You can’t assume it’s not the backup drive. Hard drive quality certainly isn’t as good as it was 10 or 15 years ago.
And I don’t really understand your fixation with validation. If the hard drive works, then why do you need to validate anything? Data write errors are extremely uncommon unless you have hardware issues, in which case you shouldn’t be using that hard drive.
How can you not be concerned about validation? What good is backup data if it doesn’t match waht you’re trying to back up?
Quick question, where is the user profile stored? I can find the .pst files, but I don’t know what I’m looking for in terms of a file containing account settings, rules, etc. I have three different email accounts pulling in and being auto-sorted by Outlook, so having to recreate that from scratch would be a big deal.
Thanks. Would filtering rules and account settings (POP and SMTP servers, etc.) be under the Send/Receive group settings? I’m a little vague on what that means.
Oh hey… any opinions on Genie backup software? Seems to have everything that Acronis does, plus it’s extendable so I can automatically backup things like browser bookmarks.
Rules are in .rwz files, and the account settings are in the registry. There’s really no way to restore the account settings if you change computers but restoring from backup for a failed hard drive shouldn’t be an issue.
I actually have installed Genie when setting up machines for friends and family. It’s a good backup program. More recently I’ve used Rebit because it gets away from the full/differential/incremental and job scheduling paradigm.
Last (hopefully) real quick question: Genie’s free trial version is 32-bit, will there be any issues with running it on XP Pro 64-bit?
Shouldn’t be a problem.
I’ve been looking at the Genie site. The program I’ve had experience with is the Genie Backup Manager. Their Timeline program does continuous backup similar to the way Rebit does and I’d recommend trying Timeline over GBM.
I’m not really looking for continuous backup, though. I work with mostly resource intensive software (photoshop etc.) and don’t need something else constantly running in the background slowing things down. Worse case scenario is I lose 24 hours worth of work, and I can live with that.
Can you explain this further? Because one of the things I do want to do eventually is to upgrade my internal hard drive and rebuild the machine. (The guy who set this one up for me created separate partitions for the OS, for software, and for files, which doesn’t work well for a variety of reasons, and I’d like to rebuild with software installed on C: along with the OS, and the second partition for files.)
Not having to go through every piece of software that has account settings (filezilla too) to write them down first would be a big plus.
Also, is there any practical difference between a disk image backup and the Genie disaster recovery backup?
You can try Windows Easy Transfer for MS settings, but Outlook profiles are notoriously easy to break. There may be some third-part app to do other stuff like filezilla, but really you should have all of your account info written down. It can’t be that much.
No.
Maybe not, but that method relies on my memory/fore-knowledge to remember to write down everything I need, rather than having it included in a “general” backup somewhere so I have it even if I’d forgotten about it. For the longest time I was thinking in terms of having to recreate my email account settings. Then I remembered that I’d need to recreate filters/rules too. Then I realized that I’d need to transfer account settings for Filezilla, too. Then I realized that I’d need backups of my Fonts folder. So, at this point, what else have I forgotten?
So, yes, most things I could probably recreate from scratch if I forgot about them, but it would take more time and effort (and stress) than having them backed up somewhere. (Except the fonts folder… I’ve collected a number of additional fonts, and most of them I really couldn’t tell you at this point where I found them. I’m a graphic designer, so losing those would be a seriously bad deal.)
At any rate, I’m not yet at a point where I can afford the new hard drive, let alone someone to install it and rebuild my setup, so I have time to figure it out.
Thanks.
Oh, also: “saving your settings” seems to take much longer on shutdown than before I installed Genie. Cause to worry? I’m a little extra paranoid about this because shutdown has sometimes frozen at “Windows is shutting down” (although defragging usually resolves this), and a couple years back I had a huge disaster when my computer got reset during shutdown (I think during “saving your settings” although my monitor was having issues at the time), which corrupted a bunch of things. I don’t want this to suddenly start hanging on “saving your settings.”
So, my experience with Acronis thus far:
I buy the product. Based on the good reviews I’ve seen, it doesn’t occur to me that I should try the trial version first (which is a scaled back product, and doesn’t have some of the functions that would later turn out to be problematic anyway).
Right out of the box, it doesn’t work. I spend the next month looking for a way to get support, to find there’s no obvious way to get it. I poke around the website, then poke around my account on their website, to get repeatedly directed only to the user forums. I post questions there, which are ignored. Weeks later, I finally figure out the obscure secret handshake it takes to submit a support ticket, so I do. The response is, “you’re too late, we won’t support it for you anymore.”
I post here, and suddenly they’re willing to take a second look at my support ticket. Hmmmm.
Meanwhile, about a dozen things are not working with the software now, so they insist that they can fix it via a support phone call and desktop share. I set aside an evening to do this. Support calls me an hour late, and only after I send a nasty email asking them where the hell they were. And then, I get a support tech who is condescending, who takes me to task because I “seem low down” (WTF? You’re a software tech, not a shrink – and frankly, bad at both. Knock it off and fix the software), admits that he didn’t even look at the logfiles I sent, and didn’t bother to even review my case until after it was time to call me, which was why he was an hour late. Then, after two hours of doing the uninstall-cleanup tool-reinstall dance, insists that everything works fine now, and he’s going home. I ask him to reset the startup config back to normal mode instead of diagnostic mode, and he spends five minutes arguing with me that it’s fine the way it is and it doesn’t matter, it’s the end of shift and he wants to go home. The fact of the matter, of course, is that in diagnostic mode, the software that’s supposed to launch and run at start up – including my anti-virus software – does not. And, when he finally agrees to fix it, it took approximately 20 seconds for him to put it back in normal mode.
So let’s review: he spent 15 times as long arguing with me, than it took to just fix it.
The software still doesn’t work. They had suggested an additional driver – I asked for the link so I could try that. They argue with me. I insist they send it anyway. They do, I try it, it still doesn’t work. Now, three months later, I think I’ve spent enough time fighting with this thing trying to get it to work. I say so, and ask for my money back, given that I’ve gotten exactly nothing (except frustration and tons of time down the drain) for it.
Acronis says I’m “too late” to get a refund, and I should cooperate with them to find a solution to my problem.
Holy WTF, batman. I’ve done nothing BUT cooperate, they’ve given me one run-around after another, I continued this insane back-and-forth with their “support” department for an additional number of weeks at their insistence that they could fix the multiple issues, and it’s my fault they won’t give me a refund?
Clue-by-four: the solution to my problem is refunding my money when you sell me a defective, non-functional product.
This, my friends, is what you can expect from Acronis TrueImage. Just putting that out there. I spent 53 bucks for a big fat nothing.
Hello Kaio,
My name is Andrey, I am Acronis Forum Community manager.
I’ve come across your review at this forum and found your case with our support team.
I see that we’re missing opportunities here and I’ve already moved forward and refunded your purchase. You should see the the credit back to your CC in about 5 business days.
I would like to apologize on behalf of Acronis for the inconveniences caused. I’ve already escalated your case to support management. It will be carefully analyzed and necessary corrective actions taken.
Thanks,
Andrey Zarubin.
Acronis Forum Community Manager
Hello Kaio,
My name is Analog, I am Fake Acronis Forum Community manager.
I’ve come across your review at this forum and found your case with our support team.
I see that we’re missing opportunities here but I believe we can continue to provide Excellent Customer Service. I would like to arrange another support call with one of our highly skilled technicians. Our technician will most likely miss the appointment. However, in the unlikely event that our technician does call you in time, I can assure you (s)he will be rude and unhelpful and not solve any of your issues. There is also a good possibility that our technician will modify your configuration and introduce new system stability issues before abruptly disconnecting because it is the end of a shift.
I would like to apologize on behalf of Acronis for the inconveniences caused. I’ve already escalated your case to support management. After carefully analyzing your case, we will conclude that it is all your fault anyway. We use Ghost for all of our backups and are shocked that anyone actually uses TrueImage.
Thanks,
Analog Signal
Fake Acronis Forum Community Manager