Hi Rick,

Thanks for the great instructions and speedy reply.  Mine is  Version 8.

I DO have a Dell, Dimension 8200, but if there are extra  partitions, I don't
see them.  It is a simple system, no RAID nor special  controller cards that
I'm aware of or installed.  I backed up the full C  drive, all to the same
directory.  And I've only backed up once, the full  backup, so that's all that
should be on my external drive.

I only have ONE hard drive and ONE external drive, so I guess I'd  have to
buy a 2nd HD or external in order to really be able to be  SURE, safely, that
the backup is right??  Do I read this  correctly??

Donna Parsons

I have ver 6 and 7, but they should work "basically" the same for  this.
Plug in the external drive and make sure ALL the files from the  backup
are in one directory. They "already" should be, unless you moved  some
or had some sort of problem.(?)

Prerequisites:
The following  assumes Acronis TrueImage is installed on the boot hard drive
of the machine  where the backups are trying to be viewed, that ALL the files
from a  particular backup set are in the SAME directory and "on-line" and
available  at the same time (this will not work with a disk-spanned archive
set
such as  multiple CD-Roms or DVDs), and also that the system clock had
always been set  correctly.

After starting Windows normally:
While in the backup directory, double  click on the newest of the backup
files.
Note there are special "rules" after  full and incremental sets are ALL in the
same directory later, but this is  the "beginners version" of the instructions
and will "always" mount the  latest version of the overall backup sets.

The above should start the  Acronis program in a special mode. It will ask
for the archive password (if  any) and also ask which partitions you want to
mount from the archive and  what drive letters you wish to use. You can say
to mount all partitions in  the archive or only some. Note that certain
partition
types will not mount.  Examples would be the two extra partitions that come
with a DELL OEM computer  that never had drive letters and won't mount
because they are for special  "system" use during a DELL restore or other
advanced uses. ("Someone with a  DELL" would have archived these as a
full DRIVE backup with all partitions  selected at that time.)

Once the selected partitions mount with the drive letters you selected  above,
they will be available in Windows Explorer as read-only drives. Unless  things
have changed drastically in your ver 8, you can not remove files from  the
archive (even if it is stored on read-write media), or "re-compile" the
archive
like you can in Ghost. [Ghost(TM) is a Norton product.]
(Note that  editing an existing archive would be something for an advanced
user anyway so  if Acronis does not support that, it is likely "not important"
to you  anyway...)

There are (at least) two ways to "get rid of/unmount" the  mounted drives.
They will vanish when you re-boot...
You can right click  on them in Explorer and select "unplug" from the menu.
Note it is a "likely"  a really bad idea to simple rip out the removable drive
cable while the  archive is mounted...

All the above assumes your system has a relatively simple hardware  setup.
Even if not, since this is done in Windows, it should work.
If you  have any sort of special drive controller cards or RAID of any type
you need  more advanced advise about other issues you might have when
doing other  things. (Disclaimer: I do not use RAID.)

As with any back-up solution, it  "should" be tested from beginning to end
by running a restore on some "blank"  hard drive "as if" the original one was
destroyed and you were DOING a full  "bare metal" recovery operation...
Stating that another way,  you can  only be SURE you "got it right" by doing
the ENTIRE operation from start to  finish at least once. (Warning: See
below.)

IMPORTANT: Do NOT run a full recovery test ON the original drive to  see
if recovery works. That might erase the ONLY good drive you "had" if  the
recovery fails or has any procedural or drive controller "driver" (or
access) problems...
Your particular hardware setup might (and can) prevent  things from going
"as expected"... (And you do NOT want to find that out  later when you really
NEED a backup in an emergency...)

As per your  last question, yes, I have moved to new drives (bigger ones
in the same  system) many times using this program, and until I ironed out
some
things,  the first ones did not always work as expected...

Hope all this helps and was clear.

Please keep all  questions (and replies) for this topic on the list so all
can  benefit.
(Especially since I run an older version of the program.  <grin>...)

One last tip: Keep the boot drive partition big enough  to "use", but small
enough to
be able to back up easily... Chances are  "something" will trash the OS
before the
drive will fail, so having the OS  partition "fairly small" can be a big
help...
(This should be taken up as a  different question, and depends on you usage
patterns...)

Rick  Glazier


From: "Donna Parsons"
clipped
> I did my first  backup a couple of weeks ago and the program told me  it was
>  successful, and also told me the verification was OK.  However,  I  can't
access
> the files on this backup thru Windows Explorer, so how can  I be  SURE in my
> mind that my backup is good and complete?  I  mean, a  program COULD tell
one
> that in error, if it weren't  operating properly or  something.   Has
anyone here
> ever  used this software package and, if  so, did you ever have to use it
to
> restore your system?

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