TSGL: Backup Program Advice, Please

[Russell W. Coover]

Justin, 

Justin, 

I was the one asking the question, so I shall restate it, with a general
history of the problem. 

My friend uses external drives to back up his four computers. He has been
making the backups by Cloning, that is, by making exact copies of the
original hard drives on the external hard drives. 

He has had problems in the past with hard drives going bad, and his
intention is to be able to replace them with another in case they fail. He
has made it a habit to carry the four external drives with him, where ever
he goes. However, two weeks ago he spotted a large drive that he figured was
large enough to hold the cloned backup of all four of the computers and
decided that it would be easier to carry one external hard drive that to
carry four. 

He realized that the backup software he used, Acronis True Image would only
allow the cloning of only one hard drive on the external drive's partition,
but figured that if he divided the external drive into 4 partitions, he
could clone all four hard drives, one on each partition.

Using Partition Magic, he did partition the large hard drive into 4 parts.
He then tried to clone the first computer. Acronis, however, disappointed
him, and wanted to get rid of the four partitions and place only one
partition on the hard drive. This made the cloning of the four computers on
one external drive impossible. 

I told him that the Acronis software can also be used to make a full Image
backup, though not a clone backup on the drive using the four partitions.
But he was not satisfied with that and would like to find software that will
do a clone backup on a single drive with multiple partitions, one for each
of the four computers.

Russ Coover     


 Behalf Of The Computer Whisperer
Sent: Sunday, October 29, 2006 1:29 PM
To: Tech Support Guy Mailing List
Subject: Re: TSGL: Backup Program Advice, Please

Mike,

So, this is multiple bootable partitions on one physical hard-disk
Mike? or is it one bootable partition on one physical disk??

Regards,

Justin

On 29/10/06, Mike <mikecrw at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Having recently used Acronis True Image to recover an entire hard disk,
I'm
> perplexed as to why your friend is using the Clone option as a normal
> backup.   The clone option is intended for replacing a hard drive with a
new
> one.
>
> True Image can make a full backup of the hard disk, including all hidden
and
> system files without using the clone option.   And it can be scheduled to
> "increment" the backup as frequently as you like, so you don't have to do
a
> full backup every time.
>
> And it works.
>
> As I mentioned, I had to replace a hard disk recently.   I had a current
> backup on an external drive.    I pulled out the dead drive, plugged in
the
> new one.   Booted from the Acronis recovery CD and told it to recover the
> data from the external drive.
>
> It completely recovered all the data to the new drive.   I rebooted and it
> was like my drive never died.    All was well.
>
> What is it about the clone option that your friend "likes"?
>
> I think he may just misunderstand the purpose of the various options.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: list-bounces at tsgserver.com [mailto:list-bounces at tsgserver.com] On
> Behalf Of Russell W. Coover
> Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 6:24 PM
> To: 'Tech Support Guy Mailing List'
> Subject: TSGL: Backup Program Advice, Please
>
> I have been using Acronis' True Image software for several years and have
> been very happy with it, but last evening I ran into a situation that True
> Image cannot handle.
>
>
>
> A friend has 4 computers. He has been backing up using the True Image
"Disk
> Clone" option with 4 external drives, one for each computer. Deciding that
> he didn't need 4 external drives, he went out and bought a 320 GB drive,
> inserted it into an external drive enclosure, and then used Partition
Magic
> to place 4 separate Partitions, one for each computer, on the new external
> drive. Then he attempted to back up with Acronis.
>
>
>
> Unfortunately, he found that the "Disk Clone" option wanted to delete all
4
> partitions and replace them with a cloned partition from only one of the
> computers. If he then tried to backup a second computer, the first
computers
> backup would be erased. So, instead, he used the Acronis "Create Image"
> option and was able to successfully backup each computer.
>
>
>
> But he prefers the Clone option and would like to use it with only one
> external hard drive, rather than 4. Is there any software available that
> would allow this. One of the options of Partition Magic 8 is to "Copy" a
> partition. Can Partition Magic be used to do this?
>
>
>
> (Because of the on going discussion as to when various TSGL list emails
> arrive in your inbox, I am sending this email at 3:23 PM Pacific Daylight
> time on 25 October 2006).
>
>
>
> Russ Coover
>
>
>
> I am trying to find myself. If you see me before I do, please ask me to
wait
> until I return.
>
>
>
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