Acronis (True Image)

Ghot · Nov 5, 2021

Macrium Reflect, accept no substitute. Resistance is futile. :)

Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect

How to Create and Restore a System Image Backup with Macrium Reflect

www.tenforums.com

catalex54 · Nov 5, 2021

Ghot said:
Macrium Reflect, accept no substitute. Resistance is futile. :)

Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect

How to Create and Restore a System Image Backup with Macrium Reflect

www.tenforums.com

View attachment 12618

It seems so much one of the advice of the godfather.

:)

dbartenstein · Nov 5, 2021

Mooly said:
I'm using AOMEI Backupper Pro and it all seems good so far. The free version omits a few features like incremental backup and some advanced tools but ultimately for me it just works seamlessly.

I used to use Acronis many many moons ago but found it became more and more buggy and buried itself deep in the operating system causing problems.

Yeah, I ditched Acronis a couple years ago and went with AOMEI. Never looked back....

gpi · Nov 11, 2021

Dru2 said:
Acronis is just trying steer people into purchasing their latest cloud version by claiming there "may" be issues with Windows 11 and older versions.

That said, I'll say this and move on....

Many here prefer Macrium so that's were you'll be steered. With that, I'm actually running Acronis True Image 2018 (latest is 2021) on Windows 11 RTM (22000.258) and just used it the other day to restore some backup files and folders after clean installing Windows 11. It worked without fuss or issue.

So yeah, Acronis DOES work under Windows 11 as my old version shows.

Good luck.

Hi
I too have been using ATI 2018 (WinPE Flash Drive) without any issues on my Win 10 MBR pc for 2 years.
On another new PC (UEFI) with Win 11, I created a new bootable WinPE flash drive. It appears to backup and verify the images fine, but when I restore them, instead of at the end with the message "Recover Operation Succeeded", I get a message that says "Synchronizing with the Operating System". This message remains on for about 3 minutes and then a restart message appears. The restart seems to work fine though.
I should also mention that I have TPM enabled.
I wonder if I should be using the Linux Boot drive option?
Have you seen that message before?
Thanks
Gord

Dru2 · Nov 11, 2021

I don't use Linux and know nothing of Linux so your question is far outside my lane of experience.

Sorry.

Dru2 · Nov 11, 2021

gpi said:
On another new PC (UEFI) with Win 11, I created a new bootable WinPE flash drive. It appears to backup and verify the images fine, but when I restore them, instead of at the end with the message "Recover Operation Succeeded", I get a message that says "Synchronizing with the Operating System". This message remains on for about 3 minutes and then a restart message appears. The restart seems to work fine though.
I should also mention that I have TPM enabled.
I wonder if I should be using the Linux Boot drive option?
Have you seen that message before?
Thanks
Gord

To be frank, I've not created a WinPE flash drive in years as I've rarely found I needed it; with that I've definitely not created one for Windows 11, but your post has me curious now.

I will give this a test, but in the meantime, I suggest you visit the Acronis forums and post your question there. As a side note, I don't think TPM is the issue, but...

Good luck.

Superfly · Nov 11, 2021

gpi said:
Hi
I too have been using ATI 2018 (WinPE Flash Drive) without any issues on my Win 10 MBR pc for 2 years.
On another new PC (UEFI) with Win 11, I created a new bootable WinPE flash drive. It appears to backup and verify the images fine, but when I restore them, instead of at the end with the message "Recover Operation Succeeded", I get a message that says "Synchronizing with the Operating System". This message remains on for about 3 minutes and then a restart message appears. The restart seems to work fine though.
I should also mention that I have TPM enabled.
I wonder if I should be using the Linux Boot drive option?
Have you seen that message before?
Thanks
Gord

I don't use Acronis but from a Linux boot it probably uses Syslinux - that is not going to work with safe boot on Win 11.

cereberus · Nov 11, 2021

Superfly said:
I don't use Acronis but from a Linux boot it probably uses Syslinux - that is not going to work with safe boot on Win 11.

I never understand why people think a Linux boot drive will be better than a Windows one when being used for a Windows system. Macrium Reflect ditched Linux drives years ago for its recovery drives as keeping it updated with right drivers for new hardware was very hit or miss.

Anibor_11 · Nov 11, 2021

In the case of booting from a UFD and creating a full image, Terabyte IFL (Image for Linux) is about 3 times faster than a Macrium WinPE. I have experienced this many times over the years. Last time I checked, using IFL 3.47 and a Macrium 8.0.6350 WinPE11, the times I got were 1 min and 3:18 min, in the same hardware, of course.

Dru2 · Nov 11, 2021

cereberus said:
I never understand why people think a Linux boot drive will be better than a Windows one when being used for a Windows system. Macrium Reflect ditched Linux drives years ago for its recovery drives as keeping it updated with right drivers for new hardware was very hit or miss.

Re-read gpi's post. They asked about Linux as an "alternative" to address an issue they were having. Not opining that it was better :wink:

At any rate I can't test their issue for them at the moment as a I'm doing a Carbonite cloud backup. Slow upload speeds has it taking hours

cereberus · Nov 11, 2021

Anibor_11 said:
In the case of booting from a UFD and creating a full image, Terabyte IFL (Image for Linux) is about 3 times faster than a Macrium WinPE. I have experienced this many times over the years. Last time I checked, using IFL 3.47 and a Macrium 8.0.6350 WinPE11, the times I got were 1 min and 3:18 min, in the same hardware, of course.

The problem was not efficiency but the fact the Macrium Team found keeping up with drivers on new hardware was a challenge. With winpe/re, Reflect knows what drivers are using in Windows and adds them to accordingly from boot drive.

You need to be careful when comparing times e.g. are they on same basis e.g. compression, verification etc. I find it hard to believe Reflect would be 3x slower.

When it comes to backups, speed is not the primary issue but reliability.

hdmi · Nov 11, 2021

cereberus said:
When it comes to backups, speed is not the primary issue but reliability.

The verification step works exactly the same as doing an image restore, the only difference being that data is not actually written to the target so data is only compared instead─read operations generally are faster than write operations so this would explain why the verification step is faster compared to performing an actual image restore. This method of verification guarantees 100% reliability, although hardware failure might still occur. Slowness isn't the same as reliability. Since the 1970s the gold standard in data duplication has always been dd. It passes as reliable evidence in the court of law with not many slow disputes from experts.

That being said, problems of reliability with Acronis True Image almost always are NOT related to the bootable ISO. Instead, they are almost always related to the installer version of True Image. Installing True Image is absolutely not necessary for the vast majority of users. In fact I strongly advise against installing it if you do not know how to avoid the aforementioned problems, which the vast majority of PC users do not know in any way whatsoever. So, just stick to the bootable ISO to simply avoid common problems. Having to temporarily disable Secure Boot in order to make it work hasn't killed anyone yet. With Ventoy, I can boot directly into my bootable ISOs (plural) from just a single large USB flash drive. So, I don't even need to keep my WinRE partition on my SSD, as I can instead just put the Windows Installation ISO on the same flash drive and boot directly into this ISO whenever I need, and the same also applies to the Acronis bootable ISOs (also plural). One is Linux based, one is WinRE based, one is custom WinPE based.

If the Linux based version of the bootable ISO (what they call the "Full", which is a free download in spite of the fact that the vast majority of PC users do not know that it is free to download indeed) freezes before you can navigate through the menus required to start a task, try unplugging the network cable from the PC. Earlier this year they released a new build update of True Image 2021 that has fixed the problem of GUI slowdowns.

Finally, if you must have the ability to create an image of a partition whilst Windows is actively running on this same partition (what they call an image of a live Windows, which isn't necessarily always reliable because Windows is still actively writing data on it and also because the snapshot service might unexpectedly get you in trouble, unlike the bootable ISO method if we can ignore the potential risk of a hardware failure at least), then stick to Macrium if you don't know how to avoid the aforementioned problems with the installer version of Acronis. On a side note, personally, I can not─nor actually even need to─move all my user data to seperate partitions, as there are a number of dependencies that prevent me from doing so, therefore I rely on the Acronis bootable ISO to exclude said user data from my images─because it is much faster also in addition to reducing image sizes a lot─and to be able to select my C: partition as the target for creating an image of my C: partition, none of which is possible with the ISO of Macrium, and the latter is much slower than the ISO of Acronis. (Even, if I decide not to exclude my user data from my images.)

cereberus · Nov 12, 2021

Zardoc said:
That is utterly untrue!!.

I have been using the 2021 version 25.8.1_39216 of Acronis and it works flawlessly. I have been going from 10-11 many times without issues.

Backup speeds depend on many factors but mostly disk size and computer speed.

Huh - just because it works for you does not mean OP's statement is "utterly untrue".

Acronis Chat just said it has not been (I assume fully) tested by them. I presume they are telling the truth.

Until, they categorically state it is W11 compatible, then you cannot say OP's statement is untrue.

Similarly, Macrium Reflect worked for many on W11 but it is only very recently they issued a version specifically integrated with Win11Re.

Dru2 · Nov 12, 2021

cereberus said:
Acronis Chat just said it has not been (I assume fully) tested by them. I presume they are telling the truth.

While Acronis is saying that, many (me) are finding ATI 2018 still works under Windows 11 :)

I will admit that, I've not tested the WinPE portion yet, but did do a restore (and backup) and all my files were restored on a clean install of 11 RTM without issue. No install issues either.

Point - seems old ATI 2018 works under Windows 11. Not sure what Acronis is trying to test other than pushing their latest products :)

That said, they'll be getting some money out of me for a "Windows 11" release anyway since I'm ready for an upgrade.

cereberus · Nov 12, 2021

Dru2 said:
While Acronis is saying that, many (me) are finding ATI 2018 still works under Windows 11 :)

I will admit that, I've not tested the WinPE portion yet, but did do a restore (and backup) and all my files were restored on a clean install of 11 RTM without issue. No install issues either.

Point - seems old ATI 2018 works under Windows 11. Not sure what Acronis is trying to test other than pushing their latest products :)

That said, they'll be getting some money out of me for a "Windows 11" release anyway since I'm ready for an upgrade.

The point is they are not going to support older versions if they fail to work.

Dru2 · Nov 12, 2021

cereberus said:
The point is they are not going to support older versions if they fail to work.

That makes sense to me

Zardoc · Nov 12, 2021

cereberus said:
Huh - just because it works for you does not mean OP's statement is "utterly untrue".

Acronis Chat just said it has not been (I assume fully) tested by them. I presume they are telling the truth.

Until, they categorically state it is W11 compatible, then you cannot say OP's statement is untrue.

Similarly, Macrium Reflect worked for many on W11 but it is only very recently they issued a version specifically integrated with Win11Re.

You're right, my reply was radical but I build machines on a regular basis and I use Acronis on all of them.

I even buy WD or Sabrent drives because they come with a free Acronis version. 2019 and 2020 versions have some issues with restore from Windows GUI and on reboot video issues or permission issues can prevent Acronis recovery from launching. I've seen it on a brand new predator that I prepared for a customer this week. That being said, I have not seen any computer have issues with backups.

Issues are with restore because of access and driver issues on boot from Win Gui command. Now, if you use the WinPe recovery with a USB drive that's a whole different story. For instance the Predator laptop had issues rebooting through Win GUI, but had no problems restoring using WinPe boot with Acronis. In fact, once the recovery file was found, it took 15 seconds for Acronis to restore a 200GB drive, now that's fast!! and using version 2020 not 2021.

Now I don't knock Macrium, in fact, because Acronis has decided to go to a subscription mode, I probably will turn to Macrium but not for a while yet.

Acronis has no issues backing up Windows 11. If issues occur it's mostly because of driver or hardware problems when rebooting from GUI (what it is, seems to be fixed with 2021 because the predator laptop worked fine with it).

If Acronis bugs on 10 it will bug on 11. If it doesn't bug on 10, it won't on 11.

Oh, and BTW, Acronis chat knows squat 3/4 of the time. Best to post on the forums. There are some really good users that know Acronis inside out.

Try3 · Nov 12, 2021

Zardoc said:
I even buy WD or Sabrent drives

Zardoc,

By the way, you don't have to limit yourself to those brands. Acronis free editions are free for separate download for anybody with Seagate, Samsung, Maxtor, WD, SanDisk, G-Technology brand disks fitted in / connected to their computers.

I haven't seen a Sabrent variant mentioned before so thanks for posting about it.
Sabrent's webpage gives me the impression that it is their own variant so I've added it as a separate entry in my post - File backup vs imaging, imaging utilities, backing up drivers [post #3] - TenForums

I have used the "WD Edition" on some of my computers & the Samsung-Seagate edition, "DiscWizard", on others.
It seemed to me that DiscWizard was updated more often than the "WD Edition" over the ten years I've been using them.
I've recently replaced a WD SSD with a Samsung one [when I decided to get a bigger disk for my Win11 testbed computer] so I now use DiscWizard on them all. There are no substantial differences between them but I liked the idea of having the same application on all four computers.

All the best,
Denis

Zardoc · Nov 12, 2021

Try3 said:
Zardoc,

By the way, you don't have to limit yourself to those brands. Acronis free editions are free for separate download for anybody with Seagate, Samsung, Maxtor, WD, SanDisk, G-Technology brand disks fitted in / connected to their computers.

I haven't seen a Sabrent variant mentioned before so thanks for posting about it.
Sabrent's webpage gives me the impression that it is their own variant so I've added it as a separate entry in my post - File backup vs imaging, imaging utilities, backing up drivers [post #3] - TenForums

I have used the "WD Edition" on some of my computers & the Samsung-Seagate edition, "DiscWizard", on others.
It seemed to me that DiscWizard was updated more often than the "WD Edition" over the ten years I've been using them.
I've recently replaced a WD SSD with a Samsung one [when I decided to get a bigger disk for my Win11 testbed computer] so I now use DiscWizard on them all. There are no substantial differences between them but I liked the idea of having the same application on all four computers.

All the best,
Denis

I haven't seen a Samsung free version of ATI, do you have a link? There also is a free edition for Crucial.

Be careful, some editions push you to buy Acronis. Just use an older version.

steve17 · Nov 12, 2021

I am building my first Secure Boot - TPM computer. A month ago I installed the free Acronis True Image program I got from Western Digital many years ago. It installed okay and it tested okay too. I made a backup of a partition containing Windows, then made changes to the Windows OS, then did a restore. Everything worked.

Yesterday I tried installing the same Acronis program on another Windows installation, and it wouldn't install. It hangs in the middle of the install and won't cancel. I have to do a forced shutdown. This doesn't surprise me much. I suspect it isn't compatible with Secure Boot.

I looked at Macrium. It could be good for some people but probably not for me. I have many partitions and several installations of Win11 and Win10.

I'm now trying Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office. It looks good. I don't like paying each year, but I'm thinking it is probably the best for my situation.