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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