Cheap ACRONIS True Image 8.0 Standard ( Windows ) (Software) (No Operating System) Price

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Customer Reviews of ACRONIS True Image 8.0 Standard ( Windows )

As good as I could find
I have hard diskcrashes at least every two years; lately, once a year. Don't ask me why. After the latest crash in July '05, I learned that my previous backup product, Dantz Retrospect 6.5, which is packaged with the Maxtor One Touch USB drives, doesn't really take a "perfect" copy of your hard disk...you can't just copy over all the files on your USB drive to your PC's new hard disk and think it's all going to work as good as new. Fortunately, I didn't lose any personal data. <
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>Anyway, for my next crash, I just want to be able to create a perfect copy of my hard disk and be able to copy that image to the new disk. I researched all 3 products out there, and this one gets the best reviews and most magazine recommendations; Norton Ghost being the other top choice, but it has a lot to dislike about it. <
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>So, Acronis True Image is the winner, for just under $40. It has a easy-to-use interface. I mean SIMPLE. A monkey could duplicate an image of his hard disk onto another drive. Fast, too...backed up my 15Gb of stuff in about 40 min, with 50% compression. Can be scheduled to do it nightly if you want, though I haven't gone there yet. Afterwards, the software will assign a Windows drive letter to the image it created and you can "explore" it like you would any other drive, so retrieving that file you accidentally deleted is simple. <
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>The emergency disk option creates a Linux-based "emergency boot disk" on CD so you will be able to start your PC with a blank hard disk and access the file you created on your external USB drive. <
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>Enough said about backing up to another drive, but what about to CD/DVD? See, if your external USB disk is stolen or you have a fire, you need a backup in your safety deposit box or your glove compartment in your car or at work somwhere. <
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>Acronis has no problem backing up to CD's...it's easy, but obviously takes many. But DVD? Oh, that's a pain in the rear. Here's why: 1.) In spite of what the box says, you can't use DVD+R or DVD-R discs. I tried and tried; finally bought a box of DVD-RW disks and it worked with them. 2.) You have to have external DVD-writing software installed, like EZ Media Creator 7. Fortunately, I did (Ebay, $10). 3.) You have to Quick Format each DVD-RW disc in the EZ CD "Drag to Disc" utility. THEN, and only then, can you tell Acronis to create the image (this all learned from the FAQ on the Acronis web site, BTW). It worked relatively well after I did that, but just took a lot longer. Dumb. <
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>I have NOT restored the backup yet, but I'm going to test it: I'm going to boot up with the emergency CD, then I'll restore the backup from the DVD's to my USB external hard disk. If it doesn't work, I'll report back here, and then I'll give up and go back to Dantz Retrospect and use their actual Backup option (not duplicate) to create a copy to DVD...at least you don't have to use DVD-RW or format the DVD's with their product. <
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Yes it works, I've been wondering if it would for a year.
I bought Acronis True Image about a year ago and always wondered if it would really save me and it did. <
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>I deleted my user account under "manage" of the Windows XP system (right click) and lost all my personal data though the machine booted, a total disaster! <
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>So I used their boot disk, the one they have you build with the program. It started up to the CD drive (you may need to startup while holding down F2 (or maybe ESC key) to get into your machine's bios to adjust it for a "CD before drive-C" startup operating system search. <
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>I booted into their boot CD, answered some questions, you have to be careful since it asks for which partition but I only have one partician so no problem. My Acronis backup "Image" was saved on a second system drive but it will also see USB drives, connected externally to the computer, where I have a 2nd backup also. <
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>It took a while and gave a "11 seconds until done message" but it took another 5 minutes or so so don't cancel out too soon! <
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>I'm back to perfect working order! Saved my bacon unlike all the other programs I tried. Have used Norton before, 2 years ago, but the operating system gave weird messages after startup that I don't get with Acronis. Perfect Image restore as far as I can tell. It really works in my experience unlike the other junk I tried. <
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>I highly suggest you do a nightly incremental Image addition of each days work as they suggest, which I didn't so I lost one day of my work since the last Image backup... lucky me I'd Imaged the day before! <
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>Thank you Acronis for a great product.