Ghost 12 or Acronis 10 for Vista?

[ingeborgdot]

Ghost 12 or Acronis 10 for Vista?

[scuzzy]

I got away from Ghost several years ago and never looked back. Although I haven't tried Acronis 10 (I believe ver 11 is to due out very soon), I would much rather go with their product over Symantec.

Give the trial version a spin and see if you like it. If you decide to buy, you can buy it at lower prices through NewEgg.

[ingeborgdot]

What do you use?

[scuzzy]

I've been using Acronis 9 since its release. However, I still use WinXP on all my systems.

[ingeborgdot]

Does Acronis make a ghost copy like ghost does so that if things go bad I just make take the image and place it back on the hard drive or a new one?

[scuzzy]

Both Acronis True Image and Ghost make an "image" of the hard drive. You can save the image to a partition (not the best way), another hard drive, or burn it to a DVD. Multiple image backups are best; just in case one goes bad. You can then reinstall the image to the hard drive as needed.

Acronis allows you to do either incremental or completely new images. You can install the software to Windows and then create and manage your images there. Once the software is installed you can instead create a boot disc to manage the images, which is what I prefer. You can do either or both.

I recommend that you give the trial a spin, then hold out just a little bit and get version 11.

[Whizbang]

. Once the software is installed you can instead create a boot disc to manage the images, which is what I prefer.

I too prefer the Acronis bootable disc.  It is almost a self-contained operating system with great graphics clarity that is much faster and a more trouble-free drive copy and recovery.

[ingeborgdot]

I have a trial of both and have been experimenting. So far acronis won't do a scheduled task. I am sure it is user error but I don't know for sure. When I come to the later part of the setup of the schedule it says the user name password are not correct. I don't know which user name they want or if it is the password that is not right. I don't have a password to get into my user name so I wonder if that is the problem? Anyone know what I am doing wrong.

[Whizbang]

Acronis 9.0 was a bit buggy for some applications in the Windows setup.  It may have been due to not being fully compatible with an AMD X2 mainboard.  That is what prompted me to use the bootable disc, which worked perfectly.  Of course, there is no scheduling option that way.

If you have Seagate or Maxtor drive, you can download a free Acronis version that has many of the same features as the universal Acronis.

[ingeborgdot]

I have not used these programs before and was wondering if anyone could tell me how they actually work.  I backup to my external.  My c drive with all apps and os goes bad.  Will I have to reinstall?  Which backup is easier to use in an instance like this? 

[Whizbang]

After installing Acronis, you get the list of options when you start the Windows program.  The one that I think is most important is the bootable CD.  As I said, it is virtually a bootable 16 color operating system that gives you the ability to store data, partitions, clone drives, etc.  I always use the backup data with full partition option to store the active OS on another drive.  The real advantages of using Acronis as opposed to a floppy or CD Cardera DOS method for copying is that Acronis gets the job done in less than 5 minutes and also compresses the stored OS or data partition to half or less of the original disc space.  My 5G XP compresses to about 2.4G and is stored as an Acronis .tib file on any partition I choose, even one that contains data, a real advantage.  If you use the data store option, the files are compressed; the clone option duplicates the partitions and will even reapportion the new drive partitions size to accommodate a different size cloned drive.

The bootable CD is much easier to implement because you are not fighting any active OS that slows things down, and you can use the bootable CD to reload the OS from the stored .tib file if the current active OS becomes corrupted.  Because of the small compressed size of the .tib file, you can store and compress the active OS every few weeks for updated protection until you see degeneracy setting in on the active OS.  I generally keep the initial stored installation of the OS and begin to delete the intermediary ones when I find that the current active installation is stable.

I tried Ghost only once several years ago and was so underwhelmed that I never even tried it once I opened the program.  I have no idea how the new program compares.   :-\

[Buffalo2102]

I have been using DriveImage XML for a while now and it seems to be great.  For a freeware application I can't fault it.

Check it out - http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

Buff

[Mark H]

I use Acronis 10 on my Vista 64 machine and love it.

Mark H