Acronis True Image Home - 11.0 User's Guide

User’s Guide

Acronis® True Image 11.0

Home

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. This Agreement contains the entire understanding of the parties and supersedes all other

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Introduction.........................................................................................

1.1 What is Acronis® True Image Home?...............................................................................10

1.2 New in Acronis True Image 11 Home................................................................................ 10

1.3 System requirements and supported media.......................................................................12

1.3.1 Minimum system requirements ..................................................................................12

1.3.2 Supported operating systems.....................................................................................12

1.3.3 Supported file systems..............................................................................................12

1.3.4 Supported storage media .......................................................................................... 12

1.4 Technical support............................................................................................................13

Chapter 2. Acronis True Image Home installation and startup ............................14

2.1 Installing Acronis True Image Home.................................................................................14

2.2 Extracting Acronis True Image Home................................................................................14

2.3 Running Acronis True Image Home .................................................................................. 15

2.4 Upgrading Acronis True Image Home ..............................................................................15

2.5 Removing Acronis True Image Home................................................................................ 15

Chapter 3. General information and proprietary Acronis technologies ................16

3.1 The difference between file archives and disk/partition images ........................................... 16

3.2 Full, incremental and differential backups.......................................................................... 16

3.3 Acronis Secure Zone™.....................................................................................................17

3.4 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager ................................................................................... 18

3.4.1 How it works............................................................................................................18

3.4.2 How to use ..............................................................................................................18

3.5 Acronis backup locations..................................................................................................18

3.6 Acronis Active Restore®...................................................................................................20

3.6.1 Limitations in using Acronis Active Restore..................................................................20

3.6.2 How it works............................................................................................................20

3.6.3 How to use ..............................................................................................................20

3.7 Viewing disk and partition information .............................................................................. 21

3.8 Try&Decide ....................................................................................................................21

3.9 DriveCleanser®, File Shredder, and System Clean-up..........................................................21

Chapter 4. Using Acronis True Image Home .........................................................23

4.1 Program workspace.........................................................................................................23

4.2 Available operations........................................................................................................26

Chapter 5. Creating backup archives ....................................................................29

5.1 What data to back up? .................................................................................................... 29

5.2 The backup procedure.....................................................................................................29

5.2.1 My Computer backup................................................................................................29

5.2.2 My Data backup........................................................................................................31

5.2.3 My Application Settings backup.................................................................................. 34

5.2.4 My E-mail backup .....................................................................................................35

5.2.5 Selecting the backup destination................................................................................ 36

5.2.6 Selecting the backup mode........................................................................................ 37

5.2.7 Selecting the backup options.....................................................................................38

5.2.8 Providing a comment................................................................................................38

5.2.9 The operation summary and the backup process......................................................... 38

5.3 Setting backup options....................................................................................................39

5.3.1 Archive protection.....................................................................................................40

5.3.2 Source files exclusion................................................................................................ 40

5.3.3 Pre/post commands..................................................................................................40

5.3.4 Compression level..................................................................................................... 40

5.3.5 Backup performance.................................................................................................41

5.3.6 Archive splitting........................................................................................................42

5.3.7 File-level security settings..........................................................................................42

5.3.8 Media components....................................................................................................43

5.3.9 Additional settings ....................................................................................................43

5.3.10 Error handling.........................................................................................................43

Chapter 6. Restoring the backup data ..................................................................45

6.1 Restore under Windows or boot from CD?......................................................................... 45

6.1.1 Network settings in rescue mode ............................................................................... 45

6.2 Restoring files and folders from file archives...................................................................... 45

6.3 Restoring disks/partitions or files from images................................................................... 48

6.3.1 Starting the Restore Data Wizard...............................................................................48

6.3.2 Archive selection.......................................................................................................49

6.3.3 Restoration type selection ......................................................................................... 49

6.3.4 Selecting a disk/partition to restore............................................................................ 51

6.3.5 Selecting a target disk/partition..................................................................................51

6.3.6 Changing the restored partition type .......................................................................... 52

6.3.7 Changing the restored partition file system.................................................................53

6.3.8 Changing the restored partition size and location.........................................................53

6.3.9 Assigning a letter to the restored partition .................................................................. 54

6.3.10 Restoring several disks or partitions at once.............................................................. 54

6.3.11 Setting restore options............................................................................................54

6.3.12 Restoration summary and executing restoration ........................................................ 54

6.4 Setting restore options .................................................................................................... 54

6.4.1 Files overwriting mode..............................................................................................55

6.4.2 Files to preserve during restoration............................................................................55

6.4.3 Pre/post commands..................................................................................................55

6.4.4 Restoration priority...................................................................................................56

6.4.5 File-level security settings..........................................................................................56

6.4.6 Additional settings ....................................................................................................56

Chapter 7 Try&Decide ...........................................................................................57

7.1 Using Try&Decide.............................................................................................................57

7.2 Try&Decide usage examples ............................................................................................. 60

Chapter 8. Backup location management .............................................................61

8.1 Creating backup locations................................................................................................61

8.1.1 Setting a path to the backup location ......................................................................... 61

8.1.2 Setting the backup rules............................................................................................ 62

8.2 Editing backup locations ..................................................................................................63

8.3 Deleting a backup location............................................................................................... 63

8.4 Exploring a backup location..............................................................................................63

Chapter 9. Scheduling tasks..................................................................................64

9.1 Creating scheduled tasks.................................................................................................64

9.1.1 Setting up daily execution .........................................................................................67

9.1.2 Setting up weekly execution......................................................................................68

9.1.3 Setting up monthly execution.....................................................................................69

9.1.4 Setting up one-time execution...................................................................................70

9.2 Managing scheduled tasks ...............................................................................................70

Chapter 10. Managing Acronis Secure Zone .........................................................71

10.1 Creating the Acronis Secure Zone...................................................................................71

10.2 Resizing Acronis Secure Zone.........................................................................................73

10.3 Changing the password for Acronis Secure Zone..............................................................74

10.4 Deleting Acronis Secure Zone.........................................................................................75

Chapter 11. Creating bootable media ...................................................................

Chapter 12. Other operations................................................................................79

12.1 Validating backup archives.............................................................................................79

12.2 Operation results notification..........................................................................................79

12.2.1 Email notification....................................................................................................80

12.2.2 WinPopup notification..............................................................................................81

12.3 Viewing logs ................................................................................................................. 81

Chapter 13. Exploring archives and mounting images .........................................83

13.1 Searching files in archives..............................................................................................83

13.2 Mounting an image........................................................................................................85

13.3 Unmounting an image ................................................................................................... 87

Chapter 14. Transferring the system to a new disk ..............................................88

14.1 General information....................................................................................................... 88

14.2 Security........................................................................................................................89

14.3 Executing transfers........................................................................................................89

14.3.1 Selecting Clone mode..............................................................................................89

14.3.2 Selecting source disk...............................................................................................89

14.3.3 Selecting destination disk ........................................................................................90

14.3.4 Partitioned destination disk...................................................................................... 91

14.3.5 Old and new disk partition layout ............................................................................. 91

14.3.6 Old disk data..........................................................................................................91

14.3.7 Destroying the old disk data.....................................................................................92

14.3.8 Selecting partition transfer method........................................................................... 93

14.3.9 Partitioning the old disk........................................................................................... 94

14.3.10 Old and new disk partition layouts..........................................................................94

14.3.11 Cloning summary..................................................................................................95

14.4 Cloning with manual partitioning.....................................................................................95

14.4.1 Old and new disk partition layouts............................................................................95

Chapter 15. Adding a new hard disk .....................................................................97

15.1 Selecting a hard disk ..................................................................................................... 97

15.2 Creating new partitions..................................................................................................97

15.3 Disk add summary.........................................................................................................98

Chapter 16. Security and Privacy Tools...............................................................100

16.1 Using File Shredder ..................................................................................................... 100

16.2 Acronis DriveCleanser..................................................................................................101

16.3 Using preset data destruction methods.......................................................................... 102

16.4 Creating custom methods of data destruction................................................................ 103

16.5 System Clean-up.........................................................................................................104

16.6 System Clean-up Wizard settings.................................................................................. 105

16.6.1 "Data Destruction Method" setting.......................................................................... 105

16.6.2 "Files" settings...................................................................................................... 105

16.6.3 "Computers" setting.............................................................................................. 106

16.6.4 "Drive Free Space" setting..................................................................................... 107

16.6.5 "Commands" setting.............................................................................................. 107

16.6.6 "System Password Filter" setting............................................................................ 108

16.7 Cleaning up separate system components..................................................................... 108

Appendix A. Partitions and file systems..............................................................109

A.1 Hard disk partitions...................................................................................................... 109

A.2 File systems................................................................................................................ 109

A.2.1 FAT16.................................................................................................................. 109

A.2.2 FAT32.................................................................................................................. 110

A.2.3 NTFS................................................................................................................... 110

A.2.4 Linux Ext2............................................................................................................ 110

A.2.5 Linux Ext3............................................................................................................ 110

A.2.6 Linux ReiserFS...................................................................................................... 111

Appendix B. Hard disks and BIOS setup .............................................................112

B.1 Installing hard disks in computers................................................................................. 112

B.1.1 Installing a hard disk, general scheme.................................................................... 112

B.1.2 Motherboard sockets, IDE cable, power cable.......................................................... 112

B.1.3 Configuring hard disk drives, jumpers..................................................................... 113

B.2 BIOS .......................................................................................................................... 114

B.2.1 Setup utility.......................................................................................................... 114

B.2.2 Standard CMOS setup menu.................................................................................. 115

B.2.3 Arranging boot sequence, advanced CMOS setup menu........................................... 116

B.2.4 Hard disk initialization errors.................................................................................. 117

Appendix C. Hard Disk Wiping methods..............................................................118

C.1 Information wiping methods’ functioning principles......................................................... 118

C.2 Information wiping methods used by Acronis................................................................. 118

Appendix D. Startup Parameters.........................................................................120

Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1 What is Acronis® True Image Home?

Acronis True Image Home is an integrated software suite that ensures security of all information on your PC. It can backup the operating system, applications, settings and all of your data, while also securely destroying any confid ential data you no longer n eed. With this software, you can back up selected files and folders, Windows applications settings, settings and messages of Microsoft e-mail clients — or even the entire disk drive or selected partitions. Should your disk drive become damaged or your system attacked by a virus or malware, you can restore the back-up data quickly and easily, eliminating hours or days of work trying to rebuild your disk drive’s data and applications from scratch.

Acronis True Image Home provides you with all the essential tools you need to recover your computer system should a disaster occur, such as losing data, accidentally deleting critical files or folders, or a complete hard disk crash. If failures occur that block access to information or affect system operation, you will be able to restore the system and the lost data easily.

The unique technology developed by Acronis and implemented in Acroni s True Image Home allows you to perform exact, sector-by-sector di sk backups, including all operating systems, applications and configuration files, software updates, personal settings, and data.

Acronis True Image Home now helps you protect your identity as well. Simply deleting old data will not remove it permanently from your computer. Acronis True Image now includes Acronis DriveCleanser, an application that permanently destroys files and wipes personal information from partitions and/or entire disks, as well as a wizard that cleans up your Windows system of all traces of user activity.

You can store backups on almost any PC storage device: internal or external hard drives, network drives or a variety of IDE, SCSI, FireWi re (IEEE-1394), USB (1.0, 1.1 and 2.0) and PC Card (formerly called PCMCIA) removable media drives, as well as CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, magneto-optical, Iomega Zip and Jaz drives.

When performing scheduled backup tasks, Acronis True Image Home automatically selects a backup mode (full, incremental, differential) in accordance with the backup policy set by the user.

If you are going to install a new hard disk drive, Acronis True Image Home will help you to transfer information from the old one in minutes, including operating systems, applications, documents, and personal settings. After migrating to the new hard disk you can destroy all confidential information on the old one securely. This is the recommended procedure if you intend to donate, throw away, or sell the old hard disk drive.

Wizards and a Windows XP-style interface will make your work easier. Just answer a few simple questions and let Acronis True Image Home take care of everything else! The Traffic Light bar makes it easier monitoring the system backup state. When a system problem occurs, the software will get you up and running in no time.

1.2 New in Acronis True Image 11 Home

• Try&Decide utility – This feature allows you to create a temporary copy of your hard

disk. Using this copy, you can perform changes on the system that oth erwise might not be advisable, such as installing new software, downloading files from the Internet, or opening e-mail attachments. If the operations on the virtual version of your system are

successful, you can apply those changes to the real system or discard the changes as you wish. If, during these operations, the system crashes or is infected by a virus, you can delete the temporary duplicate and restore your system to a known, healthy condition. A simple reboot will restore your original hard disk and any changes, including the virus or other unwanted changes, will be gone.

• DriveCleanser, File Shredder, and System Clean-up - Securely wipe data stored on

an entire hard disk, individual partitions or in individual files and eliminate traces of user system activities. You have the option to delete files or erase a whole disk using any of eight standardized data destruction methods or custom, user-defined methods. This capability comes from the inclusion of Acronis DriveCleanser, a former stand-alone product that also was a component of the Acronis Privacy Expert Suite. As a stand-alone product, Acronis DriveCleanser won several Editors’ Choice Awards.

• Flexible and powerful scheduler with more settings – A new scheduler allows you

to schedule tasks for backups and validations with more flexibility. Additional settings greatly enhance usage options. New setting include: set schedule on logon/logoff, Windows start up, when added or deleted data exceeds a specified amount, or after a specified amount of time. Also you can setup to start a backup if computer is in an idle state, so the backup will be performed without affecting your productivity.

• More user-friendly – Many interface improvements and usability enhancements make

Acronis True Image Home easier to use than ever before. Acronis True Image Home is packaged as a suite of smaller, simpler, independent utilities working together and it is ready to protect the computer right after installation, no reboot is necessary.

• Sector-by-sector images – You can create an exact sector-by-sector disk image. This

feature is very useful when you need to backup corrupted disk drives or to make an image of a partition on which an important file has been deleted. This option lets you copy used and unused hard disk sectors.

• Ignore bad sectors – This option lets you run a backup eve n if there are bad sectors

on the hard disk. This feature is also useful during unattended backups when you cannot control the backup process. If you enable this option, the backup will be preformed regardless of read and/or write errors that could occur on the bad sectors.

• Silent Mode – You can configure the program to ignore errors during backup/restore

operations. In this mode, no notifications will be displayed to if errors occur while backup or restore task is running. Instead, you can view the detailed log of all operations after task is complete.

• Searching for file in an image – You can search for files in an image by name or a

part of the name and then restore individual files easily and quickly.

• Browsing all backup locations with file search and drill-down to the file level –

You can search for file through multiple archives and backup locati ons by name or by a part of the name and then restore individual files easily and quickly.

• Restoring files and folders without restoring absolute path – You can select an

option of restoring files without restoring the absolute path so the restored items will be saved to the destination folder without creating multiple additional folders.

• Shell extension for archive validation – You can easily validate any archive right

from the Windows Explorer context menu. Simply find a backup archive, right-click on it and select “Validate Backup Archive”.

1.3 System requirements and supported media

1.3.1 Minimum system requirements

Acronis True Image Home requires the following hardware:

• Pentium processor or higher

• 128 MB RAM

• FDD or CD-RW drive for bootable media creation

• Mouse (recommended).

1.3.2 Supported operating systems

• Windows® 2000 Professional SP 4

• Windows XP SP 2

• Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

• Windows Vista (all editions)

Acronis True Image Home also enables the creation of a bootable diskette or CD-R/W that can back up and restore a disk/partition on a computer running any Intel- or AMD- based PC operating system, including Linux®. The only exception is the Intel-based Apple Macintosh, which is not supported in native mode at this time.

1.3.3 Supported file systems

• FAT16/32

• NTFS

• Ext2/Ext3

• ReiserFS

• Linux SWAP

If a file system is not supported or is corrupted, Acronis True Image Home can copy data using a sector-by-sector approach.

The Ext2/Ext3, ReiserFS, and Linux SWAP file systems are supported only for disk or partition backup/restore operations. You cannot use Acronis True Image Home for file-level operations with these file systems (file backup, restore, search, as well as image mounting and file restoring from image), as well as for backups to disks or partitions with these file systems.

1.3.4 Supported storage media

• Hard disk drives

• Networked storage devices

• FTP servers*

• CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R (including double-layer DVD+R), DVD+RW, DVD-RAM**

• USB 1.0 / 2.0, FireWire (IEEE-1394) and PC card storage devices

• Floppy disks, ZIP®, Jaz® and other removable media

* An FTP server must allow for passive mode file transfers. Data recovery directly fr om FTP server requires the archive to consist of files of no more than 2GB each. It is recom mended that you change the source computer firewall settings to open Ports 20 and 21 for both TCP and UDP protocols and disable the Routing and Remote Access Windows service.

** Burned write-once discs cannot be read in Windows NT 4 without third-party software. Burned rewritable discs cannot be read in Linux without kernel patch.

1.4 Technical support

As part of your purchase of this product, you are entitled to receive unlimited electronic support and the minor releases of the product. For example, when you purchase version

11.0 of the product you can register the product and when "patch" releases (e.g., 11.01,

11.02, 11.03 etc) are made available you can download them at no additional cha rge. When we issue the next major release, e.g., Version 12 you would need to purchase an upgrade to get this release.

While you are using this product, please register the product on our website at

www.acronis.com/homcomputing/my/products/registration/. Then when you require supp ort

you can log onto support.

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/ to receive electronic

If you need immediate support or detailed, complex questions about the product you can purchase per-incident support

Buy Per-incident Support

http://www.acronis.com/promo/buy/product1411753/SupportHome/http%3A/shop.acronis.c om/dr/v2/ec_Main.Entry17c?V1=1411753&PID=&PN=1&SP=10034&SID=44905&CUR=840& CID=0

Chapter 2. Acronis True Image Home installation and startup

2.1 Installing Acronis True Image Home

To install Acronis True Image Home:

• Run the Acronis True Image Home setup file.

• In the Install Menu, select the program to install: Acronis True Image Home.

• Follow the install wizard instructions on the screen.

Typical, Custom and Complete installation is available. Having pressed Custom, you can choose to install, besides Acronis True Image Home, Rescue Media Builder.

With Rescue Media Builder you can create boo table rescue disks (see details in

11. Creating bootable media

product that contains a bootable CD. Installing the Bootable Rescue Media Builder will allow you to create bootable media or its ISO image at any time from the main program window or running Bootable Rescue Media Builder on its own.

When installed, Acronis True Image Home creates a new device in the Device Manager list (Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager -> Acronis Devices -> Acronis TrueImage Backup Archive Explorer). Do not disable or uninstall this device, as it is necessary for connecting image archives as virtual disks (see

archives and mounting images

If you have the trial version of Acronis True Image 11 Home installed on your system, you must uninstall it before installing the commercial version of the product.

). You might not need this tool if you purchased a boxed

Chapter 13. Exploring

Chapter

2.2 Extracting Acronis True Image Home

When installing Acronis True Image Home, you can save the setup (.msi) file on a local or network drive. This will help when modifying or recovering the existing component installation.

To save the setup file:

• Run the Acronis True Image Home setup file.

• In the Install Menu, right-click on the program name and select Extract.

• Select a location for the setup file and click Save.

2.3 Running Acronis True Image Home

You can run Acronis True Image Home in Windows by selecting Start -> Programs -> Acronis -> Acronis True Image Home -> Acronis True Image Home or clicking on

the appropriate shortcut on the desktop. If your operating system does not load for some reason, you can run Acronis Startup

Recovery Manager. However, this must be activated prior to use; see

Recovery Manager

bootup when you see a corresponding message that tells you to press that key. A cronis True Image Home will be run in the standalone mode, allowing you to recover the damaged partitions.

If your disk data is totally corrupted and the operating system cann ot boot (or if you have not activated Acronis Startup Recovery Manager), load the standalone Acronis True Image Home version from the bootable media, supplied with the retail box or created by you using Rescue Media Builder. This boot disk will allow you to restore your disk from a previously created image.

to learn more about this procedure. To run the program, press F11 during

3.4 Acronis Startup

2.4 Upgrading Acronis True Image Home

If you already have Acronis True Image Home installed, the new version will simply update it; there is no need to remove the old version and reinstall the software.

Please keep in mind that the backups created by the later program version may be incompatible with the previous program versions, so if you roll back Acronis True Image Home to an older version, you likely will have to re-create the archives using the older version. We strongly recommend that you create new bootable media after each Acronis True Image Home upgrade.

2.5 Removing Acronis True Image Home

Select Start -> Settings -> Control panel -> Add or remove programs -> <Acronis True Image Home> -> Remove. Then follow instructions on the screen. You may have

to reboot your computer afterwards to complete the task. If you use Windows Vista, select Start -> Control panel -> Programs and Features ->

<Acronis True Image Home> -> Remove. Then follow instructions on the screen. You may have to reboot your computer afterwards to complete the task.

Chapter 3. General information and proprietary Acronis technologies

3.1 The difference between file archives and disk/partition images

A backup archive is a file or a group of files (also called “backups” in this guide), that contains a copy of selected file/folder data or a copy of all information stored on selected disks/partitions.

When you back up files and folders, only the data, along with the folder tree, is compressed and stored.

Backing up disks and partitions is performed in a different way: Acronis True Image H ome stores a sector-by-sector snapshot of the disk, which includes the op erating system , registry, drivers, software applications and data files, as well as system areas hidden from the user. This procedure is called “creating a disk image,” and the resulting backup archive is often called a disk/partition image.

By default, Acronis True Image Home stores only those hard disk parts that contain data (for supported file systems). Further, it does not back up swap file information (pagefile.sys under Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista) and hiberfil.sys (a file that keeps RAM contents when the computer goes into hibernation). This reduces image size and speeds up image creation and restoration. However, you might use the Create an image using the sector-by-sector approach option that lets you include all of the sectors of a hard disk in an image.

A partition image includes all files and folders. This includes all attributes (including hidden and system files), boot record, and FAT (file allocation table); as well as files in the root directory and the zero track of the hard disk with master boot record (MBR).

A disk image includes images of all disk partitions as well as the zero track with master boot record (MBR).

By default, files in all Acronis True Image Home archives have a “.tib” extension. Do not change this file extension.

It is important to note that you can restore files and folders not only from file archi ves, but from disk/partition images too. To do so, mount the image as a virtual disk (see

Exploring archives and mounting images

specified files or folders.

) or start the image restoration and select Restore

Chapter 13.

3.2 Full, incremental and differential backups

Acronis True Image Home can create full, incremental and differential backups. A full backup contains all data at the moment of backup creation. It forms a base for

further incremental or differential backup or is used as a standalone archive. A full backup has the shortest restore time as compared to incremental or differential ones.

An incremental backup file only contains data changed since th e last full or incremental backup creation. Therefore, it is smaller and takes less time to create, but as it doesn’t contain all data; all the previous incremental backups and the initial full backup are required for restoration. To restore an incremental image, the incremental image and full image must be in the same folder.

Unlike incremental backup, when every backup procedure creat es the next file in a “chain,” a differential backup creates an independent file, containing all changes since the last full backup. Generally, a differential backup will be restored faster than an incremental one, as it does not have to process through a long chain of previous backups.

A standalone full backup might be an optimal solution if you often roll back the system to the initial state or if you do not like to manage multiple files. Remember, you need to keep all of the incremental or differential backups in the same folder as the full backup image. If you create a new full backup, you’ll need to keep its incremental and differential images in the same folder as this full backup.

If you are interested in saving only the last data state to be able to restore it in case of system failure, consider the differential backup. It is particularly effective if your data changes tend to be few as compared to the full data volume.

The same is true for incremental backup. These are most useful when you need frequent backups and ability to roll back to a specific point in time. Having created a full backup once, if you then create an incremental backup each day of a month, you will get the same result as if you created full backups every day. Incremental ima ges are considerably smaller than full or differential images.

An incremental or differential backup created after a disk is defragmented might be considerably larger than usual. This is because the defragmentation program changes file locations on disk and the backups reflect these changes. Therefore, it is recommended that you re-create a full backup after disk defragmentation.

3.3 Acronis Secure Zone™

The Acronis Secure Zone is a special, hidden partition for storing backups on the computer system itself. For archive security purposes, ordinary applications cannot access it. In the Acronis True Image Home wizards’ windows, the zone is listed along with all partitions available for storing archives. The Acronis Secure Zone is necessary if you plan to use the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager, Acronis Active Restore, or Acronis Try&Deci de features (see below).

The Acronis Secure Zone is available as a location to store backup files as long as there is free space in the Zone. If there is not enough space, older backups will be deleted to create free space.

Acronis True Image Home uses the following approach to clean up Acronis Secure Zone:

• If there is not enough free space in the zone to create a backup, the pro gram deletes the

oldest full backup with all subsequent incremental/differential backups.

• If there is only one full backup (with subsequent incremental/differential backups) left

and a full backup is in progress, then the old full backup and incremental/differential backups are deleted.

• If you are in the process of creating an image and t here is not enough free space, you

will get an error message. In that case, you will have to increase the size of the Acronis Secure Zone and then run the backup operation again.

You can back up data automatically on a schedule (see

Chapter 9. Scheduling tasks

), and not worry about zone overflow issues. However, if you keep long chains of incremental backups, it will be a good practice to periodically check the zone free space, indicated on the second screen of the Manage Acronis Secure Zone wizard.

For information on how to create, resize or delete Acronis Secure Zone using this wizard, see

Chapter 10. Managing Acronis Secure Zone

3.4 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager

3.4.1 How it works

The Acronis Startup Recovery Manager lets you start Acronis True Image Home without loading the operating system. With this feature, you can run Acronis True Image Home by itself to restore damaged partitions even if the operating system won't load for some reason. As opposed to booting from Acronis removable media, you will not need a separate media or network connection to start Acronis True Image Home.

3.4.2 How to use

To be able to use Acronis Startup Recovery Manager at boot time, prepare as follows:

1. Install Acronis True Image Home.

2. Create Acronis Secure Zone on the hard disk (see

Zone

3. Activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. To do so, click Activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager and follow the wizard’s instructions.

If you try to activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager before you created an Acronis Secure Zone, you will be prompted to create the zone; Manager will be activated. If the Acronis Secure Zone already exists, the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager will be activated immediately.

When Acronis Startup Recovery Manager is activated, it overwrites the master boot record (MBR) with its own boot code. If you have any third-party boot managers installed, you will have to reactivate them after activating the Startup Recovery Manager. For Linux loaders (e.g. LiLo and GRUB), you might consider installing them to a Linux root (or boot) partition boot record instead of MBR before activating Acronis Startup Recovery Manager.

If a failure occurs, turn on the computer and press F11 when you see the "Press F11 for Acronis Startup Recovery Manager" message. This will run a standalone version of Acronis True Image Home that differs only slightly from the complete version. For information on restoring damaged partitions, see

Be careful! Drive letters in standalone Acronis True Image Home might sometimes differ from the way Windows identifies drives. For example, the D: drive identified in the standalone Acronis True Image Home might correspond to the E: drive in Windows.

Chapter 6. Restoring the backup data

Chapter 10. Managing Acronis Secure

then the Acronis Startup Recovery

3.5 Acronis backup locations

The performance, capacity and cost of modern hard disk drives make them a convenient and reliable place for storing backup archives. External and net worked drives have become the most popular storage locations. Backing up a computer drive to another internal drive is another common solution. One can organize a storage area on an FTP server and access it via the Internet. A hard drive, whether local, external or networked, provides plenty of space and is always available for unattended scheduled backup.

Another problem is that as operating systems, applications, and user files, such as music or videos, become ever larger, archive files eat u p a lot of disk space. Therefore, it becomes important to get rid of old backups, at the same time preserving as many up-to-date

backups as possible. You might spend hours exploring multiple files in your backup archiv es trying to guess which of the outdated backups can be deleted without losing important data.

To save you from annoying search and analytic tasks, Acronis offers a new approach to backup strategy by providing automatic management of your archives, stored in local or network folders called

backup locations

A backup location will have the following attributes:

• flexible in size

• allows its behavior to be customized and its contents to be displayed

• located in a common folder on a local, external or networ ked drive or FTP server in stead

of a separate protected partition, such as the Acronis Secure Zone

The main principles of backup location organization are:

• automatic naming of backup files

• addressing to a backup location as to a whole folder

• automatic selection of backup mode (full, incremental, differential) in accordance with

the backup policy set by the user for the scheduled backup tasks

• automatic consolidation or deletion of outdated backup files in accordance with the rules

set by the user

Setting rules for backup locations

A user can organize one or more backup locations and set the overall limitations to size/storage time for each. These include:

• maximum storage space

• maximum number of backups

• maximum storage period for the archives

After creating a backup in a backup location, the program checks the location for quota violations, such as exceeding a pre-set maximum number of gigabytes set aside for backups and, if any limitation is exceeded, consolidates the oldest backups. For example, if you’ve pre-set your backup location to store 50GB of backup files and your backups reach 55GB, you have exceeded a quota and th e system will respond automatically based on rules and policies that you’ve already set.

This operation creates a temporary file and thus requires disk space. Consider also that th e quota must be violated so that the program could detect the fact of violation. Therefore, to be able to consolidate the files, the program needs some space on the disk in excess of the location quota. The extra space amount can be estimated as the size of t he largest backup in the location.

When creating a backup task, be sure to select the backup location from the Backup Locations list, near the top of the directory tree. Doing so will enable the above processing of backups. If you select a backup location as a normal folder, the processing will not be performed.

Managing backup locations

A user can delete backup locations or edit backup rules for any location. Changes to the rules will be applied at the next backup. As a result, the contents of the

location will conform to the new rules.

3.6 Acronis Active Restore®

Acronis Active Restore allows you to boot the OS on a crashed computer before the system is completely restored from an image and start work seconds after the restoration is launched. The restoration will continue in the background.

3.6.1 Limitations in using Acronis Active Restore

1. Acronis Active Restore is currently available for images located in the Acronis Secure Zone only.

2. Acronis Active Restore does not support images of Windows Vista. If any Vista edition is detected in an image, the Active Restore option will not appear.

3. Naturally, Acronis Active Restore cannot be used if the image contains no operating system (a logical partition or disk image) or when restoring file archives.

3.6.2 How it works

When the restoration procedure is started, Acronis True Image Home:

1. Finds the sectors in the image that contain system files, and restores these sectors first. Thus, the OS is restored and can be started in a very short time. Having started the OS, the user sees the folder tree with files, though file contents are not recovered yet. Never theless, the user can start working.

2. Writes on the hard disk its own drivers, which intercept system queries to the files. When the user opens files or launches applications, the drivers receive the system queries and restore the sectors that are necessary for the current operation.

3. At the same time, Acronis True Image Home proceeds with the complete sector -by-sector image restoration in the background. However, the system-requested sectors have the highest priority.

Finally, the image will be fully restored even if the user performs no actions at all. But if you need to start working as soon as possible after the system failure, you will gain at least several minutes, considering that restoration of a 10-20GB image (most common image size) takes about 10 minutes. The larger the image size, the more time you save.

3.6.3 How to use

To be able to use Acronis Active Restore in case of a system crash, prepare as follows:

1. Install Acronis True Image Home.

2. Create Acronis Secure Zone on the hard disk (see

Zone

3. Activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (see and create bootable media with Acronis True Image Home (see

bootable media

Chapter 10. Managing Acronis Secure

3.4 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager Chapter 11. Creating

)

4. Back up (image) the system disk to Acronis Secure Zone (see

backup

mandatory.

). You can back up other disks/partitions as well, but the system disk image is

When performing Active Restore, the current Acronis True Image Home version always restores the entire system disk. Therefore, if your system disk consists of several partitions, all of them must be included in the image. Any partitions that are missing from the image will be lost.

5.2.1 My Computer

If failure occurs, boot the computer from the bootable media or using F11. Start the recovery procedure (see system disk image from Acronis Secure Zone, choose Use Active Restore and in the next window, click Proceed. In a few seconds, the computer will reboot to the restored system. Log in and start work – no more reboots or other actions are required.

You can perform Active Restore running Acronis True Image Home in the supported Windows operating systems as well. However, it is mandatory to have bootable media in case Windows cannot boot.

6.3 Restoring disks/partitions or files from images

), select the

3.7 Viewing disk and partition information

You can change the way data is represented in all schemes you see in various wizards. To the right are three icons: Arrange Icons by, Choose Details and i (Display the

properties of the selected item), the last duplicated in the context menu opened by right-clicking objects.

To sort messages by a particular column, click the header (another click will switch the messages to the opposite order) or Arrange Icons by button and select the column.

To select columns to view, right-click the headers line or left-click the Choose Columns button. Then flag the columns you want to display. When left-clicking the Choose Columns button, you can also change the order of columns display using Move Up and Move Down buttons.

If you click the i (Display the properties of the selected item) button, you will see the selected partition or disk properties window.

This window contains two panels. The left panel contains the properties tree and the rig ht describes the selected property in detail. The disk information includes its physical parameters (connection type, device type, size, etc.); partition information includes both physical (sectors, location, etc.), and logical (file system, free space, assigned letter, etc.) parameters.

You can change the width of a column by dragging its borders with the mouse.

3.8 Try&Decide

The Acronis True Image Home’s Try&Decide feature allows you perform potentially dangerous operations such as software installation or e-mail attachment opening without putting your PC at risk. It does this by creating essentially a controlled, secure, temporary workspace that is insulated from the rest of your computer. If the system crashes or your computer stops responding during these operations, you should restart the system and it will be reverted to the previous state by Acronis True Image Home. If opera tions are successful, you have a choice of applying the changes to the real sys tem or discarding them. (For more details see

Chapter 7 Try&Decide.

)

3.9 DriveCleanser®, File Shredder, and System Clean-up

Acronis True Image Home contains utilities for secure destruction of data on an entire hard disk drive, individual partitions, as well as for erasing individual files and eliminating user system activity traces. When replacing your old hard drive with a new, higher-capacity one, you may unwittingly leave on the old disk lots of important and confidential information that can be recovered, even if you have reformatted it. The DriveCleanser application, included in Acronis True Image Home, used to be sold as a standalone product from Acronis. It provides for the destruction of confidential information on hard disk drives and/or partitions with the

help of techniques that meet or exceed most national and state standards. You can sele ct an appropriate data destruction method depending on the importance of your confidential information. The File Shredder provides the same capabilities for individual files and folders. Finally, the System Clean-up wizard ensures elimination of all your activity traces; while working with a PC, you leave thousands of bytes of evidence showing your actions (records in various system files) that you don’t even know about. This could include user names and passwords, as well as other personal information that could be used to steal your identity if it fell into the wrong hands. This utility wipes them completely from the disk drive.

Chapter 4. Using Acronis True Image Home

4.1 Program workspace

Often the first thing that strikes the eye after launching Acronis True Image Home is a wide colored bar in the main program window. This is called the "Traffic Light" bar.

The Traffic light bar lets you see at a glance the current state of your system with r egard to backups. It also displays information on the date and time of the last backup and this backup’s result, as well as whether backup tasks are scheduled or not.

The system state and Traffic light change as follows:

• When you have not performed any scheduled b ackups yet or the last scheduled backup was more than a week ago, the bar is yellow and the system is in the Warning state. In this case the bar will display the "Schedule backup creation…" link to the Schedule Task Wizard offering you to schedule a backup task right away.

• When you scheduled a backup and it has been completed successfully, the syst em state changes to "Normal", the Traffic light turns green and remains green for a week; then it turns yellow again if no scheduled tasks ran during that time.

• If a scheduled backup has failed due to any reason, th e system state changes to "Alert" and the Traffic light turns red.

Only running the scheduled backups affects the Traffic light color and system state. If you launch the Create Backup Wizard manually and perform an unscheduled backup, the Traffic light color and system state will not change. The color will not change if you schedule a "One time only" backup task.

The main program window contains a menu, a browser-like toolbar, a main area and a status bar. The main area contains the Category icons in addition to the Traffic light bar described above.

The Category icons are as follows.

• Backup and Restore – Create a backup archive or restore data from a previously created archive

• Try&Decide –Make changes in a temporary copy of your system and then decide whether you want to apply the changes to the actual system

• Disk Utilities – Clone and add hard disk, wipe disks, securely destroy files, an d clean up the system.

• Management Tools – Manage backup locations, archives, scheduled tasks, and view logs.

Program menu

The program menu bar features the Operations, View, Tools, and Help items. The Operations menu contains a list of the available operations:

• Backup – Backup the desired data.

• Recovery – Restore the desired data.

• Try&Decide – Turn on the Try mode or make a decision.

• Create new task – Schedule a new task.

• Validate backup archive – Validate a backup archive of your choice.

• Explore backup archive – Explore a backup archive of your choice.

• Mount image – Create a virtual disk by mounting an image archive.

• Unmount image – Unmount the image you mounted.

• Exit – Exit Acronis True Image Home.

The View menu contains items for managing the program window look:

• Toolbars – Contains commands that control toolbar icons size, enable/disable the Navigation and Help toolbars, as well as enable/disable text labels of the toolbar icons.

• Status Bar – Enables/disables the status bar

The Tools menu contains the following items:

• Activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager – Activate the boot restoration manager (F11 key)

• Create Bootable Rescue Media – Run the bootable media creation procedure

• Management -> Manage Backup locations and Archives

– Create, edit, delete,

and explore backup locations; search files in backup locations for restoration

• Management -> Manage Acronis Secure Zone – Create, delete and resize a special hidden partition for storing archives (Acronis Secure Zone)

• Management -> Manage Tasks – Create, edit, delete scheduled tasks, change task schedules, and start tasks manually

• Clone Disk – Transfer the system to a new hard disk

• Add New Disk – Create partitions on an additional hard disk installed in the computer

• Acronis DriveCleanser – Securely wipe personal data from a hard disk drive

• File Shredder – Securely destroy confidential files you do not need anymore

• System Clean-up – Clean up your Windows activity traces

• Show Log – Open the Log Viewer window

• Options – Open a window for editing default backup/restore options, setting text

appearance (fonts), configuring e-mail/Winpopup notifications, and other capabilities

The Help menu is used to display help and obtain information about Acronis True Image Home.

Status bar

At the bottom of the main window, there is a status bar that is divided into two parts. The left side briefly describes the selected operation; the right side indicates operation progress and results. If you double-click on the operation results, you will see the logs window.

Taskbar notification area icon

During most of the operations, a special indicator icon appears in the Windows taskbar notification area (the right portion of the statu s bar with the clock). If you mouse over the icon, you will see a tool tip indicating the operation’s progress. Right-clicking on the icon invokes a context menu where you can change process priority or cancel the operation if necessary. When the Try mode is turned on, right-clicking on the icon invokes a context menu for the Try&Decide feature. This icon doesn’t depend on the main program window being open. It is present for background execution of scheduled tasks as well.

You can change the appearance of text (fonts and their size) in the program's user interface and menu items. To do so, select Tools -> Options -> Appearance -> Fonts. Click the

button to preview the results of text appearance changes.

4.2 Available operations

You can perform the following operations on the computer.

• Back up data, including system disks/partitions

Select Operations -> Backup or click Backup and Restore category in the main window, select Backup in the Backup and Restore window, then follow the wizard’s instructions. See details in

Chapter 5. Creating backup archives.

• Restore data, including system disks/partitions

Select Operations -> Recovery or click Backup and Restore category in the main window, select Restore in the Backup and Restore window, then follow the wizard’s instructions. See details in

Chapter 6. Restoring the backup data.

• Schedule backup or validation operations

Select Operations -> Create New Task or click Management Tools category in the main window, then select Manage Tasks in the Main group, and finally click Create New Task on the sidebar, then follow the wizard’s instructions. See details in

Scheduling tasks

Chapter 9.

• Browse logs of Acronis True Image Home operation

Select Tools -> Show Log or select Show Log on the sidebar to navigate to the Event Log window. See details in

12.3 Viewing logs

• Set up backup/restore options, such as backup process priority or files

overwriting mode

Select Tools -> Options -> Default backup options or Default restoration options and make settings. See details in

options.

• Set up sending notifications about Acronis True Image Home operation

5.3 Setting backup options

and

6.4 Setting restore

Select Tools -> Options -> Notifications and make settings. See details in

Operation results notification.

• Create backup locations

Create a folder with special properties for storing backup archives. Click Management Tools category in the main window, select Manage Backup Locations and Archives in

the Main group, and finally click Create Backup Location in Backup Location category on the sidebar, then follow the wizard’s instructions. See details in

location management

• Edit backup locations

Edit the backup location properties. Click Management Tools category in the main window, select Manage Backup Locations and Archives in the Main group, and finally click Edit Backup Location in Backup Location category on the sidebar, then follow the wizard’s instructions. See details in

locations

• Delete backup locations

Delete the backup storage folder with special properties. Click Management Tools category in the main window, select Manage Backup Locations and Archives in the Main group, and finally click Delete Backup Location in Backup Location category on the sidebar, then follow the wizard’s instructions. See details in

management

and

3.5 Acronis backup locations

Chapter 8. Backup location management

Chapter 8. Backup location

Chapter 8. Backup

and

3.5 Acronis backup

12.2

• Manage Acronis Secure Zone (create, delete, resize, remove or change

password)

Select Tools -> Management -> Manage Acronis Secure Zone, and then follow the wizard’s instructions. You can also access this wizard by clicking Manage Acronis Secure Zone in the Backup Location group on the sidebar, when it is shown. See details in

Chapter 10. Managing Acronis Secure Zone

• Validate backup archives wherever they reside, be it on a local or network

drive, or on removable media

Select Operations -> Validate Backup Archive and follow the wizard’s instructions. See details in Explorer by right-clicking the archive and selecting Validate Backup Archive in the context menu.

• Activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager

Select Tools -> Activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager, then follow the wizard’s instructions. See details in

• Explore any archive’s contents and restore individual files from any archive

Select Operations -> Explore Backup Archive and then select an archive for exploring on the directory tree in the left pane. See details in also explore archives by right-clicking the archive and selecting Explore in the context menu of Windows Explorer.

12.1 Validating backup archives

3.4 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager

. You can also launch the wizard from Windows

13.1 Searching files in archives

. You can

• Mount partitions’ images to explore and modify their contents, or to restore

individual files

Select Operations -> Mount Image and follow the wizard’s instructions. See details in

13.2 Mounting an image

right-clicking on an image archive and selecting Mount in the context menu.

• Unmount previously mounted partition images

Select Operations -> Unmount Image and follow the wi zard’s instructions. See details in

13.3 Unmounting an image

the virtual disk icon and selecting Unmount.

• Transfer the system to a new hard disk

Select Tools -> Clone Disk or select Disk Utilities category in the main window and click Clone Disk in the Hard Disk Utilities group, then follow the wizard’s instructions. See

Chapter 14. Transferring the system to a new disk

• Format partitions on a new hard disk

Select Tools -> Add New Disk or select Disk Utilities category in the main window and click Add New Disk in the Hard Disk Utilities group, then follow the wizard’s instructions.

Chapter 15. Adding a new hard disk

See

. Images can also be mounted through the Windows Explorer by

. You can also do this in Windows Explorer by right-clicking on

• Securely destroy personal information on partitions and disks

Select Tools -> Acronis DriveCleanser or select Disk Utilities category in the main window and click Acronis DriveCleanser in the System Clean-up group, then follow the wizard’s instructions. See

• Securely erase confidential files

Select Tools -> File Shredder or select Disk Utilities category in the main window and click File Shredder in the System Clean-up group, then follow the wizard’s instructions.

Chapter 16. Security and Privacy Tools.

See

• Clean up all your Windows activity traces

Select Tools -> System Clean-up or select Disk Utilities category in the main window and click System Clean-up in the System Clean-up group, then follow the wizard’s instructions. See

• Try to make changes in the system using a virtual mode and then decide

whether to keep them or not

Click Try&Decide category in the main window or select Operations -> Try&Decide in the main menu, then click Start Try Mode button in the Try Mode Starting window. See details in

• Create bootable rescue media or its ISO image

Chapter 7 Try&Decide.

Chapter 16. Security and Privacy Tools.

Select Tools -> Create Bootable Rescue Media and then follow the wizard’s instructions.

Chapter 11. Creating bootable media

See

Chapter 5. Creating backup archives

To be able to restore lost data or roll back your system to a certain known-good state, you should first create a data or entire system backup file.

5.1 What data to back up?

If you plan to keep specific data protected , such as a current proje ct, but are less co ncerned with restoring your operating system and settings, select the file-level backup. This will reduce the archive size, thus saving disk space and possibly reducing removable media costs.

Backing up the entire system disk (creating a disk image) takes more disk space but enables you to restore the system in minutes in case of a system crash or hardware failure. Moreover, the imaging procedure is much faster than copying files and could speed up the backup process significantly when it comes to backing up large volumes of data (s ee details

3.1 The difference between file archives and disk/partition images

in Here are some recommendations you can use to plan your backups . You should store your

system drive image in the Acronis Secure Zone or, better still, on a hard disk other than your primary hard disk C. This gives additional guarantee that you will be able to recover your system if your primary hard disk drive fails. You should also keep your personal data separate from your operating system and applications, for example, on the D drive. This allows speeding up the creation of data drive (or partition) images and reduces the amoun t of information you will need to restore.

Acronis True Image Home offers you backup of the following data categories:

My Computer (image backup of any set of disks/partitions) My Data (file-level backup of any set of files, folders, or an entire file category) My Application Settings (file-level backup of Windows applications settings) My E-mail (file-level backup of Microsoft Outloo k, Microsoft Outlook Express, and Windows

Mail settings and messages).

File-level backup operations are supported only for the FAT and NTFS file systems.

5.2 The backup procedure

5.2.1 My Computer backup

Create a backup image of any set of your computer’s hard disks and partitions or back up the system state.

1. Invoke the Create Backup Wizard by selecting Operations -> Backup in the main

program menu, and then select My computer. You can also launch the wizard directly from the Windows Explorer window. To do so, right-

click on a disk icon and select Backup in the context menu. In this case the program will automatically set My Computer mode.

2. Select the data to backup in the next window. You can backup either disks and partiti ons

or the system state that comprises the boot files, registry, protected Windows files, and COM+ CLASS registration database. Backing up the System state allows you to restore the

system files, drivers, etc., but not the data files and folders you use in your w ork. To be a ble to restore the data files and folders, select the Disks and partitions. If such is the case, select disks or partitions to back up. You can select a random set of disks and partitions.

By default the program copies only the hard disk sectors that contain data. However, sometimes it might be useful to make a full sector-by-sect or backup. For example, perhaps you deleted some files by mistake and want to make a disk image b efore trying to undelete them because sometimes un-deleting may create havoc in the file system. To make a sectorby-sector backup, check the Create an image using the sector-by-sector approach box. Please note that this mode increases processing time and usually results in a larger image file because it copies used and unused hard disk sectors.

3. If you backing up disks and/or partitions, select the files you want to exclude from backu p

(if any) using the checkboxes in the next window. You can exclude hidden or system files

+ 91 hidden pages

Acronis True Image Home - 11.0 User's Guide

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

1.1 What is Acronis® True Image Home?

1.2 New in Acronis True Image 11 Home

1.3 System requirements and supported media

1.3.1 Minimum system requirements

1.3.2 Supported operating systems

1.3.3 Supported file systems

1.3.4 Supported storage media

1.4 Technical support

Chapter 2. Acronis True Image Home installation and startup

2.1 Installing Acronis True Image Home

2.2 Extracting Acronis True Image Home

2.3 Running Acronis True Image Home

2.4 Upgrading Acronis True Image Home

2.5 Removing Acronis True Image Home

Chapter 3. General information and proprietary Acronis technologies

3.1 The difference between file archives and disk/partition images

3.2 Full, incremental and differential backups

3.3 Acronis Secure Zone™

3.4 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager

3.4.1 How it works

3.4.2 How to use

3.5 Acronis backup locations

3.6 Acronis Active Restore®

3.6.1 Limitations in using Acronis Active Restore

3.6.2 How it works

3.6.3 How to use

3.7 Viewing disk and partition information

3.8 Try&Decide

3.9 DriveCleanser®, File Shredder, and System Clean-up

Chapter 4. Using Acronis True Image Home

4.1 Program workspace

4.2 Available operations

Chapter 5. Creating backup archives

5.1 What data to back up?

5.2 The backup procedure

5.2.1 My Computer backup