist you.
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