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WindowsTalk July, 2005 By James M. Fisher Original article on WindowsTalk website
Acronis True Image 8.0
IntroductionAcronis True Image 8.0 from Acronis is a backup/imaging/disaster recovery type of program similar to R-Drive Image from R-Tools Technology (which I have previously reviewed) and Symantec's Ghost, just to name two current ones. Many people still use Drive Image by PowerQuest, which was acquired by Symantec last year. Each of these programs basically does the same thing and does it well: they create a compressed image of an entire drive or partition which can later be restored in minutes — saving one the time and bother of reinstalling the Operating System (OS) and programs, as well as preserving all of your personal data such as documents, emails and digital photographs.
InstallationInstallation of Acronis True Image 8.0 was easy and straightforward. Towards the end, I was prompted to create bootable rescue media such as a CD or diskettes. This allows one to restore an image from another drive or partition on the PC or located on a network. It can also be used to copy a drive, very handy in the case of installing a new hard drive in the same PC. Creating the CD took a few moments and I was then prompted to reboot. A reboot is required because Acronis True Image 8.0 installs a 'virtual' network adapter that will later allow me to mount an image so that I can browse it in Explorer. This way, I can recover a file I need or even an entire folder. More on this later.
Using the ProgramHere's a look at the opening screen. As you can see, Acronis True Image 8.0 has a nice, clean XP-style interface with icons and links for various tasks.
 "Create" and "Restore Image" are fairly straightforward and you are led through each step by a wizard. There is always the option to go back or cancel the operation at any time. While the image is being created a small animated icon appears in the notification area or system tray (green circled area):
 "Explore Image" is interesting and I alluded to it earlier. This feature allows one to 'mount' an image as a virtual drive and browse it just as you would any hard drive or CD/DVD in Windows Explorer. Here's the "Explore Image" selection window where you can select the image (if there is more than one) and assign a custom drive letter as well (red arrow).
Here is the drive as it appears in Windows Explorer:
 "Unplug Image" does just the reverse and 'dismounts' the image when you are finished browsing it. This option will also appear on the right-click menu of the mounted drive icon. Other tools include "Disk Clone" which will copy an old drive to a new one, and "Add New Disk" which will helps you prepare a new drive to install in your system.
Secure Zone® and the Startup Recovery ManagerI found this to be a nice feature of Acronis True Image 8.0: the ability to create a partition to store your images in. Here they are protected from the operating system (OS) and can be restored either by Acronis True Image (within Windows), the bootable CD or via the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. The latter is installed after a Acronis Secure Zone is created. This adds the ability to access the Recovery Manager at boot time by pressing the F11 key (a line of text will appear at boot time for a few seconds prompting you to press F11 if you wish to enter the Recovery Manager). A limited feature set of Acronis True Image 8.0 would then be loaded and an image could be restored before Windows even boots.
Additional featuresYou can check images for integrity (very important!), read logs of various operations that have been performed by Acronis True Image 8.0 and of course schedule image creation.
PerformanceSo how long does it take to create an image? A lot will depend on the size of the partition, the amount of used space and to a certain degree, fragmentation. My C: drive which contains Windows and some programs is 14 GB with 4.32 GB of used space. Fragmentation was reported by Raxco's PerfectDisk Live as 1%. At the 'Normal' compression setting, Acronis True Image 8.0 took 2:19 minutes to create a 1.9 GB image of C: drive. Not bad! This would easily fit on a DVD. Also, once a full backup of a drive or partition is made, further images can be made as incremental, which appends any changes made since the original full backup to a smaller image file. Once an image is created, it should be verified as to its integrity. Images have been known to fail, leaving the PC in an unbootable state. How long does it take to restore an image? I restored the above image (after verification!) in less than 3 minutes to an empty partition. Just imagine recovering your entire system in minutes!
ConclusionI would have to say that Acronis True Image 8.0 is an excellent program and is a reliable backup & recovery tool. The bootable CD and the Startup Recovery Manager are especially nice and just as easy to use as the Windows portion of the program. The Secure Zone is a great added value feature, and for me, this makes all the difference between Acronis True Image 8.0 and R-Drive Image, which otherwise is quite similar. In short: an excellent, well-designed and intuitive program at a reasonable price. Highly recommended.
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Acronis Inc. Backup software.