I am having problem to make cold clone (using bootable media, w/o need to install in Win) of new Dell XPS machine with Win 7. My Ghost and Acronis TI v11 doesn't seems to be reliable anymore with Win7 64bit. I am not sure if problem is related to hidden System Restore partition, but cloned disk doesn't have same functionality as original, especially if HDs are in different size. on CNET I found Macrium Reflect, Easeus Todo, Disk Copy, then there is also new version of Acronis 2010... Before spending too much time and money I would like to hear what you guys using? Thx
I was actually checking Ghost, but Newegg's review for Ghost v15 are not quite looking good and this guy says it's just for one PC? is that right? I don't get it? have you use it w/o any problems for more then one machine? here is the quote: Pros: Have not opened the box because I am considering shipping it back to NewEgg for a refund so I can't say if it works or not! I don't really care right now. Cons: I've used many of Peter Norton's software products for decades and always appreciated the fact that Norton realized that many of us have a desktop and laptop to do our daily computing. His license (once upon a time before Symantec) always permitted the buyer to use the software on multiple units BUT NOW IT IS "ONE PC ONLY!!!" Not "one user" as listed on this page so if you are like me and have two desktops and a laptop this is not the software you want to purchase weather it performs as advertised or not! I will not buy three copies to please the bean counters at Symantec!
Acronis 2010 is a good product - but I've always thought Acronis were better than others BUT some on these forums disagree. I think Acronis is cheaper and better value simply for the "Try and Decide" feature which lets you do risky things with little risk such as installing unknown software in the mode to see if it works OK - has saved me sometimes - it has limitations but is a good feature. You can browse during a session safely. Acronis also launches at startup much quicker than a CD/DVD boot which is also supported in the rare cases it is needed. I cannot understand some of the negative comments I have seen about Acronis - I can only assume the poster made some mistake and blamed the software rather than themself - a trait we all display at times. So that is my 2 cents worth.
I use Paragon Partition Manager 10 Advanced boot disk to clone drivers. Worked perfectly when I cloned a 1 TB Harddrive before I RMA'd my old drive for having issues. About Ghost 15, there are no validations in place except the serial thing. I actually use Ghost 15 and I like it alot. I know what other people are saying but I would rather use ghost 15 before Acronis 2010! I tried acronis 2010 but when I attempted to restore from a image restore point it froze during the process leading to my hdd completely loosing everything! IDK if this was some fluke but I never had the problem with any of the ghost versions and I have used 10, 12, 14, and 15 without fail.
Symantec ghost, which runs off bart pe from a usb stick is for me. Works perfect irrespective of the os in the hd.
Im using Farstone Drive CLone... i love that it makes an image at every startup and i can save some space by shutting off the built in one by windows..
May I ask what version of Acronis you using? I was BIG Acronis fan till Windows 7. With my versions of Acronis (True Image v 11 and Ent. Server v 8.1) I am having two big issues: 1/ HD image to external USB drive or DVDs are not reliable 100%. The Restored image was either not bootable or I got corrupted image file message, even when verification went OK!? Very weird, since my Dell was just on first factory boot, nothing else added! 2/ HDtoHD cloning was working pretty much OK with same size HDs. However when I tried clone to smaller size (like from 640gb to 500GB) I got bootable HD, but Recovery partition was somehow screwed. I am not sure if these problems are related to Acronis v11 compatibility problems or Win7 itself. I know I never had these issues with Win XP. I have bad feeling it has something to do with Win 7 hidden partitions, but I might be wrong.... However with Win 7 I lost confidence in Acronis. Thanks to everybody for all suggestions! I wish to have a time to try them all. Now I reliaze I should be more specific in my original post. Mainly I am looking for 100% reliable Backup/Cloning HD2HD and HD2Image for my Dell XPS 9000 with Win7 Ultimate 64bit machines. The crucial points seems to be: 1/ creating perfectly bootable HD after HD2HD clone on different size of HDs with all functionality of Recovery partition. I believe my Dell has at least 3 partions (FAT16, Recovery and C). 2/ creating full HD image (with all 3 partitions) on DVD or extHD. Obviously with no hassle to restoring image with full functionality of original. 3/ not crucial, but running from bootable media, w/o need to install it in Win7 for better results. In my case what would be right choice? Thx!!!
I found PCmag review which looks pretty good, except following comment. Is that right, no disk Imaging on $85 program? jbuseck Member rating: July 6, 2009 This software does do backups very well. However, I was anticipating from the editors review that it did disk imaging. You know, An exact copy of one disk to another. It does not do that. That was the whole reason I purchased it. Now I have an $80.00 software package that only backups data. Not what I was looking for. When I see the words disk image, I assume it is a disk image. Shame on me.