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From: John Doe on 24 Feb 2010 23:22
Long ago, when I first started using disk managers (probably
PartitionMagic) and shortly thereafter stumbled onto the practice
of copying the operating system, day by day it slowly and
pleasantly took a big load off of my shoulders. Maybe that
practice is just for enthusiasts. Whatever. If you need to do it,
Macrium Reflect is your tool. Making copies of Windows and
occasionally restoring one encourages you to keep track of and
backup important files, but most of us should learn to keep a
backup of important files anyway.

On my main PC, I have an SSD main drive and a Raptor secondary
drive. Macrium Reflect copies the main drive to the secondary
drive in the form of a compressed file that is about 65% of the
main drive size. Those copies are browsable, so I can copy files
from them.

Recently, motherboard trouble caused me to revert to my backup PC.
Installed the Raptor on the old system and made some space at its
beginning. From the Macrium Reflect restore CD, took one of the
compressed copies of the SSD drive from the Raptor and copied it
to the beginning of the Raptor. Booted into Windows safe mode.
Stopped at the logon prompt since Fast User Switching had been
disabled. Sat there for a while, while Windows XP reconfigured the
mouse and keyboard drivers for the old motherboard. After getting
to the desktop, installed the old PC's motherboard drivers.
Rebooted. Now this thing is almost precisely the same as it was on
my fast PC. The only noticed exception (besides the slowness) is
something to do with DirectX when opening a resource hungry game
"Unable to create Direct3D" (not asking for help), maybe because
the video card is older.

Being able to take a compressed copy of my main system SSD drive
Windows XP installation and copy it to a different drive in a
completely different system is IMO very impressive. Some of that
positive result had to do with Windows XP itself, but still...

Have not tested Macrium Reflect with Vista or 7. With each new
operating system, Microsoft complicates the process of making
Windows backups, so who knows.

FWIW. Years ago, I purchased one of their other products Partition
Manager but was not very impressed. The free edition of Macrium
Reflect requires using a restore boot CD and the restore copy is
very slow, but that is not a problem if you can find something
else to do, unless you need to do restore copies frequently.
Apparently the paid-for version allows making the restore copy in
a special Windows mode (probably after rebooting and before the
desktop appears), that might be faster. Also, its user interface
is poorly designed for my white text on a black background system
(not a problem).
From: Rod Speed on 25 Feb 2010 01:35
John Doe wrote:
> Long ago, when I first started using disk managers (probably
> PartitionMagic) and shortly thereafter stumbled onto the practice
> of copying the operating system, day by day it slowly and
> pleasantly took a big load off of my shoulders. Maybe that
> practice is just for enthusiasts. Whatever. If you need to do it,
> Macrium Reflect is your tool. Making copies of Windows and
> occasionally restoring one encourages you to keep track of and
> backup important files, but most of us should learn to keep a
> backup of important files anyway.
>
> On my main PC, I have an SSD main drive and a Raptor secondary
> drive. Macrium Reflect copies the main drive to the secondary
> drive in the form of a compressed file that is about 65% of the
> main drive size. Those copies are browsable, so I can copy files
> from them.
>
> Recently, motherboard trouble caused me to revert to my backup PC.
> Installed the Raptor on the old system and made some space at its
> beginning. From the Macrium Reflect restore CD, took one of the
> compressed copies of the SSD drive from the Raptor and copied it
> to the beginning of the Raptor. Booted into Windows safe mode.
> Stopped at the logon prompt since Fast User Switching had been
> disabled. Sat there for a while, while Windows XP reconfigured the
> mouse and keyboard drivers for the old motherboard. After getting
> to the desktop, installed the old PC's motherboard drivers.
> Rebooted. Now this thing is almost precisely the same as it was on
> my fast PC. The only noticed exception (besides the slowness) is
> something to do with DirectX when opening a resource hungry game
> "Unable to create Direct3D" (not asking for help), maybe because
> the video card is older.
>
> Being able to take a compressed copy of my main system SSD drive
> Windows XP installation and copy it to a different drive in a
> completely different system is IMO very impressive. Some of that
> positive result had to do with Windows XP itself, but still...
>
> Have not tested Macrium Reflect with Vista or 7. With each new
> operating system, Microsoft complicates the process of making
> Windows backups, so who knows.
>
> FWIW. Years ago, I purchased one of their other products Partition
> Manager but was not very impressed. The free edition of Macrium
> Reflect requires using a restore boot CD and the restore copy is
> very slow, but that is not a problem if you can find something
> else to do, unless you need to do restore copies frequently.
> Apparently the paid-for version allows making the restore copy in
> a special Windows mode (probably after rebooting and before the
> desktop appears), that might be faster. Also, its user interface
> is poorly designed for my white text on a black background system
> (not a problem).

I prefer Acronis True Image myself.


From: John Doe on 25 Feb 2010 01:41
"Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa gmail.com> wrote:

> John Doe wrote:

>> Long ago, when I first started using disk managers (probably
>> PartitionMagic) and shortly thereafter stumbled onto the practice
>> of copying the operating system, day by day it slowly and
>> pleasantly took a big load off of my shoulders. Maybe that
>> practice is just for enthusiasts. Whatever. If you need to do it,
>> Macrium Reflect is your tool. Making copies of Windows and
>> occasionally restoring one encourages you to keep track of and
>> backup important files, but most of us should learn to keep a
>> backup of important files anyway.
>>
>> On my main PC, I have an SSD main drive and a Raptor secondary
>> drive. Macrium Reflect copies the main drive to the secondary
>> drive in the form of a compressed file that is about 65% of the
>> main drive size. Those copies are browsable, so I can copy files
>> from them.
>>
>> Recently, motherboard trouble caused me to revert to my backup PC.
>> Installed the Raptor on the old system and made some space at its
>> beginning. From the Macrium Reflect restore CD, took one of the
>> compressed copies of the SSD drive from the Raptor and copied it
>> to the beginning of the Raptor. Booted into Windows safe mode.
>> Stopped at the logon prompt since Fast User Switching had been
>> disabled. Sat there for a while, while Windows XP reconfigured the
>> mouse and keyboard drivers for the old motherboard. After getting
>> to the desktop, installed the old PC's motherboard drivers.
>> Rebooted. Now this thing is almost precisely the same as it was on
>> my fast PC. The only noticed exception (besides the slowness) is
>> something to do with DirectX when opening a resource hungry game
>> "Unable to create Direct3D" (not asking for help), maybe because
>> the video card is older.
>>
>> Being able to take a compressed copy of my main system SSD drive
>> Windows XP installation and copy it to a different drive in a
>> completely different system is IMO very impressive. Some of that
>> positive result had to do with Windows XP itself, but still...
>>
>> Have not tested Macrium Reflect with Vista or 7. With each new
>> operating system, Microsoft complicates the process of making
>> Windows backups, so who knows.
>>
>> FWIW. Years ago, I purchased one of their other products Partition
>> Manager but was not very impressed. The free edition of Macrium
>> Reflect requires using a restore boot CD and the restore copy is
>> very slow, but that is not a problem if you can find something
>> else to do, unless you need to do restore copies frequently.
>> Apparently the paid-for version allows making the restore copy in
>> a special Windows mode (probably after rebooting and before the
>> desktop appears), that might be faster. Also, its user interface
>> is poorly designed for my white text on a black background system
>> (not a problem).
>
> I prefer Acronis True Image myself.

I have Acronis Disk Director 10, and its recovery CD can no longer
even see my hard drives, there have been zero updates since it was
published years ago.
--


















>
>
>
>

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> From: "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa gmail.com>
> Newsgroups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
> Subject: Re: Macrium Reflect is THE tool for making backup copies of Windows XP
> Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:35:45 +1100
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From: Rod Speed on 25 Feb 2010 03:17
John Doe wrote
> Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa gmail.com> wrote
>> John Doe wrote

>>> Long ago, when I first started using disk managers (probably
>>> PartitionMagic) and shortly thereafter stumbled onto the practice
>>> of copying the operating system, day by day it slowly and
>>> pleasantly took a big load off of my shoulders. Maybe that
>>> practice is just for enthusiasts. Whatever. If you need to do it,
>>> Macrium Reflect is your tool. Making copies of Windows and
>>> occasionally restoring one encourages you to keep track of and
>>> backup important files, but most of us should learn to keep a
>>> backup of important files anyway.
>>>
>>> On my main PC, I have an SSD main drive and a Raptor secondary
>>> drive. Macrium Reflect copies the main drive to the secondary
>>> drive in the form of a compressed file that is about 65% of the
>>> main drive size. Those copies are browsable, so I can copy files
>>> from them.
>>>
>>> Recently, motherboard trouble caused me to revert to my backup PC.
>>> Installed the Raptor on the old system and made some space at its
>>> beginning. From the Macrium Reflect restore CD, took one of the
>>> compressed copies of the SSD drive from the Raptor and copied it
>>> to the beginning of the Raptor. Booted into Windows safe mode.
>>> Stopped at the logon prompt since Fast User Switching had been
>>> disabled. Sat there for a while, while Windows XP reconfigured the
>>> mouse and keyboard drivers for the old motherboard. After getting
>>> to the desktop, installed the old PC's motherboard drivers.
>>> Rebooted. Now this thing is almost precisely the same as it was on
>>> my fast PC. The only noticed exception (besides the slowness) is
>>> something to do with DirectX when opening a resource hungry game
>>> "Unable to create Direct3D" (not asking for help), maybe because
>>> the video card is older.
>>>
>>> Being able to take a compressed copy of my main system SSD drive
>>> Windows XP installation and copy it to a different drive in a
>>> completely different system is IMO very impressive. Some of that
>>> positive result had to do with Windows XP itself, but still...
>>>
>>> Have not tested Macrium Reflect with Vista or 7. With each new
>>> operating system, Microsoft complicates the process of making
>>> Windows backups, so who knows.
>>>
>>> FWIW. Years ago, I purchased one of their other products Partition
>>> Manager but was not very impressed. The free edition of Macrium
>>> Reflect requires using a restore boot CD and the restore copy is
>>> very slow, but that is not a problem if you can find something
>>> else to do, unless you need to do restore copies frequently.
>>> Apparently the paid-for version allows making the restore copy in
>>> a special Windows mode (probably after rebooting and before the
>>> desktop appears), that might be faster. Also, its user interface
>>> is poorly designed for my white text on a black background system
>>> (not a problem).
>>
>> I prefer Acronis True Image myself.
>
> I have Acronis Disk Director 10, and its recovery CD can no longer
> even see my hard drives, there have been zero updates since it was
> published years ago.

There have been plenty of updates for True Image.


From: RayLopez99 on 26 Feb 2010 02:15
On Feb 25, 8:35 am, "Rod Speed" <rod.speed....(a)gmail.com> wrote:

> I prefer Acronis True Image myself.

You! you post here too? Nowhere is safe.

RL
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