Acronis True Image Home - 2010 User's Guide
User's Guide
Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010. All rights reserved.
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Table of conte nts
1 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................9
1.1 What is Acronis® True Image Home? ........................................................................................ 9
1.2 Acronis True Image Home basic concepts ...............................................................................10
1.3 New in Acronis True Image Home 2010 ..................................................................................12
1.4 System requirements and supported media ...........................................................................13
1.4.1 Minimum system requirements .................................................................................................................. 13
1.4.2 Supported operating systems ...................................................................................................................... 13
1.4.3 Supported file systems .................................................................................................................................. 13
1.4.4 Supported storage media ............................................................................................................................. 14
2 Acronis True Image Home installation and startup ................................................................ 15
2.1 Installing Acronis True Image Home ........................................................................................15
2.2 Extracting Acronis True Image Home ......................................................................................15
2.3 Running Acronis True Image Home .........................................................................................16
2.4 Upgrading Acronis True Image Home ......................................................................................16
2.5 Removing Acronis True Image Home ......................................................................................16
3 General information and proprietary Acronis technologies ................................................... 18
3.1 The difference between file archives and disk/partition images ............................................18
3.2 Full, incremental and differential backups ..............................................................................18
3.3 Backup file naming conventions ..............................................................................................19
3.4 Acronis Secure Zone™..............................................................................................................20
3.5 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager .........................................................................................21
3.5.1 How it works .................................................................................................................................................. 21
3.5.2 How to use ..................................................................................................................................................... 22
3.6 Viewing disk and partition information ...................................................................................22
3.7 What is Try&Decide™? ............................................................................................................22
3.8 Acronis DriveCleanser, File Shredder, and System Clean-up...................................................23
3.9 Support for Zip format .............................................................................................................23
3.10 Acronis Nonstop Backup ..........................................................................................................24
3.11 Booting from system image tib files ........................................................................................24
3.12 Acronis Universal Restore ........................................................................................................24
3.12.1 Purpose of Acronis Universal Restore ......................................................................................................... 24
3.12.2 General principles of Acronis Universal Restore ......................................................................................... 25
4 Preparing for disaster recovery ............................................................................................ 26
4.1 How to best prepare for a disaster ..........................................................................................26
4.1.1 Recommendations for testing that your backups can be used for recovery............................................ 26
4.1.2 Additional recommendations....................................................................................................................... 27
4.2 Testing bootable rescue media ...............................................................................................27
4.3 Creating a custom rescue CD ...................................................................................................30
5 Getting to know Acronis True Image Home ........................................................................... 31
5.1 Program workspace .................................................................................................................31
5.2 Acronis One-click Backup .........................................................................................................32
5.3 Main screens ............................................................................................................................34
5.4 Options screen .........................................................................................................................36
6 Creating backup archives ..................................................................................................... 38
6.1 Preparing for your first backup ................................................................................................38
6.2 Deciding what data to back up ................................................................................................38
6.3 Some typical backup scenarios ................................................................................................39
6.3.1 Backing up a system partition ...................................................................................................................... 39
6.3.2 Backing up an entire system disk ................................................................................................................. 40
6.3.3 Backing up a data partition or disk .............................................................................................................. 42
6.3.4 Backing up files/folders ................................................................................................................................. 43
6.3.5 Backing up to a network share ..................................................................................................................... 44
7 Acronis Nonstop Backup ...................................................................................................... 46
7.1 What is Acronis Nonstop Backup .............................................................................................46
7.2 Enabling and setting up Acronis Nonstop Backup ...................................................................46
7.3 Using Acronis Nonstop Backup ................................................................................................48
7.4 Recovering partitions protected with Acronis Nonstop Backup .............................................49
7.5 Recovering files protected with Acronis Nonstop Backup ......................................................50
7.6 Managing Acronis Nonstop Backup storage ............................................................................52
8 Online backup ...................................................................................................................... 53
8.1 Creating an Online backup account .........................................................................................53
8.2 Backing up to Acronis Online Storage......................................................................................54
8.3 Recovering data from Online Storage .....................................................................................56
8.4 Managing Online Storage ........................................................................................................58
8.5 Setting online backup options .................................................................................................59
8.5.1 Connection attempts .................................................................................................................................... 59
8.5.2 Storage connection speed ............................................................................................................................ 60
8.5.3 Storage cleanup ............................................................................................................................................. 61
8.5.4 Proxy settings ................................................................................................................................................ 61
8.6 Recommendations on selecting data for storing online..........................................................62
9 Additional backup features .................................................................................................. 63
9.1 Making reserve copies of your backups ..................................................................................63
9.2 Archive to various places .........................................................................................................64
9.3 Backup Wizard – detailed information ....................................................................................67
9.3.1 Selecting what data to back up .................................................................................................................... 68
9.3.2 Selecting archive location ............................................................................................................................. 69
9.3.3 Scheduling ...................................................................................................................................................... 71
9.3.4 Backup method ............................................................................................................................................. 71
9.3.5 Selecting what to exclude ............................................................................................................................. 73
9.3.6 Selecting the backup options ....................................................................................................................... 74
9.3.7 Setting automatic consolidation .................................................................................................................. 74
9.3.8 Providing a comment .................................................................................................................................... 75
9.3.9 The backup process ....................................................................................................................................... 76
9.4 Fine-tuning your backups ........................................................................................................76
9.4.1 Backup options .............................................................................................................................................. 76
9.4.2 Local storage settings .................................................................................................................................... 80
9.4.3 Creating a custom data category for backups ............................................................................................ 83
10 Data recovery with Acronis True Image Home ...................................................................... 84
10.1 Recovering your system partition ............................................................................................84
10.2 Recovering a disk backup to a different capacity hard disk ....................................................85
10.2.1 Recovering a disk without a hidden partition ............................................................................................. 86
10.2.2 Recovering a disk with a hidden partition ................................................................................................... 87
10.3 Recovering a data partition or disk ..........................................................................................89
10.4 Recovering files and folders .....................................................................................................90
10.4.1 Recovering files and folders from file archives ........................................................................................... 90
10.4.2 Recovering files and folders from image archives ...................................................................................... 91
11 Additional recovery information .......................................................................................... 93
11.1 Recovery Wizard - detailed information ..................................................................................93
11.1.1 Starting the Recovery Wizard ....................................................................................................................... 93
11.1.2 Archive selection ........................................................................................................................................... 93
11.1.3 Recovery method selection .......................................................................................................................... 94
11.1.4 Selecting a disk/partition to recover ............................................................................................................ 95
11.1.5 Selecting a target disk/partition ................................................................................................................... 96
11.1.6 Changing the recovered partition type ....................................................................................................... 97
11.1.7 Changing the recovered partition size and location ................................................................................... 97
11.1.8 Assigning a letter to the recovered partition .............................................................................................. 98
11.1.9 Setting recovery options ............................................................................................................................... 98
11.1.10 Executing recovery ........................................................................................................................................ 98
11.2 Setting default recovery options .............................................................................................99
11.2.1 File recovery options ..................................................................................................................................... 99
11.2.2 Overwrite file options ................................................................................................................................... 99
11.2.3 Pre/post commands .................................................................................................................................... 100
11.2.4 Recovery priority ......................................................................................................................................... 100
11.3 Detailed information on recovery operations involving dynamic/GPT disks and volumes...100
11.4 Using Acronis Universal Restore ............................................................................................101
12 Try&Decide ........................................................................................................................ 103
12.1 Using Try&Decide ..................................................................................................................106
12.1.1 Try&Decide options and notifications ....................................................................................................... 106
12.2 Try&Decide usage examples ..................................................................................................107
13 Scheduling tasks ................................................................................................................ 109
13.1 Creating scheduled tasks .......................................................................................................109
13.1.1 Setting up once only execution .................................................................................................................. 110
13.1.2 Setting up upon event execution ............................................................................................................... 111
13.1.3 Setting up periodical execution .................................................................................................................. 112
13.1.4 Setting up daily execution .......................................................................................................................... 112
13.1.5 Setting up weekly execution ...................................................................................................................... 113
13.1.6 Setting up monthly execution .................................................................................................................... 113
13.2 Importing scheduled tasks when upgrading ..........................................................................114
13.3 Managing scheduled tasks .....................................................................................................115
13.4 Examples of backup scheduling scenarios .............................................................................115
13.4.1 Full backups with automatic deletion on quota violation ........................................................................ 115
13.4.2 Full backups with automatic deletion when backup storage is filled ...................................................... 116
13.4.3 Full backups to Acronis Secure Zone with automatic deletion ................................................................ 116
13.4.4 Full + incremental/differential backups with automatic rotation ........................................................... 117
14 Managing Acronis Secure Zone ........................................................................................... 119
14.1 Creating Acronis Secure Zone ................................................................................................119
14.2 Resizing Acronis Secure Zone ................................................................................................122
14.3 Changing password for Acronis Secure Zone ........................................................................122
14.4 Deleting Acronis Secure Zone ................................................................................................123
15 Creating bootable media .................................................................................................... 124
15.1 Creating Linux-based rescue media .......................................................................................124
15.2 Creating BartPE disc with Acronis True Image Home ............................................................126
15.3 Creating WinPE-based rescue media .....................................................................................128
15.3.1 Adding the Acronis Plug-in to WinPE 1.x ................................................................................................... 129
15.3.2 Adding the Acronis Plug-in to WinPE 2.x or 3.0 ........................................................................................ 130
16 Working with vhd files ....................................................................................................... 132
16.1 Converting tib images into vhd virtual disks and vice versa ..................................................132
16.1.1 Converting to Windows backup ................................................................................................................. 132
16.1.2 Converting to Acronis backup .................................................................................................................... 133
16.2 Recovery using vhd files created by Windows Backup ..........................................................134
16.3 Booting from a tib image of your Windows 7 system partition ............................................134
16.4 Acronis Boot Sequence Manager ..........................................................................................135
17 Exploring archives and mounting images ............................................................................ 137
17.1 Mounting an image ................................................................................................................137
17.2 Unmounting an image ...........................................................................................................140
18 Searching backup archives and their content ...................................................................... 141
18.1 Searching ...............................................................................................................................141
18.2 Windows Search and Google Desktop integration ................................................................142
18.2.1 Using Google Desktop with Acronis True Image Home ........................................................................... 143
18.2.2 Using Windows Search with Acronis True Image Home .......................................................................... 146
19 Other operations ............................................................................................................... 150
19.1 Validating backup archives ....................................................................................................150
19.2 Operation results notification ...............................................................................................151
19.2.1 E-mail notification ....................................................................................................................................... 152
19.2.2 WinPopup notification ................................................................................................................................ 153
19.3 Viewing Tasks and Logs..........................................................................................................153
19.4 Managing backup archives ....................................................................................................156
19.5 Consolidating backups ...........................................................................................................157
19.6 Removing backup archives ....................................................................................................160
19.7 Moving backup archives ........................................................................................................160
20 Transferring the system to a new disk ................................................................................ 161
20.1 General information ..............................................................................................................161
20.2 Security ..................................................................................................................................161
20.3 Executing transfers ................................................................................................................162
20.3.1 Selecting Clone mode ................................................................................................................................. 162
20.3.2 Selecting source disk ................................................................................................................................... 163
20.3.3 Selecting destination disk ........................................................................................................................... 163
20.3.4 Partitioned destination disk ....................................................................................................................... 164
20.3.5 Selecting partition transfer method .......................................................................................................... 164
20.3.6 Cloning with manual partitioning............................................................................................................... 165
20.3.7 Cloning summary ........................................................................................................................................ 167
21 Adding a new hard disk ...................................................................................................... 168
21.1 Selecting a hard disk ..............................................................................................................168
21.2 Creating new partitions .........................................................................................................168
21.3 Disk add summary .................................................................................................................169
22 Security and Privacy Tools .................................................................................................. 171
22.1 Using File Shredder ................................................................................................................171
22.2 Acronis DriveCleanser ............................................................................................................172
22.3 Creating custom algorithms of data destruction ...................................................................175
22.4 System Clean-up ....................................................................................................................176
22.5 System Clean-up Wizard settings ..........................................................................................177
22.5.1 "Data Destruction Method" setting ........................................................................................................... 177
22.5.2 "Files" setting ............................................................................................................................................... 178
22.5.3 "Computers" setting ................................................................................................................................... 178
22.5.4 "Drive Free Space" setting .......................................................................................................................... 179
22.5.5 "Commands" setting ................................................................................................................................... 179
22.5.6 "Network Places Filter" setting .................................................................................................................. 180
22.6 Cleaning up separate system components ............................................................................180
23 Troubleshooting ................................................................................................................ 181
23.1 General ..................................................................................................................................181
23.2 Installation issues ...................................................................................................................181
23.3 Backup and validation issues .................................................................................................182
23.4 Recovery issues ......................................................................................................................184
23.5 Bootability after recovery issues ...........................................................................................184
23.6 Other issues ...........................................................................................................................185
24 Hard Disks and Boot Sequence ........................................................................................... 187
24.1 Arranging boot sequence in BIOS ..........................................................................................187
24.2 Installing hard disk drives in computers ................................................................................187
24.2.1 Installing an IDE hard disk drive, general scheme ..................................................................................... 187
24.2.2 Motherboard sockets, IDE cable, power cable ......................................................................................... 188
24.2.3 Configuring hard disk drives, jumpers ....................................................................................................... 189
24.2.4 Installing a SATA hard drive ........................................................................................................................ 190
24.2.5 Steps for installing a new internal SATA drive ........................................................................................... 190
24.3 Hard Disk Wiping methods ....................................................................................................191
24.3.1 Functioning principles of Information wiping methods ........................................................................... 191
24.3.2 Information wiping methods used by Acronis .......................................................................................... 192
25 Startup Parameters ............................................................................................................ 193
25.1 Description .............................................................................................................................193
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 back up the operating system, applications, settings and all of your data, while also
securely destroying any confidential data you no longer need. 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. Acronis Online Backup will allow you to
store your most important files on a remote storage, so they will be protected even if your computer
gets stolen or your house burns down. Acronis Nonstop Backup continuously saves changes in your
system and files (as often as every five minutes) allowing you to rollback easily to any point in time if
the need arises.
Should your disk drive become damaged or your system attacked by a virus or malware, you can
recover the backed 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 recover the system and the lost data easily.
The unique technology developed by Acronis and implemented in Acronis True Image Home allows
you to perform exact, sector-by-sector disk backups, including all operating systems, applications and
configuration files, software updates, personal settings, and data.
Acronis True Image Home helps you protect your identity as well. Simply deleting old data will not
remove it permanently from your computer. Acronis True Image Home now includes Acronis
DriveCleanser 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, FireWire (IEEE-1394), USB and PC Card (formerly called PCMCIA)
removable media drives, as well as CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, BD-R, BD-RE, magneto-optical,
Iomega Zip and Rev 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 Vista-style interface will make your work easier. Just perform a few simple
steps and let Acronis True Image Home take care of everything else! When a system problem occurs,
the software will get you up and running in no time.
9 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010
1.2 Acronis True Image Home basic concepts
This section provides general information about basic concepts which could be useful for
understanding how the program works.
Backup
According to Wikipedia, "backup refers to making copies of data so that these additional copies may
be used to restore the original after a data loss event. Backups are useful primarily for two purposes.
The first is to restore a state following a disaster (called disaster recovery). The second is to restore
small numbers of files after they have been accidentally deleted or corrupted."
Acronis True Image Home provides for both purposes by creating disk (or partition) images and filelevel backups respectively. By default, Acronis True Image Home stores in an image only those hard
disk parts that contain data (for supported file systems). However, you may use an option that lets
you include in an image all of the sectors of a hard disk (so called sector-by-sector backup). When
you back up files and folders, only the data, along with the folder tree, is compressed and stored.
Disk cloning
This operation migrates/copies the entire contents of one disk drive to another (e.g., when installing
a larger disk) to get two identical drives with the same file structure. The "Disk Clone" tool effectively
copies all of the contents of one hard disk drive onto another hard disk drive. The operation allows
you to transfer all the information (including the operating system and installed programs) from one
hard disk drive to another without having to reinstall and reconfigure all of your software. If you
decide to use cloning, the best chance of success is to remove the existing drive from the computer
and install the new drive in its place. It should be connected in exactly the same way as the old drive.
Acronis True Image Home does not provide for cloning a single partition. You can clone only an entire
drive.
By the way, you can also transfer all the information from your hard disk drive to another one by
backing up the entire old hard disk and then recovering the backup to the new disk.
Backup archive components
Archive - Known as archive chain or archive group, it is the whole set of backup files managed by a
single backup task. The archive can consist of one or several slices.
Slice - It is a set of files created during each cycle of the task execution. The amount of slices created
is always equal to the amount of times the task is executed. A slice represents a point in time, to
which the system or data can be recovered.
Volume - It is a tib file associated with the slice. Usually there is only one volume per slice however,
each slice may consist of several volumes. If you have set archive splitting in the task options, the
resulting slice will be split into several files. In addition, Acronis True Image Home automatically splits
a slice into several files of 4GB each (except the last file) when you make a large backup to a FAT32
formatted hard disk. These files are the slice's volumes.
Snapshots
While creating disk images, Acronis True Image Home uses "snapshot" technology that allows
creating even system partition backups while running Windows with files open for reading and
writing without the necessity to reboot the computer. Once the program starts the partition backup
process, it temporarily freezes all the operations on the partition and creates its "snapshot".
10 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010
Snapshot creation usually takes just several seconds. After that the operating system continues
working as the imaging process is under way and you will not notice anything unusual in the
operating system functionality.
In its turn, the Acronis driver continues working to keep the point-in-time view of the partition.
Whenever the driver sees a write operation directed at the partition, it checks whether these sectors
are already backed up and if they are not, the driver saves the data on the sectors to be overwritten
to a special buffer, then allows overwriting. The program backs up the sectors from the buffer, so
that all the partition sectors of the point-in-time when the snapshot was taken will be backed up
intact and an exact "image" of the partition will be created.
Backup file format
Acronis True Image Home saves backup data in the proprietary tib format using compression. This
provides for reducing the storage space requirements, as well as for backward compatibility with the
previous Acronis True Image Home version. While creating a tib file, the program calculates
checksum values for data blocks and adds these values to the data being backed up. These checksum
values allow verifying the backup data integrity. However, using the proprietary format means that
the data from such backups can be recovered only with the help of Acronis True Image Home itself –
either in Windows or in the recovery environment.
Backup archive validation
How can you be sure that you'll be able to recover your system if the need arises? The feature called
backup validation provides a high degree of such assurance. As was already said, the program adds
checksum values to the data blocks being backed up. During backup validation Acronis True Image
Home opens the backup file, re-calculates the checksum values and compares those values with the
stored ones. If all compared values match, the backup file is not corrupted and there is a high
probability that the backup can be successfully used for data recovery. It is highly recommended to
validate system partition backups after booting from the rescue media. For users of Windows 7
Enterprise and Windows 7 Ultimate Acronis True Image Home provides a unique way of ensuring
that you will be able to boot from the recovered system partition. The program allows booting from
a tib file containing the system partition image, though it first converts the tib file into a VHD used for
actual booting. So if you can boot from the converted vhd file, you will be able to boot after
recovering this backup to your disk.
Disaster recovery
Recovering from a disaster usually requires a rescue media, because such disaster often means that
your operating system does not boot either due to system data corruption (e.g. caused by a virus or
malware) or a hard disk failure. When the operating system fails to boot, you need some other
means of booting and using Acronis True Image Home to recover the system partition. So to be
better prepared for a disaster, you absolutely must have a rescue media. Owners of the boxed
product already have a bootable rescue CD. Other legal owners of the program can create a rescue
media using the tool called Media Builder.
To enable booting to the recovery environment, it is necessary to ensure that the BIOS boot
sequence includes the rescue media. See Arranging boot sequence in BIOS (p. 187).
Scheduling
For your backups to be really helpful, they must be as "up-to-date" as possible. This means that you
should run backup tasks on a regular basis, say once a day. Though creating a backup task in Acronis
True Image Home is quite easy, it would be very tedious remembering to do the same thing every
11 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010
day. Well, with the scheduler you do not have to remember. You can schedule backups and forget
about them (at least while the backup disk has enough free space or until the need for recovery
arises).
The terms related to these concepts will be repeatedly used in the Acronis True Image Home
documentation, so understanding the above concepts may be helpful when using the program's
features.
1.3 New in Acronis True Image Home 2010
Acronis Nonstop Backup – Near-CDP (Continuous Data Protection) is now available to Acronis
True Image Home users. You will be able to revert your documents to previous states in time.
This may come in handy when you accidentally deleted an important document or made some
corrections that turned out to be wrong and you need to return the document to the state in
which it was, for example, two weeks ago. When you need to recover a file, a Windows Explorerlike browser with integrated search makes searching for a file you need to recover very easy. But
Acronis Nonstop Backup is much more than a versioning tool. It also provides for recovering your
system if you ever need that.
Online backup – you can make your critically important data much more secure by storing it off-
site. Because files are stored on a remote storage, they are protected even if your computer gets
stolen or your house burns down. So the risk of data loss as a result of fire, theft, or other natural
disasters is practically eliminated. And you can safely recover any corrupted, lost or deleted files
on your computer. Integrating Online backup into Acronis True Image Home provides a single
solution for all your data backup needs.
Acronis Online Backup might be unavailable in your region. To find more information, click here:
https://www.acronis.com/my/online-backup/
Powerful scheduler - The scheduler became more powerful and flexible. We expanded the set of
already existing scheduling options. The new scheduler allows you to specify the date when a
scheduled task should run for the first time. While scheduling a monthly task, you can use a
month calendar for specifying the date (e.g. 1st day of the month) or dates for running the task
(e.g. on 10th, 20th, Last day of the month). If you do not need to run a scheduled task for some
time, but intend to use it again in the future, you can disable the task for the time being and then
re-enable it when required. So it is not necessary to recreate the task from scratch. You can clone
a scheduled task and then introduce some minor changes into the duplicate. This may be useful
when creating several similar tasks. In combination with a selected backup method and
automatic consolidation rules, the scheduler allows implementing various backup strategies.
Selective validation – Earlier versions of Acronis True Image Home could validate only a whole
backup archive. Sometimes this may be inconvenient. Suppose, you have a full backup archive
with a size of 20GB and a longish chain of differential backups having sizes of several gigabytes
each and amounting to 100GB. In this case Acronis True Image Home validated the whole 120GB
archive and this could take quite a long time. Now the program will validate just a single selected
differential backup and the full one.
Support of dynamic/GPT disks (provided by separately purchased Acronis Plus Pack) –
operations with dynamic/GPT disks expand the range of hard drive configurations supported by
Acronis True Image Home. Dynamic disks offer greater flexibility for volume management and
may provide benefits in computers with more than one hard drive. GUID Partition Table (GPT) is
a new hard disk partitioning scheme providing advantages over the old MBR partitioning scheme.
It was introduced as a part of the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) initiative.
12 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010
VHD format support – Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) is a file format containing the complete contents
and structure representing a hard disk drive. Furthermore, Windows Backup utility included into
Windows Vista (except Home editions) and Windows 7 operating systems now uses this format
for backing up an image of the system hard drive when users select the "Complete PC Backup"
option. Acronis True Image Home can convert vhd files into tib files and vice versa, recover
operating system from vhd files, and even boot from vhd images of Windows 7.
Booting from tib images containing Windows 7 – Users of the Windows 7 Enterprise and
Windows 7 Ultimate can boot from a tib image containing a backup of their system partition. This
will allow testing the bootability of the backed up system without actual recovery. If the
operating system boots from the tib file, then it will definitely boot after recovery from that tib
file. When you choose a tib file to boot from, Acronis True Image Home creates a temporary vhd
file by converting this tib file, so your hard disk must have enough free space for storing it. Then
the program adds a new item to the Windows boot loader list. When you select the tib file in the
boot loader list, your computer will actually boot from that temporary vhd file.
1.4 System requirements and supported media
1.4.1 Minimum system requirements
The hardware requirements of Acronis True Image Home correspond to the minimum requirements
for the operating system installed on the computer to be used for running Acronis True Image Home.
In addition Acronis True Image Home requires the following hardware:
CD-RW/DVD-RW drive for bootable media creation
Mouse or other pointing device (recommended).
Using Acronis Nonstop Backup requires at least 1 GB RAM.
Acronis True Image Home rescue media has the following hardware requirements:
256 MB RAM
Processor Pentium 1 GHz or faster
The recommended minimum screen resolution is 1152 x 864.
1.4.2 Supported ope r ating s yste ms
Acronis True Image Home has been tested on the following operating systems:
Windows XP SP3
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition SP2
Windows Vista SP2 (all editions)
Windows 7 (all editions)
Acronis True Image Home also enables creation of a bootable CD-R/DVD-R that can back up and
recover 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 currently not
supported in native mode.
1.4.3 Supported file systems
FAT16/32
13 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010
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/recovery
operations. You cannot use Acronis True Image Home for file-level operations with these file systems (file
backup, recovery, search, as well as image mounting and file recovering from images), as well as for backups to
disks or partitions with these file systems.
1.4.4 Supported st or age medi a
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, BD-R, BD-
RE***
USB 1.0 / 2.0 /3.0, FireWire (IEEE-1394) and PC card storage devices
REV®, Jaz® and other removable media
* Acronis True Image Home does not support the following dynamic volume types: Mirrored and
RAID-5. There are some additional limitations on operations with dynamic and GPT disks:
To perform operations with dynamic and GPT disks, you need separately purchased Acronis
Plus Pack
Creation of Acronis Secure Zone is not supported.
Recovery of a dynamic volume as a dynamic volume with manual resizing is not supported
GPT disks can be recovered only "volume-to-volume" without the possibility of resizing
Try&Decide cannot be used for protecting dynamic and GPT disks
"Clone disk" operation is not supported for dynamic and GPT disks
** An FTP server must allow passive mode file transfers. Data recovery directly from an FTP server
requires the archive to consist of files of no more than 2GB each. It is recommended 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 rewritable discs cannot be read in Linux without a kernel patch.
14 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010
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.
Before installation, you can check for a newer Acronis True Image Home build on the Acronis
Web site. If available, the newer version will be offered for installation.
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
not to install Rescue Media Builder.
With Rescue Media Builder you can create bootable rescue disks (see details in Creating
bootable media (p. 124)). You might not need this tool if you purchased a boxed 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 by 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 True Image Backup
Archive Explorer). Do not disable or uninstall this device, as it is necessary for connecting image
archives as virtual disks (see Exploring archives and mounting images (p. 137)).
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.
15 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010
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.
Recovering or updating the existing Acronis True Image Home installation with using the .msi file
must be done from the command line as follows:
1. Choose Start → Run
2. Type cmd.
3. When the command-line interpreter window opens, type the following command:
msiexec /i path_to_msi_file\msi_file_name.msi REINSTALL=ALL REINSTALLMODE=vomus
After the install wizard window opens, choose Typical, Custom or Complete installation for repairing
or changing the program's components.
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 by 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 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (p.
21) to learn more about this procedure. To run the program, press F11 during bootup when you see a
corresponding message that tells you to press that key. Acronis True Image Home will be run in
standalone mode, allowing you to recover the damaged partitions.
If your disk data is totally corrupted and the operating system cannot 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 recover your disk from a previously created image.
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 the instructions on the screen. You may have to reboot your
computer afterwards to complete the task.
16 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010
If you use Windows Vista, select Start → Control panel → Programs and Features → <Acronis True
Image Home> → Remove. Then follow the instructions on the screen. You may have to reboot your
computer afterwards to complete the task.
If you have Acronis Secure Zone on your computer, remove it before removing the program itself because
removing Acronis True Image Home will not remove the zone.
17 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010
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 Home stores a
sector-by-sector snapshot of the disk, which includes the operating 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). Furthermore, it does not back up swap file information (pagefile.sys under Windows XP and later) 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 recovery. 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 the master boot record (MBR).
A disk image includes images of all disk partitions as well as the zero track with the 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 recover files and folders not only from file archives, but from
disk/partition images too. To do so, mount the image as a virtual disk (see Exploring archives and
mounting images (p. 137)) or start the image recovery and select Recover chosen files and folders.
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
recovery time compared to incremental or differential ones.
An incremental backup file only contains data changed since the last backup of any type (full,
incremental, or differential). Therefore, it is smaller and takes less time to create, but as it doesn't
contain all the data; all the previous backups and the initial full backup are required for recovery.
Unlike an incremental backup, when every backup procedure creates the next file in a "chain", a
differential backup creates an independent file, containing all changes since the last full backup.
18 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010
Generally, a differential backup will be recovered 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 its initial
state or if you do not like to manage multiple files. If you are interested in saving only the last data
state to be able to recover it in case of system failure, consider the differential backup. It is
particularly effective if your data changes tend to be few compared to the full data volume.
The same is true for incremental backup. These are most useful when you need frequent backups
and the 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 images are considerably smaller than full or differential images.
Incremental or Differential?
The difference is typically that in an incremental backup, only the files changed or added since the
last time the backup ran are added to the archive. With a differential backup, all the files changed or
added since the initial full backup, are added to the archive. Thus, differential backups take longer to
run than incremental backups. When recovering from an incremental backup, the program must
copy the entire initial backup and then step through each of the previous backups to retrieve all the
updated files. A differential backup, on the other hand, can be recovered quicker because the
software must copy only the original backup and the most recent one.
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 the disk and
the backups reflect these changes. Therefore, it is recommended that you re-create a full backup
after disk defragmentation.
3.3 Backup file naming conventions
Let's remember that Acronis True Image Home may split a full or incremental archive into volumes
either when a user sets the splitting option or when a large backup having a size bigger than 4GB is
saved to a FAT32 disk. See "Backup archive components" in Acronis True Image Home basic concepts
(p. 10).
Though users may assign any name to backups, many would still prefer using automatic naming and
the below information may come in handy when viewing the contents of a backup archive storage in
Windows Explorer and trying to figure out, e.g. which are full and which are incremental.
1) When you agree to use the One-Click Backup offered during the first start of the newly installed
program, the resultant backup file is named "SystemBackup_mm_dd_yyyy.tib", where mm_dd_yyyy
is the date of backup creation in the following format: month (one or two digits), day (one or two
digits), year (four digits).
When saved to a FAT32 disk, such backup may be split into volumes with the names
SystemBackup_mm_dd_yyyy1.tib, SystemBackup_mm_dd_yyyy2.tib,
SystemBackup_mm_dd_yyyy3.tib, etc.
As in this case the subsequent automatically scheduled backups will replace the previous one (once
every seven days by default) only after the next backup finishes (to keep the old backup in the event
of the current backup's failure), the backup filename(s) will be alternately named
SystemBackup_mm_dd_yyyy.tib and SystemBackup_mm_dd_yyyy(1).tib.
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2) In some cases when you create a new full backup task at a new destination, the backup gets the
name "MyBackup_mm_dd_yyyy.tib".
If a backup is split (either automatically, e.g. due to the 4GB file size limit on FAT32 disks or when
configuring a backup task), the constituent backup files (volumes) are named as follows:
MyBackup_mm_dd_yyyy1.tib…MyBackup_mm_dd_yyyyN.tib, where N is the number of volumes
Subsequent incremental or differential backups to this full backup will get the names as follows –
MyBackup_mm_dd_yyyy2.tib, MyBackup_mm_dd_yyyy3.tib, etc. (if the full backup is not split) or
MyBackup_mm_dd_yyyyN+1.tib, MyBackup_mm_dd_yyyyN+2.tib, etc. For instance, if N=8,
incremental or differential backups will get the names MyBackup_mm_dd_yyyy9.tib,
MyBackup_mm_dd_yyyy10.tib, etc.
3) When you back up, for example, partitions C and D, the backup gets the name
"System_C_D_mm_dd_yyyy.tib".
4) When you perform file-level backups, they are named depending on the backup type:
My Data backup gets the following name: MyBackup_mm_dd_yyyy.tib;
System State backup gets the following name: System State_mm_dd_yyyy.tib;
My E-mail backup gets the following name: Email_mm_dd_yyyy.tib; and
My Application Settings backup gets the following name: Application Settings_mm_dd_yyyy.tib.
5) If you right-click on a folder in Windows Explorer and choose Back Up in the shortcut menu, the
backup file gets the name of the folder with appended date, e.g. My Documents_mm_dd_yyyy.tib.
If you right-click on a file in Windows Explorer and choose Back Up in the shortcut menu, the backup
file gets the name of the file with appended date, i.e. filename_mm_dd_yyyy.tib.
If you select in Windows Explorer several files in the same folder and then choose Back Up in the
shortcut menu, the backup file gets the name of the folder with appended date, e.g. My
Documents_mm_dd_yyyy.tib.
If you select in Windows Explorer two or more folders and then choose Back Up in the shortcut
menu, the backup file gets the name of the parent folder or disk letter (when you selected folders in
the root directory) with appended date, e.g. My Documents_mm_dd_yyyy.tib or C_mm_dd_yyyy.tib.
6) When you rename backups on the Data recovery and backup management screen, a backup is
renamed only in the program's metadata database; however, backup file names on the disk remain
unchanged.
3.4 Acronis Secure Zone™
The Acronis Secure Zone is a secure partition that enables keeping backup archives on a managed
machine disk space and therefore recovery of a disk to the same disk where the backup resides. In
the Acronis True Image Home wizards' windows, the zone is listed along with all locations available
for storing archives.
Certain Windows applications, such as Acronis disk management tools, can access the zone.
When you create Acronis Secure Zone, an icon appears under My Computer in the Other section.
Double-clicking on the Acronis Secure Zone icon opens the zone and you can view all the backup
archives it contains. You can also open the zone by right-clicking on its icon and choosing Open in the
20 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010
shortcut menu. Double-clicking on an archive opens it and shows all backups (full, incremental,
differential) belonging to the archive. Right-clicking on a specific backup opens the shortcut menu
allowing to choose a desired operation – mount (for image archives), recover, validate, update,
remove the backup, and view the backup's details. If Acronis Secure Zone is password-protected, any
operation except viewing backup details will require entering the password. Double-clicking on a
backup will start the default operation (Mount for image backups and Recovery for data backups).
The shortcut menu that appears after right-clicking on the Acronis Secure Zone icon has two more
items – Create Shortcut (for placing it on the Desktop) and Explore for exploring the zone contents.
Choosing Explore opens Windows Explorer with Acronis Secure Zone selected on the directory tree
enabling you to explore the zone contents.
The Acronis Secure Zone is available as a location to store backup files as long as it has free space. 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 you are in the process of creating a backup and there is not enough free space in the zone to
create it, the program will display a dialog which warns you that the Acronis Secure Zone is full.
You can click Cancel to cancel the backup operation. In that case, you may want to increase the
size of the Acronis Secure Zone and then run the backup operation again. If you want to free up
some space in the zone, click OK and the oldest full backup of the type being created will be
deleted with all subsequent incremental/differential backups, then the backup operation will
recommence.
If deleting the oldest backup does not free up enough space, you will get the same warning
message again. You may delete the next oldest backup (if any) and repeat this until all the
previous backups are deleted.
If after deleting all the previous backups there is still not enough space for completing the
backup, you will get an error message and the backup will be canceled.
The program distinguishes only two types of backups in the zone: disk image backups and file-level
backups. My Data, System State, My E-mail, and My Application Settings backups are considered as
file-level type backups. For example, if you have an e-mail backup (My E-mail) in the zone and there
is not enough space for backing up a folder (My Data), the program will delete the e-mail backup to
free up space for the folder backup.
You can back up data automatically on a schedule (see Scheduling tasks (p. 109)). In order to not
worry about the zone becoming too full when Acronis True Image Home for Windows performs a
scheduled backup, it is recommended to select the When not enough space in ASZ, delete the oldest
archive box in the Backup options (Error handling) and the scheduled backup task options. However,
if you keep long chains of incremental backups, it will be good practice to periodically check the free
space in the zone.
For information on how to create, resize or delete Acronis Secure Zone using this wizard, see
Managing Acronis Secure Zone (p. 119).
3.5 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager
3.5.1 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 use Acronis True Image Home by itself to recover
21 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010
damaged partitions, even if the operating system won't start up 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.
3.5.2 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. Activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. To do so, click Activate Acronis Startup Recovery
Manager and follow the wizard's instructions.
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 start a standalone version of Acronis True Image
Home that differs only slightly from the complete version.
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.
You won't be able to use the previously activated Acronis Startup Recovery Manager if the Try&Decide mode is
started.
3.6 Viewing disk and partition information
You can change the way data is represented in all schemes you see in various wizards.
The header may have up to three icons: Columns, Arrange Icons by and Disk properties, the latter
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 the Arrange Icons by button and select the column.
To select which columns to view, right-click the headers line or left-click the Columns button. Then
flag the columns you want to display. When left-clicking the Columns button, you can also change
the display order of columns using the Move Up and Move Down buttons.
If you click the Disk properties 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 right 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.
3.7 What is Try&Decide™?
The Acronis True Image Home Try&Decide feature allows you to perform potentially dangerous
operations such as software installation or opening e-mail attachments without putting your PC at
22 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010
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 revert the system to the previous state by discarding changes made in
the Try&Decide mode. If operations are successful, you have the choice of applying the changes to
the real system. (For more details see Try&Decide (p. 103))
3.8 Acronis 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 personal and confidential information that can be recovered, even if you
have reformatted it.
The Acronis DriveCleanser 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 select 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.
3.9 Support for Zip format
Now you will be able to retrieve files from backups anywhere without using Acronis True Image
Home, if you choose the zip format instead of the tib format. You can back up files, for example, to a
USB stick and retrieve files from such archives on your notebook at home without installing Acronis
True Image Home, because the most widely used operating systems, namely Microsoft Windows and
Mac OS X have built-in support of the zip file format.
Please, be aware that built-in support of zip files in Windows does not cover operations with multivolume zip
archives, and zip archives exceeding 4GB in size or which contain files of more than 4GB each.
The Zip format is available when backing up files and/or folders as well as when making reserve
copies of your backups. Acronis True Image Home provides for the zip format most of the
functionality available for the tib format, except password protection and encryption – you can
schedule backups, validate zip backup archives, recover files and folders from zip archives, make
incremental and differential backups, and so on.
Acronis True Image Home can recover and validate only its own zip archives. If a zip archive was created by a
file archiver program, it cannot be recovered and validated by Acronis True Image Home.
23 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010
3.10 Acronis Nonstop Backup
Acronis Nonstop Backup provides easy protection of your disks and files, and allows you to recover
both entire disks and individual files and even their versions from disaster. By default Nonstop
Backup will protect your system partition, though you can select other partitions and disks for
protection as well.
Once you start Acronis Nonstop Backup, it will perform an initial image backup of the partition(s)
selected for protection. Having finished this task, Acronis Nonstop Backup will save changes in your
system and files (including open ones) every five minutes, so you will be able to recover your system
to an exact state in time.
In general cases, states of the protected data will be backed up at 5-minute intervals for the last 24
hours.
Note, that if Acronis Nonstop Backup protects a non-system partition, and no changes have occurred
for 5 minutes since the last backup, the next scheduled backup will be skipped. Acronis Nonstop
Backup will wait for a significant data change and will create a new incremental backup only when
such change has been detected. In this case, the real time interval exceeds 5 minutes.
The older backups will be consolidated in such a way that Acronis True Image Home will keep daily
backups for the last 30 days and weekly backups until all Nonstop Backup data storage space is used.
3.11 Booting from system image tib files
Users of the Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows 7 can now test whether they will be able to
boot from the recovered system partition. Acronis True Image Home allows booting from a tib file
containing a system partition image. So if you are able to boot from such backup, you almost
certainly will be able to boot after an actual system recovery from that backup. When you choose a
tib file to boot from, Acronis True Image Home creates a temporary vhd file by converting this tib file,
so your hard disk must have enough free space for storing it. Then the program adds a new item to
the Windows boot loader list. When you select the tib file in the boot loader list, your computer will
actually boot from that temporary vhd file. After testing the bootability of the tib file, you can
remove the file from the boot loader list and delete the temporary vhd file, though you can keep it.
3.12 Acronis Universal Restore
3.12.1 Purpose of Acronis Universal Restore
Universal Restore is part of Acronis Plus Pack which is purchased separately, has its own license, and
is installed from its own setup file. You need to re-create bootable media to make the newly installed
Universal Restore add-on operational in the bootable recovery environment.
A system disk image can be restored easily on the hardware where it was created or to identical
hardware. However, if you change the motherboard or use another processor version — a likely
possibility in case of hardware failure — the recovered system could refuse to boot. An attempt to
transfer the system to a new, much more powerful computer will usually produce the same
unbootable result, because the new hardware is incompatible with the most critical drivers included
in the image.
Using Microsoft System Preparation Tool (Sysprep) does not solve this problem, because Sysprep
permits replacing drivers only for Plug-and-Play devices (sound cards, network adapters, video cards
24 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010
etc.). As for system Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) and mass storage device drivers, they must be
identical on the source and the target computers (see Microsoft Knowledge Base, articles 302577
and 216915).
Acronis Universal Restore technology provides an efficient solution for hardware-independent
system restoration by replacing the crucial Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) and mass storage
device drivers.
Acronis Universal Restore is applicable for:
1. Instant recovery of a failed system on different hardware
2. Hardware-independent cloning of operating systems
3.12.1.1 Limitations in using Acronis Universal Restore
1. The system recovered by Acronis Universal Restore might not start if the partition structure in the
image or the target disk partitioning does not coincide with that of the source disk. As a result, the
loader restored from the image will point to the wrong partition and the system will not boot or will
malfunction.
This may occur if you:
back up only selected partitions but not the entire source disk
restore not the entire source disk, but only the selected partitions. In some cases, especially if
your system resides on a partition other than the first, this can confuse the loader and prevent
the restored system from startup.
To avoid the problem, we recommend that you back up and restore the entire system disk.
2. The Acronis Universal Restore option does not work if a computer is booted with Acronis Startup
Recovery Manager (using F11) or the backup image is located in Acronis Secure Zone. This is because
Acronis Startup Recovery Manager and Acronis Secure Zone are primarily meant for data recovery on
the same computer.
3.12.2 General principles of Acronis Universal Restore
1. Automatic selection of HAL and mass storage drivers
Acronis Universal Restore searches the Windows default driver storage folders (in the image being
restored) for HAL and mass storage device drivers and installs drivers that best fit the target
hardware. You can specify a custom driver repository (a folder or folders on a network drive or CD)
which will also be used to search for drivers. In addition, Acronis Universal Restore can search drivers
on removable media.
The Windows default driver storage folder is determined in the registry value "DevicePath", which can be found
in the registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DevicePath. This storage folder is
usually WINDOWS/inf.
2. Installing drivers for Plug-and-Play devices Acronis Universal Restore relies on the built-in Plug-
and-Play discovery and configuration process to handle hardware differences in devices that are not
critical for the system start, such as video, audio and USB. Windows takes control over this process
during the logon phase, and if some of the new hardware is not detected, you will have a chance to
install the drivers for it later manually.
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4 Preparing for disaster recovery
4.1 How to best prepare for a disaster
Let us remind you of Murphy's Law: "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong" (and at the worst
possible time, in the worst possible way). And some people say that Murphy was an incurable
optimist. So be warned – your computer may crash and will eventually crash (and maybe just at the
worst possible moment). We may interpret Murphy's Law the other way around – it is vitally
important to consider all the possible things that can go wrong and act so as to prevent them. The
best way to counteract a possible disaster is by taking the necessary precautionary measures:
1) To be better prepared for a disaster, you need to make a full backup of your system disk (or at the
very least the partition containing Windows and your applications). To make this task easier, Acronis
has provided the One-Click Backup feature that allows you to back up the system partition and MBR
during the first start of the newly installed program. If you decide not to use the One-Click Backup,
e.g. because the external hard drive you plan to use for your backups has not been attached at that
time or because you plan to back up more than just the system partition, please, make such a backup
as soon as possible.
2) Whenever possible, you should store your system drive image on a hard drive other than your
primary hard disk C:, preferably on an external one. This gives an additional guarantee that you will
be able to recover your system if your primary hard disk drive fails. Furthermore, it is usually better
to keep your personal data separate from your operating system and applications, for example, on
disk D:. Such an arrangement speeds up the creation of your system and data disks (or partitions)
images and reduces the amount of information you will need to recover. This makes the backup file
of your system disk much smaller and recovery can be easier. In its turn, the smaller the backup file
size, the less chance of its corruption and the less time required for your system recovery.
3) If you store your data (documents, videos, photos, etc.) on a non-system disk, e.g. using the
arrangement described in item 2), it needs to be backed up too. You can either back up the folders
containing your data or create a data disk image. Remember that 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. Incidentally, if the image file becomes corrupted for some reason,
it is sometimes possible to mount the image and save most files and folders by copying them from
the mounted image using Windows Explorer.
4) As recovery of your system from a disaster in most cases will be done after booting from the
rescue media, you must test the rescue media as described in the next section - Testing bootable
rescue media (p. 27).
4.1.1 Recommendations for testing that your backups can be
used for recovery
1) Even if you start recovery of the active partition in Windows, the program will reboot into the
Linux environment after the recovery process starts because Windows cannot be left running while
the recovery of its own partition is being carried out. So you will recover your active partition under
the recovery environment in all cases. If you have a spare hard drive, we strongly recommend you to
try a test recovery to this hard drive booting from the rescue media which uses Linux. If you do not
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have a spare drive, please, at least validate the image in the recovery environment. A backup that
can be read during validation in Windows, may not always be readable under Linux environment.
When you use the Acronis True Image Home rescue media, the product creates disk drive letters that might
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. To be on the safe side, it is advisable to assign
unique names to all partitions on your hard drives. This will make finding the disk containing your backups
easier.
2) It may also be useful to complete all the steps in the Recovery Wizard right up to the Summary
screen, but not click the Proceed button. This will allow you to simulate the recovery process and to
make sure that Acronis True Image Home recognizes both the drive containing your backups and the
target drive. After completing all the Recovery Wizard's steps click Cancel on the Summary screen.
You may repeat this until you feel sure of your settings and choices.
3) Users of the Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows 7 now have a way of testing whether
they will be able to boot from the recovered system partition. Acronis True Image Home allows
booting from a tib file containing a system partition image (though it is converted into a VHD, which
is used for actual booting). So if you are able to boot from such backup, you almost certainly will be
able to boot after an actual recovery from that backup.
4.1.2 Additional recommendations
1) Many IT professionals recommend that you have at least two copies of your system backup (three
are even better). To be on the safe side, it is further recommended to keep one copy of a backup in a
different location from the other (preferably on other premises – for example, at work or at a friend's
home, if you use the backed up computer at home). One more argument in favor of several backups:
when starting recovery, Acronis True Image Home deletes the target partition (or disk), so when you
have just a single backup, the moment the system partition is deleted on the computer being
recovered you are at great risk - the only thing you have is the image being recovered and if it is
corrupted you are in big trouble.
2) It is better to format the hard drive used for storing your backups to the NTFS file system rather
than FAT32. This is due to the 4GB file size limit on FAT32 disks. So if your backup has a size of about
100GB, Acronis True Image Home will split it into 25 files. When there are several such full backups
on the hard disk, the number of files will multiply accordingly. This may be inconvenient if, for
example, you would like to move the backup to another location using Windows Explorer.
3) If you have only one computer at home, it is advisable to print some information that may be
helpful in recovering from a disaster, because you may not be able to use the Internet. Keep the
printed material in a safe place along with the rescue CD/DVD or another rescue media.
4.2 Testing bootable rescue media
To maximize the chances of your computer's recovery if need arises, you must test that your
computer can boot from the rescue media. In addition, you must make sure that the recovery media
contains all drivers required for operation of your mass storage devices and network adapter.
1) If you purchased a boxed version of the product that has a bootable CD, please, make sure that
your computer can boot from this CD. Though Acronis try to place drivers for the latest hardware on
the bootable CD, an almost infinite variety of hardware configurations exist, so we cannot give you a
one hundred percent guarantee of being able to boot from the rescue CD.
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2) If you purchased the program after downloading it, you absolutely must create a bootable rescue
CD (or other rescue media, for example, a USB stick) following the recommendations given in the
User's Guide or program's Help and then make sure this rescue media is bootable on your computer.
You must configure your computer so as to enable booting from the rescue media and make your
rescue media device (CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive or USB stick) the first boot device. See Arranging boot
sequence in BIOS (p. 187);
In case you have a rescue CD, press a key to start booting from the CD, as soon as you see the
prompt “Press any key to boot from CD”. If you fail to press a key within five seconds, you will need
to restart the computer. When using other rescue media, the procedure will be similar.
3) After the computer boots into the recovery environment, check that it detects all the hard drives
you have in your system, including external ones, if you use them for storing backups. Incidentally,
you must attach the external drive(s) before booting from the rescue media, otherwise the recovery
environment might not detect the drive(s).
4) If you store your backups on the network, you should also check that you can access the network
in the recovery environment. When booted from the rescue media, Acronis True Image Home might
not detect the network. If no computers are visible on the network, but the Computers near me icon
is found under My Computer, ensure that a DHCP server is running on your network. If you don't use
a DHCP server, specify network settings manually in the window available at Tools & Utilities →
Options → Network adapters.
If the Computers near me icon is not available under My Computer, there may be problems either
with your network card or with the card driver shipped with Acronis True Image.
Selecting video mode when booting from the rescue media
When booting from the rescue media the optimal video mode is selected automatically depending
on the specifications of your video card and monitor. However, sometimes the program can select
the wrong video mode, which is unsuitable for your hardware. In such case you can select a suitable
video mode as follows:
1. Start booting from the rescue media. When the boot menu appears, hover the mouse over
Acronis True Image Home (Full version) item and press the F11 key.
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2. When the command line appears, type "vga=ask" (without quotes) and click OK.
3. Select Acronis True Image Home (Full version) in the boot menu to continue booting from the
rescue media. To see the available video modes, press the Enter key when the appropriate
message appears.
4. Choose a video mode you think best suitable for your monitor and type its number in the
command line. For instance, typing 338 selects video mode 1600x1200x16 (see the below figure).
Incidentally, when there is a digit or letter before a three-digit number, you can also select such
video mode by typing the corresponding single digit or letter ("v" in our instance).
5. Wait until Acronis True Image Home (Full version) starts and make sure that the quality of the
Welcome screen display on your monitor suits you.
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To test another video mode, close Acronis True Image Home and repeat the above procedure.
After you find the optimal video mode for your hardware, you can create a new bootable rescue
media that will automatically select that video mode.
To do this, start Acronis Media Builder, select the required media components, and type the mode
number with the "0x" prefix (0x338 in our instance) in the command line at the "Bootable media
startup parameters" step, then create the media as usual.
4.3 Creating a custom rescue CD
In most cases you can use a standard rescue CD created with a help of Acronis Media Builder. For
more information see Creating bootable rescue media.
If the recovery environment cannot detect some of the hard disk drives or the network adapter,
usually there is a problem with the drivers. So when the standard rescue CD lacks some of your
hardware drivers, you need to create a custom one.
The Linux-based recovery environment used by Acronis does not provide the ability for users to add
new drivers. Because of this, you should request Acronis Customer Service Department to create a
custom rescue CD that will have all the drivers you need.
Before making a request, collect the information about your system. Select Generate System Report
in the Help menu. Acronis True Image Home will automatically collect the required information and
display a list of what is collected in the report. In the process of creating the report the program may
install some components required for collecting the necessary information. When the report is
complete, click Save As and select the desired folder or leave the default My Documents folder. The
program will archive the report into a zip file. Send the file to the Acronis Customer Service
Department. They will build an iso image of a custom rescue media compatible with your computer
hardware and send you an iso file. Burn this file to a CD/DVD using a program that can handle iso
files such as Nero. Incidentally, this report may also be useful when you request the Acronis
Customer Service Department to help you with a problem.
After burning your custom rescue CD, test it to make sure that your hard disk drives and network
adapter are now detected in the recovery environment.
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