Acronis True Image V11 Home problems

I downloaded the trial version of Acronis True Image a couple of weeks
ago. I made a backup of my system disk without problems. I then made a
Bootable Rescue CD as instructed, but when I tried to boot from this I
got the message "Acronis Loader: No configuration file present ... press
<Enter> to reboot".

I checked on the Acronis support forum and I found posts going back
around 2 years from people having the same problem.

I've tried installing on 3 separate machines:
1. Running Vista Ultimate.
2. Running XP SP2.
3. A brand new machine running Vista with SP1.
all with the same results.

I checked with a colleague who had recommended Acronis to me - he's been
religiously making incremental backups every week for around 2 years -
he was pretty shocked when he found he had the same problem!

I've now installed the trial version of Norton Ghost which worked
perfectly so I guess I'll be buying that.

Sorry for the long-winded post, but I'd still be interested in hearing
from anyone who has solved this problem.

TIA.

 

I have the same problem with a CD but not with an external HD.

 

in message

Rather than hunt around for the CD when I need to do a restore, I
install their Recovery Manager. This usurps the 446-byte bootstrap
section of the MBR (i.e., it becomes the standard boot manager). If I
were multibooting, needed to use a disk overlay, doing whole-disk
encryption, or doing something else that also usurped the MBR
bootstrap area then I'd have a conflict, but I don't do those so
Acronis replacing it is okay in my system. I also do NOT use their
quotas but instead use a hidden partition to save the image backups.
If you search on my moniker in their forums, you will find my posts
there complaining about the problem that they do not honor the quotas
to prevent consuming the entire disk with backups (which can render
the OS inoperable if you only have the one partition or results in
failed backups if you fill up another partition/disk).

Most of the problems in their Home version get addressed with replies
from Acronis to go buy their workstation version at twice the price.
The Home version is usable but I've come to the conclusion that it is
lureware to get you to buy their more pricey version. Their Home
version doesn't even support volume shadow copying to ensure that
inuse files get included in the backups (if you use their product to
do logical file backups instead of physical sector backups).

By the way, I have seen mentioned of getting their Recovery Manager to
run from a Windows bootable CD. Their "recovery CD" uses some version
of Linux and has been known to have problems trying to get it to boot
to a workable state. I remember seeing some information about how to
put their program on a Windows bootable CD using Bart's PE Builder
utility. I haven't bothered investigating into it because I prefer
the message "Press F11 to start Acronis Recovery Manager" when I boot
the machine. Quicker and easier.

 

V10 and V9 IIRC was okay, I have a couple of boot CDs and used 1 once.
Haven't tried v11 yet.

I must have used it, and worked worked because the disk contained a
backup of C: which I put on another disk and increased the size by
250MB.

<snip>

Will try v11 just now.

Last product for a backup of C: was driveimage.xml from www.runtime.org.

Me

 

Many thanks for your very detailed reply. Unfortunately, I need the MBR
for multibooting so that isn't an option.

I might have a play with the trial version of that sometime just to see
if it works as advertised. I also thought of using Bart's PE Builder to
get around the problems I'm experiencing but, what the heck, why should
I have to jump through hoops to get commercial software working as
advertised? :-(

After playing with Norton Ghost for a couple of days it's doing
everything I want so I'll be off to purchase that today.

Thanks again. Regards.

 

On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:19:15 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

[...]

You're absolutely correct in what you say. After playing with Norton
Ghost V14.0 for a couple of days I decided I didn't really like it. So
I registered with Acronis and downloaded the trial version of the True
Image Echo Workstation. Guess what? It worked perfectly and I was able
to create a Bootable Media CD which booted correctly, unlike to CD
created in TI Home version which wouldn't boot on any of my machines.

Now I have to consider whether I should spend the extra money on this
version, but I suppose, for peace of mind, I'll eventually decide to buy
it.

Regards.