Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
Our first step after installing Acronis and creating rescue media is to create a full backup.
Now that we've both installed Acronis True Image and created rescue media we can move on to actually backing up.
Our first effort will be a simple full backup of the machine.
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This type of full backup is the "snapshot" backup you might take prior to doing something questionable - it's this backup you'd then be able to revert to in case something goes wrong.
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Transcript
This is Leo Notenboom for AskLeo.net.
Now that we've installed Acronis and we've created our Rescue Media disk, it's time to make a full backup.
To do that, we'll click on backup.
We'll click on my computer since we are going to create an image of the entire disk.
The disk we're backing up is the C drive.
We're going to create a new backup archive.
The default location that Acronis gave us is actually a bad idea, it's actually backing up to the drive you are backing up.
So we're going to specify a different drive.
And a name.
That drive can be a network location, as I'm using here, it can be an external USB drive, or whatever.
We're not going to schedule a backup.
This is a full backup, in other words, we're backing up absolutely everything.
We're not going to exclude any files.
We're going to change one option. I happen to like keeping the compression to its maximum.
It takes a little bit longer, but not much.
We're not going to place any comments on this backup.
Here's the summary of what we're about to do.
And we'll tell Acronis to go ahead and do it.
Now the initial estimate of the amount of time it's going to take is actually going to be way off.
It's probably going to be around an hour and a half or so.
In reality, this particular backup which turns out to be about ten megabytes after it's all done - I'm sorry, ten gigabytes after it's all done, will probably take about ten or 15 minutes.
In reality, this backup took about 25 minutes.
Your speed, of course, will vary depending on how fast your drives are or how fast your network connection is and, of course, how much you're actually backing up.
And, that's it.
We now have a full backup of this particular machine.
We can take a look at it in Windows Explorer and we'll see demo backup, the file I just created, and that it's actually 4 and a half gigabytes in size.
Now this was interesting to create a full backup manually all at once and that comes in handy from time to time.
But the real power, of course, is to be able to schedule those backups, both a full backup and, what we'll call, an incremental backup.
That video is next.
Article C3847 - August 20, 2009
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
I have used Acronis 9, 10, 11, and now on my third Build of Acronis True Image Home 2009. I have tested 13 other backup programs and the only one that works without errors is Acronis. I do a full backup of my laptop (Vista) and desktop (XP Prof.) to one of my four external hard drives each week. If you are not running a business you have no need for incremental backups. Stay away from them as they just confuse the issue. I have tested thousands of new programs and have lost my systems 15 times in the past two and a half years. I have done 15 restores with Acronis and haven't lost a file. One thing must be done however; each time you update to a new Build of Acronis you must create new Recovery Disks. For those of you who have had problems with Acronis, all I can say is, you have done something wrong. You are trying to do backups with a corrupt installation or you are just missing the boat somewhere. Acronis is the greatest and has saved me more times than I have fingers and toes. I also highly recommend that you activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager and establish an Acronis Secure Zone as an added precaution in the recovery process. Good luck, I have had a lot of it with Acronis.
Posted by: Bob Owens at September 1, 2009 12:19 PMI haven't used this particular backup program, the IT dept. uses it on site, but I have used the backup which came with DOS6.x and more recently Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery (BESR) 6.52; (The current version is 8.x);
Both the DOS/Win3.1x and BESR 6.52 backup have saved my bacon but for different reasons;
I used the DOS/Win3.1x backup numerous times to upgrade the old machine's HDD to bigger disks or for repartitioning;
More recently with XP I had a botched program install (McAfee to be precise) requiring a restore,
What backup programs usually call ability to restore to different hardware is something like "Bare Metal Recovery" and Symantec call their application Restore Anyware;
I always make my backup images with "Restore Anyware enabled;
From what I understand, MS's policy is:
"any hardware upgrade except New Mother Board is still the same PC, change the Mother Board and it's a New PC requiring a new copy of Windows"
even if the MB is the same make, model, year, and BIOS rev. the hard disk from the old system won't necessarily be able to boot the new board without Windows asking for the COA or at the very least activation,but an image restored using a backup program that can do bare metal recovery with the option to remove the old MB drivers and add the new drivers for the new system on the fly will in most cases be able to boot the system, whether or not you get the activate windows prompt or are asked to re enter your COA key to continue depends on the program and system restored to,
when I restored my XP system after the botched McAfee install it was to the the exact same system, with the only difference being I took the opportunity to change the partition layout of the C:\ drive and I wasn't asked for activation or to enter the COA key. Posted by: XP Guest Account acting like Win2k Guest Account at September 5, 2009 5:24 PM
Hi Leo,
When creating a full backup, I used the DVD+R media and it required 2 DVDs. I am now creating an incremental backup and using the 2nd DVD to store the file (as there is quite a bit of space left on the media). At the end of the backup process (which took about 3 minutes, as there were very few changes), the Software performs a validity check of the backup. This is very important, however, it requests that I place the first volume in the drive as it seems to be performing this check on the first full backup as well as on the incremental one. Is it possible to avoid this redundant check, as it was performed once during the full backup process? All I need now is to perform it on the incremental part.
As always, your help would be greatly appreciated.
Posted by: Bracha at October 2, 2009 4:21 AMLeo, when you say Acronis backs up everything, does that include actual programs such as Word, Excel, etc.? And how about programs I've downloaded myself such as Skype or Adobe or Finjan, etc.? Or is it possible to only backup files I have created? Please clarify for this non-tech user that I am. Thank you.
29-Jul-2010
Posted by: Pat at July 27, 2010 3:34 PM
Hi Leo, check out PING 3 software it copies your hard drive image even over the network, and its free-but the guys work hard to create such a good product so we (donate) the price of a latte.
Posted by: geoff chadwick at September 12, 2010 2:13 AM