Another Lesson Learned

[falcon409]

Purchased a new 1Tb HDD to install Win7 to. The Western Digital information also suggested a backup of important programs, etc. . .use "Acronis True Image Software" it said. . .Hmmm ok I thought, I'll get that, not expensive and I can use it for future backups and be better prepared.

Got setup, selected the folders I wanted to backup (300Gig total) selected to save to "Acronis Cloud" (500Gig storage) and selected to start the backup.

Currently, it says the backup will take approx. 8 days and 7 hours. . . .and at the speed it's backing up at (4Mbps)that seems very likely. WTH!!:banghead:

[DaveB]

Yikes Ed:dizzy: Above and beyond the call of duty me thinks!!

ATB
DaveB:)

[Jafo]

Backing up to the cloud is like giving your wallet at the pub to some bloke you just met who happens to have bigger pockets than you...while you go to have a leak.

You wouldn't....
...and shouldn't.

Use your True Image to back up to a PHYSICAL [external] Hard drive that you can keep control of....and it'll take just a few minutes...;)

[falcon409]

Backing up to the cloud is like giving your wallet at the pub to some bloke you just met who happens to have bigger pockets than you...while you go to have a leak.

You wouldn't....
...and shouldn't.

Use your True Image to back up to a PHYSICAL [external] Hard drive that you can keep control of....and it'll take just a few minutes...;)
Done! Now installing Win7. After that run updates, drivers, etc. Final thing will be to select folders from backup that I want back.

[falcon409]

Win7 Installation completed. Installed the latest NVidia driver from 2 days ago and so far everything seems fine. I'll go through the Updates one more time to be sure I have the latest and greatest. After that, plug in the other two drives and restore what I want off the backup. Slow but sure. . .lol

[falcon409]

But wait there's more......after all that I decided to plug-in what was the "D" Drive which has the back up on it. I turned off the machine plugged it in the next Slot in sequence (same one it was plugged in before). Turned the machine back on and it tells me there is no bootable drive. It only wanted to boot from the CD/DVD drive. I placed the installation disk back in and of course all it wants to do now is reinstall Windows7. WTH?:redfire:

[Dev One]

Methinks a trip to the BIOS is needed to activate the bootable device. I have to do that every so often as it seems to have a brain f**t! Good luck.
Keith

[hairyspin]

Is the BIOS picking the correct drive to boot from?

For reference, if you're using WD drives you can get a free WD edition of Acronis Drive Image to move an OS installation to a new WD drive, backup etc. It checks you're using WD drives but is free to use.

[falcon409]

Is the BIOS picking the correct drive to boot from?
For reference, if you're using WD drives you can get a free WD edition of Acronis Drive Image to move an OS installation to a new WD drive, backup etc. It checks you're using WD drives but is free to use.
Fixed. . .however, after backing up everything around 2am, I woke this morning anxious to restore everything to the new HDD. I checked the files on the Acronis Dashboard before restoring and everything seemed to be in order. After the restore was complete I took a look at one of the folders I had restored and discovered that every single file had an added extension to it (something not seen in the backups). . .as an example "fusen_t_grayscale.bmp~QI9VLKOS"

When I say every file. . .I mean every single file in every folder as deep into the subfolders as was necessary. Every file has that "~" as well as a unique extension after it. Basically it appears that the restore process added that and I could find no information on why or how. I can edit each file and it reverts to it's correct file type but there are literally thousands of files done this way. The backup was a total waste as was the money spent on purchasing the Acronis True Image software. Also, while backing up is a good idea, in my case it was fruitless as 98% of the programs I backed up require that they be registered in order to function, so when I try to load one I get errors saying this file or that file is missing and the program must be reinstalled to correct the problem. So much for backups.

[Mick]

For what it's worth, I use Macrium's Reflect for backup to an external drive.

It allows separate back-up jobs and separate backup files for each partition on my dual hard drives. (I have backups for my main local drive, FS drive, FS hangar drive and FS storage drive. In fact, that's two drives with a total of four partitions that the confutor sees as individual drives.)

A nice touch is that you can restore an entire drive or partition, or you can recover or restore individual files or folders. That's great if I'm messing around with an aircraft and screw it up. Or mess with anything and screw it up.

Running a backup doesn't overwrite an existing one for the same drive, so you can keep multiple backups going back different times if you want.

You can set it to run backups at certain times, or run one manually at any time.

It's a payware program, but there's a free trial version that you can use to check it out.

I am very pleased with Reflect and I strongly recommend it.

[sixstrings5859]

I use a large external SSD to back up my combat flight sims. Strait up backup of copy and paste type and it has worked flawless for me. No outside programs to use. This is the way to backup to me and it has worked out fine. If your external drive is big enough i highly recommend doing this. Takes time to load them on another drive but worth it when needed. Sorry for your troubles. Regards,Scott