User manual ACRONIS TRUE IMAGE 9.0 HOME

User's Guide Acronis True Image 9.0 Home Compute with confidence www.acronis.com Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006. All rights reserved. "Acronis", "Acronis Compute with Confidence", "Acronis Snap Restore", "Acronis Recovery Manager, "Acronis Secure Zone" and the Acronis logo are trademarks of Acronis, Inc. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Windows and MS-DOS are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks and copyrights referred to are the property of their respective owners. Distribution of substantively modified versions of this document is prohibited without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. Distribution of this work or derivative work in any standard (paper) book form for commercial purposes is prohibited unless prior permission is obtained from the copyright holder. DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED «AS IS» AND ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED CONDITIONS, REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT, ARE DISCLAIMED, EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT THAT SUCH DISCLAIMERS ARE HELD TO BE LEGALLY INVALID. 2 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 END-USER LICENSE AGREEMENT BY ACCEPTING, YOU (ORIGINAL PURCHASER) INDICATE YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THESE TERMS. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO ACCEPT THE PRODUCT UNDER THESE TERMS, YOU CAN CHOOSE NOT TO ACCEPT BY SELECTING "I decline..." AND NOT INSTALLING THE SOFTWARE. Acronis True Image Home (the Software) is Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006. All rights are reserved. The ORIGINAL PURCHASER is granted a LICENSE to use the software only, subject to the following restrictions and limitations. 1. The license is to the original purchaser only, and is not transferable without prior written permission from Acronis. 2. The original purchaser can use the software on a single computer. You cannot use the software on more than a single machine, even if you own or lease all of them, without the written consent of Acronis. 3. The original purchaser cannot engage in, nor permit third parties to engage in, any of the following: A. Providing or permitting use of by, or transferring the software to, third parties. B. Providing use of the software in a computer service business, network, timesharing or multiple user arrangement to users who are not individually licensed by Acronis. C. Making alterations or copies of any kind in the software (except as specifically permitted above). D. E. F. G. Attempting to unassemble, decompile or reverse-engineer the software in any way. Granting sublicenses, leases, or other rights in the software to others. Making copies, or verbal or media translations, of the users guide. Making telecommunication data transmission of the software. Acronis has the right to terminate this license if there is a violation of its terms or default by the original purchaser. Upon termination for any reason, all copies of the software must be immediately returned to Acronis, and the original purchaser shall be liable to Acronis for any and all damages suffered as a result of the violation or default. ENTIRE RISK THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE IS WITH YOU THE PURCHASER. Acronis DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE SOFTWARE OR ITS FUNCTIONS WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS OR THAT THE OPERATION OF THE SOFTWARE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE OR THAT ANY DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED. NO LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES IN NO EVENT SHALL Acronis OR ITS VENDORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR THE LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION, OR ANY OTHER PECUNIARY LOSS) ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE, EVEN IF Acronis HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. SOFTWARE USAGE TERMS AND CONDITIONS Under current legislation, the «License Agreement» is considered a contract between you and Acronis Inc. The contract is a legal document and its violation may result in legal action. Illegal use and/or distribution of this software will be prosecuted. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 3 Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction...........................................................................................7 1.1 What is Acronis True Image Home? .................................................................................... 7 1.2 New in Acronis True Image 9.0 Home................................................................................. 7 1.4 System requirements and supported media ......................................................................... 8 1.5 Technical support.............................................................................................................. 9 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 1.4.1 1.4.2 1.4.3 1.4.4 Minimum system requirements .................................................................................... 8 Supported operating systems....................................................................................... 8 Supported file systems ................................................................................................ 8 Supported storage media ............................................................................................ 8 Chapter 2. Acronis True Image Home installation and starting ...........................10 Installing Acronis True Image Home ................................................................................. 10 Extracting Acronis True Image Home ................................................................................ 11 Running Acronis True Image Home .................................................................................. 11 Upgrading Acronis True Image Home .............................................................................. 11 Removing Acronis True Image Home ................................................................................ 11 The difference between file archives and disk/partition images ........................................... 12 Full, incremental and differential backups.......................................................................... 12 Acronis Secure Zone........................................................................................................ 13 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager ................................................................................... 14 Chapter 3. General information and proprietary Acronis technologies ................12 3.5 Acronis Snap Restore....................................................................................................... 14 3.6 Viewing disk and partition information .............................................................................. 15 3.4.1 How it works ............................................................................................................ 14 3.4.2 How to use .............................................................................................................. 14 3.5.1 How it works ............................................................................................................ 14 3.5.2 How to use .............................................................................................................. 15 Chapter 4. Using Acronis True Image Home .........................................................17 4.1 Main program window ..................................................................................................... 17 4.2 Available operations ........................................................................................................ 18 Chapter 5. Creating backup archives ....................................................................20 5.1 Backing up files and folders (file backup) .......................................................................... 20 5.2 Backing up disks and partitions (image backup)................................................................. 24 5.3 Setting backup options .................................................................................................... 25 5.3.1 5.3.2 5.3.3 5.3.4 5.3.5 5.3.6 5.3.7 5.3.8 5.3.9 Archive protection..................................................................................................... 26 Source files exclusion ................................................................................................ 26 Pre/post commands .................................................................................................. 26 Compression level..................................................................................................... 27 Backup priority ......................................................................................................... 27 Archive splitting........................................................................................................ 27 File-level security settings.......................................................................................... 28 Media components.................................................................................................... 28 Additional settings .................................................................................................... 29 Chapter 6. Restoring the backup data ..................................................................30 6.1 Restore under Windows or boot from CD?......................................................................... 30 6.2 Restoring files and folders from file archives...................................................................... 30 6.3 Restoring disks/partitions or files from images ................................................................... 33 6.1.1 Network settings in rescue mode ............................................................................... 30 6.3.1 Starting the Restore Data Wizard ............................................................................... 33 6.3.2 Archive selection....................................................................................................... 34 6.3.3 Restoration type selection ......................................................................................... 34 4 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 6.4 Setting restore options .................................................................................................... 39 6.3.4 Selecting a disk/partition to restore ............................................................................ 36 6.3.5 Selecting a target disk/partition.................................................................................. 36 6.3.6 Changing the restored partition type .......................................................................... 37 6.3.7 Changing the restored partition file system ................................................................. 38 6.3.8 Changing the restored partition size and location......................................................... 38 6.3.9 Assigning a letter to the restored partition .................................................................. 39 6.3.10 Restoring several disks or partitions at once .............................................................. 39 6.3.11 Setting restore options ............................................................................................ 39 6.3.12 Restoration summary and executing restoration ........................................................ 39 6.4.1 6.4.2 6.4.3 6.4.4 6.4.5 Files overwriting mode .............................................................................................. 40 Pre/post commands .................................................................................................. 40 Restoration priority ................................................................................................... 40 File-level security settings.......................................................................................... 41 Additional settings .................................................................................................... 41 Chapter 7. Scheduling tasks ..................................................................................42 7.1 Creating scheduled tasks ................................................................................................. 42 7.2 Managing scheduled tasks ............................................................................................... 46 7.1.1 7.1.2 7.1.3 7.1.4 Setting up daily execution ......................................................................................... 43 Setting up weekly execution ...................................................................................... 44 Setting up monthly execution..................................................................................... 45 Setting up one-time execution ................................................................................... 45 Chapter 8. Managing Acronis Secure Zone ...........................................................47 8.1 Creating Acronis Secure Zone........................................................................................... 47 8.2 Resizing Acronis Secure Zone ........................................................................................... 48 8.3 Deleting Acronis Secure Zone........................................................................................... 49 Chapter 9. Creating bootable media .....................................................................50 Chapter 10. Other operations................................................................................52 10.1 Validating backup archives ............................................................................................. 52 10.2 Viewing logs ................................................................................................................. 52 10.3 Managing System Restore .............................................................................................. 53 Chapter 11. Mounting an image as a virtual drive ................................................55 11.1 Mounting an image........................................................................................................ 55 11.2 Unmounting an image ................................................................................................... 57 Chapter 12. Transferring the system to a new disk ..............................................58 12.1 General information....................................................................................................... 58 12.2 Security........................................................................................................................ 58 12.3 Executing transfers........................................................................................................ 59 12.4 Cloning with manual partitioning..................................................................................... 65 12.3.1 Selecting Clone mode .............................................................................................. 59 12.3.2 Selecting source disk............................................................................................... 59 12.3.3 Selecting destination disk ........................................................................................ 60 12.3.4 Partitioned destination disk ...................................................................................... 61 12.3.5 Old and new disk partition layout ............................................................................. 61 12.3.6 Old disk data .......................................................................................................... 61 12.3.7 Destroying the old disk data..................................................................................... 62 12.3.8 Selecting partition transfer method........................................................................... 63 12.3.9 Partitioning the old disk ........................................................................................... 64 12.3.10 Old and new disk partition layouts .......................................................................... 64 12.3.11 Cloning summary .................................................................................................. 65 12.4.1 Old and new disk partition layouts............................................................................ 65 Chapter 13. Adding a new hard disk .....................................................................67 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 5 13.1 Selecting a hard disk ..................................................................................................... 67 13.2 Creating new partitions .................................................................................................. 67 13.3 Disk add summary......................................................................................................... 68 Appendix A. Partitions and file systems................................................................69 A.1 A.2 A.2.1 A.2.2 A.2.3 A.2.4 A.2.5 A.2.6 Hard disk partitions.................................................................................................... 69 File systems .............................................................................................................. 69 FAT16............................................................................................................... 69 FAT32............................................................................................................... 70 NTFS ................................................................................................................ 70 Linux Ext2......................................................................................................... 70 Linux Ext3......................................................................................................... 70 Linux ReiserFS................................................................................................... 71 Appendix B. Hard disks and BIOS setup ...............................................................72 B.1 B.2 B.1.1 B.1.2 B.1.3 B.2.1 B.2.2 B.2.3 B.2.4 B.2.5 Installing hard disks in computers ............................................................................... 72 BIOS ........................................................................................................................ 74 Installing a hard disk, general scheme ................................................................. 72 Motherboard sockets, IDE cable, power cable....................................................... 72 Installation modes, jumpers................................................................................ 73 Setup utility....................................................................................................... 74 Standard CMOS setup menu ............................................................................... 75 Arranging boot sequence, advanced CMOS setup menu ........................................ 76 AwardBIOS ....................................................................................................... 77 Hard disk initialization errors............................................................................... 80 6 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 Chapter 1. Introduction 1.1 What is Acronis True Image Home? Acronis True Image Home solves all backup problems, ensuring the safety of all information on your PC. Using it, you can back up selected files and folders, or entire disks and partitions. If failures occur that block access to information or affect system operation, or if you accidentally delete necessary files, you'll be able to easily restore the system and lost data. The unique technology developed by Acronis and implemented in Acronis True Image Home allows you to create exact, sector-by-sector disk backups, including all operating systems, applications and configuration files, software updates, personal settings and all of your data. You can store backups on almost any PC storage device: local hard drives, network drives or a variety of IDE, SCSI, FireWire (IEEE-1394), USB (1.0, 1.1 and 2.0) and PC Card (formerly called PCMCIA) removable media drives, as well as CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, magneto-optical, Iomega Zip and Jaz drives. If you are going to install a new hard disk drive, Acronis True Image Home will help you transfer information from the old one in minutes, including operating systems, applications, documents and personal settings. Wizards and a user-friendly, Windows XP-styled interface will make your work more convenient. Just answer a few simple questions and let Acronis True Image Home take care of everything else! When a system problem occurs, the software will get you up and running in short order. 1.2 New in Acronis True Image 9.0 Home · · · Support for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Direct backup to DVD and bootable DVD creation User-editable default restore options ­ Users can configure and save restore parameters, such as files overwriting mode, the original or current date and time for restored files etc. File-level security settings - preserving files' security settings in the archive, storing encrypted files in encrypted or decrypted state Read-write mode of mounting images Including MBR in partition images, an option to restore MBR from a disk or partition image Bootable backup media ­ When backing up to removable media, users can make this media bootable in the same manner as a rescue CD, so separate recover media is not required One bootable media for all Acronis products - Writing standalone versions of other Acronis products to bootable media Bootable disks ISOs ­ In addition to burning a bootable rescue disk, users can save its ISO image for burning later · · · · · · Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 7 1.4 System requirements and supported media 1.4.1 Minimum system requirements Acronis True Image Home requires the following hardware: · · · · Pentium processor or higher 128 MB RAM FDD or CD-RW drive for bootable media creation Mouse (recommended). 1.4.2 Supported operating systems · · · · · · Windows® 98 SE Windows® Me Windows® NT 4.0 Workstation SP 6 Windows® 2000 Professional SP 4 Windows® XP SP 2 Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Acronis True Image Home also enables creating a bootable diskette or CD-R/W that can back-up and restore a disk/partition on a computer running any PC-based operating system including Linux®. 1.4.3 Supported file systems · · · · · FAT16/32 NTFS Ext2/Ext3 ReiserFS Linux SWAP If a file system is not supported or is corrupted, Acronis True Image Home can copy data using a sector-by-sector approach. 1.4.4 Supported storage media · · · · · Hard disk drives Networked storage devices CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R (including double-layer DVD+R), DVD+RW, DVD-RAM* USB 1.0 / 2.0, FireWire (IEEE-1394) and PC card storage devices Floppy disks, ZIP®, Jaz® and other removable media * - DVD burning is not supported in Windows 98/Me, burned DVDs cannot be read in Windows 98/Me. Burned write-once discs cannot be read in Windows NT 4 without thirdparty software. Burned rewritable discs cannot be read in Linux without kernel patch. 8 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 1.5 Technical support Users of legally purchased copies of Acronis True Image Home are entitled to free technical support from Acronis. If you experience problems installing or using Acronis products that you can't solve yourself by using this guide, then please contact Acronis Technical Support. More information about contacting Acronis Technical Support is available at the following link: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/ Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 9 Chapter 2. Acronis True Image Home installation and starting 2.1 Installing Acronis True Image Home To install Acronis True Image Home: · · · run the Acronis True Image Home setup file in the Install Menu, select the program to install: Acronis True Image Home follow the Install Wizard instructions on the screen. Typical, Custom and Complete installation is available. Having pressed Custom, you can choose to install, besides Acronis True Image Home, Rescue Media Builder and Bart PE plug-in. With Rescue Media Builder you can create bootable rescue disks (see details in Chapter 9. Creating bootable media). You might not need this tool if you purchased a boxed product that contains a bootable CD. Installing the Bootable Rescue Media Builder will allow you to create bootable media or its ISO image at any time from the main program window or running Bootable Rescue Media Builder on its own. The well-known Bart PE utility is used to boot into a Windows-like environment from CD. Applications are installed into Bart PE in the form of plug-ins. Choosing Bart PE plug-in installation (disabled by default) provides the ability to include Acronis True Image Home into a Bart PE plug-in tab. The plug-in files will be placed to the installation folder along with other program files. When installed, Acronis True Image Home creates a new device in the Device Manager list (Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager -> Acronis Devices -> Acronis TrueImage Backup Archive Explorer). Do not disable or uninstall this device, as it is necessary for connecting image archives as virtual disks (see Chapter 11. Mounting an image as a virtual drive). 10 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 2.2 Extracting Acronis True Image Home When installing Acronis True Image Home, you can save the setup (.msi) file on a local or network drive. This will help when modifying or recovering the existing component installation. To save a setup file: · · · run the Acronis True Image Home setup file; in the Install Menu, right-click on the program name and select Extract; select a location for the setup file and click Save. 2.3 Running Acronis True Image Home You can run Acronis True Image Home in Windows by selecting Start -> Programs -> Acronis -> Acronis True Image Home -> Acronis True Image Home or clicking on the appropriate shortcut on the desktop. If your operating system does not load for some reason, you can run Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. However, this must be activated prior to use; see 3.4 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager to learn more about this procedure. To run the program, press F11 during the computer bootup, when you see a corresponding message that tells you to press that key. Acronis True Image Home will be run in the standalone mode, allowing you to recover the damaged partitions. If your disk data is totally corrupted and you cannot boot (or if you have not activated Acronis Startup Recovery Manager), load the standalone Acronis True Image Home version from the bootable media, supplied with the retail box or created by you using Rescue Media Builder. Then you will be able to restore the disk from its previously created image. 2.4 Upgrading Acronis True Image Home If you already have Acronis True Image Home installed, the new version will simply update it; there is no need to remove the old version and reinstall the software. 2.5 Removing Acronis True Image Home Select Start -> Settings -> Control panel -> Add or remove programs -> -> Remove. Then follow instructions on the screen. You may have to reboot your computer afterwards to complete the task. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 11 Chapter 3. General information proprietary Acronis technologies 3.1 The difference between file archives and disk/partition images and A backup archive is a file or a group of files (also called in this Guide "backups"), that contains a copy of selected files/folders data or a copy of all information stored on selected disks/partitions. When you back up files and folders, only the data, along with the folder tree, are compressed and stored. Backing up disks and partitions is performed in a different way: Acronis True Image Home stores a sector-by-sector snapshot of the disk, which includes the operating system, registry, drivers, software applications and data files, as well as system areas hidden from the user. This procedure is called "creating a disk image," and the resulting backup archive is often called a disk/partition image. Acronis True Image Home stores only those hard disk parts that contain data (for supported file systems). Further, it does not back up swap file information (win386.swp under Windows 98/Me and pagefile.sys under Windows NT/2000/XP) and hiberfil.sys (a file that keeps RAM contents when the computer goes into hibernation). This reduces image size and speeds up image creation and restoration. A partition image includes all files and folders independent of their attributes (including hidden and system files), boot record, FAT (file allocation table), root and the zero track of the hard disk with master boot record (MBR). A disk image includes images of all disk partitions as well as the zero track with master boot record (MBR). By default, files in all Acronis True Image Home archives have a ".tib" extension. It is important to note that you can restore files and folders not only from file archives, but from disk/partition images, too. To do so, mount the image as a virtual disk (see Chapter 11. Mounting an image as a virtual drive) or start the image restoration and select Restore specified files or folders. 3.2 Full, incremental and differential backups Acronis True Image Home can create full, incremental and differential backups. A full backup contains all data at the moment of backup creation. It forms a base for further incremental or differential backup or is used as a standalone archive. A full backup has the shortest restore time as compared to incremental or differential ones. An incremental backup file only contains data changed since the last full or incremental backup creation. Therefore, it is smaller and takes less time to create. But as it doesn't contain all data, all the previous incremental backups and the initial full backup are required for restoration. Unlike incremental backup, when every backup procedure creates the next file in a "chain," a differential backup creates an independent file, containing all changes against the initial full archive. Generally, a differential backup will be restored faster than an incremental one, as it does not have to process through a long chain of previous backups. 12 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 A standalone full backup may be an optimal solution if you often roll back the system to the initial state (like in a gaming club or Internet café, to undo changes made by the guests). In this case, you need not re-create the initial full image, so the backup time is not crucial, and the restore time will be minimal. Alternatively, if you are interested in saving only the last data state to be able to restore it in case of system failure, consider the differential backup. It is particularly effective if your data changes tend to be little as compared to the full data volume. The same is true for incremental backup. In addition, it is most useful when you need frequent backups and possibility to roll back to any of stored states. Having created a full backup once, if you then create an incremental backup each day of a month, you will get the same result as if you created full backups every day. However, the cost in time and disk space (or removable media usage) will be as little as one tenth as much. It is important to note that the above arguments are nothing but examples for your information. Feel free to make up your own backup policy in accordance with your specific tasks and conditions. Acronis True Image Home is flexible enough to meet any real-life demands. An incremental or differential backup created after a disk is defragmented might be considerably larger than usual. This is because the defragmentation program changes file locations on disk and the backups reflect these changes. Therefore, it is recommended that you re-create a full backup after disk defragmentation. 3.3 Acronis Secure Zone The Acronis Secure Zone is a special hidden partition for storing archives on the computer system itself. For archive security purposes, ordinary applications cannot access it. In the Acronis True Image Home Wizards' windows the zone is listed along with all partitions available for storing archives. Acronis Secure Zone is necessary for using Acronis Startup Recovery Manager and Acronis Snap Restore features (see below). Acronis Secure Zone is always available for archive creation as long as there is space for the backup file. If there is not enough space, older archives will be deleted to create space. Acronis True Image Home uses the following scheme to clean up Acronis Secure Zone: · · If there is not enough free space in the zone to create a backup, the program deletes the oldest full backup with all subsequent incremental/differential backups. If there is only one full backup (with subsequent incremental/differential backups) left and a full backup is in progress, then the old full backup and incremental/differential backups are deleted. Otherwise, (only one full backup left, and an incremental/differential backup is in progress) you will get a message about space error. In that case you will have to either re-create the full backup or increase Acronis Secure Zone. · Thus, you can back up data automatically on a schedule (see Chapter 7. Scheduling tasks), and not worry about zone overflow issues. However, if you keep long chains of incremental backups, it will be a good practice to periodically check the zone free space, indicated on the second page of the Manage Acronis Secure Zone wizard. For information on how to create, resize or delete Acronis Secure Zone using this wizard, see in Chapter 8. Managing Acronis Secure Zone. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 13 3.4 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager 3.4.1 How it works The Acronis Startup Recovery Manager enables starting Acronis True Image Home without loading the operating system. With this feature, if the operating system won't load for some reason, you can run Acronis True Image Home by itself to restore damaged partitions. As opposed to booting from Acronis removable media, you will not need a separate media or network connection to start Acronis True Image Home. 3.4.2 How to use To be able to use Acronis Startup Recovery Manager at boot time, prepare as follows: 1. Install Acronis True Image Home. 2. Create Acronis Secure Zone on the hard disk (see Chapter 8. Managing Acronis Secure Zone). 3. Activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. To do so, click Activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager and follow the Wizard's instructions. If you try to activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager while Acronis Secure Zone is missing from the system, you will be prompted to create the zone, then Acronis Startup Recovery Manager will be activated. Otherwise, Acronis Startup Recovery Manager will be activated immediately. When Acronis Startup Recovery Manager is activated, it overwrites the master boot record (MBR) with its own boot code. If you have any third-party boot managers installed, you will have to reactivate them after activating the Startup Recovery Manager. For Linux loaders (e.g. LiLo and GRUB), you might consider installing them to a Linux root (or boot) partition boot record instead of MBR before activating Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. If failure occurs, turn on the computer and press F11 when you see the "Press F11 for Acronis Startup Recovery Manager" message. This will run a standalone version of Acronis True Image Home that only slightly differs from the complete version. For information on restoring damaged partitions, see Chapter 6. Restoring the backup data. Be careful! Disk letters in standalone Acronis True Image Home might sometimes differ from the way Windows identifies drives. For example, the D: drive identified in the standalone Acronis True Image might correspond to the E: drive in Windows. 3.5 Acronis Snap Restore With this feature you can boot the OS on a crashed computer before the system is completely restored from an image, and start work seconds after the restoration is launched. The restoration will be continued in the background. This feature is currently available for images being restored from the Acronis Secure Zone (see above). Naturally, Acronis Snap Restore cannot be used if the image contains no operating system (a logical partition or disk image) or when restoring file archives. Also, Snap Restore of Windows 98/Me systems is not supported. 3.5.1 How it works When the restoration procedure is started, Acronis True Image Home: 1. Finds the sectors in the image which contain system files, and restores these sectors first. Thus, the OS is restored and can be started in a very short timeframe. Having started the 14 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 OS, the user sees the folder tree with files, though file contents still is not recovered. Nevertheless, the user can start working. 2. Writes on the hard disk its own drivers, which intercept system queries to the files. When the user opens files or launches applications, the drivers receive the system queries and restore the sectors that are necessary for the current operation. 3. At the same time, Acronis True Image Home proceeds with the complete sector-by-sector image restoration in the background. However, the system requested sectors have the highest priority. Finally, the image will be fully restored even if the user performs no actions at all. But if you choose to start working as soon as possible after the system failure, you will gain at least several minutes, considering that restoration of a 10-20 GB image (most common image size) takes about 10 minutes. The larger the image size, the more time you save. 3.5.2 How to use To be able to use Acronis Snap Restore in case of system crash, prepare as follows: 1. Install Acronis True Image Home. 2. Create Acronis Secure Zone on the hard disk (see Chapter 8. Managing Acronis Secure Zone). 3. Activate Acronis Startup Recovery manager (see 3.4 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager) and create bootable media with Acronis True Image Home (see Chapter 9. Creating bootable media). 4. Back up (image) the system disk to Acronis Secure Zone (see 5.2 Backing up disks and partitions (image backup)). You can back up other disks/partitions as well, but the system image is mandatory. When performing Snap Restore, the current Acronis True Image Home version always restores the entire system disk. Therefore, if your system disk consists of several partitions, all of them must be included into the image. Any partitions which are missing from the image will be lost. If failure occurs, boot the computer from the bootable media or using F11. Start the recovery procedure (see 6.3 Restoring disks/partitions or files from images), select the system disk image from Acronis Secure Zone, choose Use Snap Restore and in the next window click Proceed. In a few seconds the computer will reboot to the restored system. Log in and start work ­ no more reboots or other actions are required. You can perform Snap Restore running Acronis True Image Home in supported Windows operating systems as well. However, it is mandatory to have bootable media in case Windows cannot boot. 3.6 Viewing disk and partition information You can change the way of data representation in all schemes you see in various wizards. To the right are three icons: Arrange Icons by, Choose Details and i (Display the properties of the selected item), the last duplicated in the context menu invoked by right-clicking objects. To sort messages by a particular column, click the header (another click will switch the messages to the opposite order) or Arrange Icons by button and select the column. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 15 To select columns to view, right-click the headers line or left-click the Choose Details button. Then flag the columns you want to display. If you click the i (Display the properties of the selected item) button, you will see the selected partition or disk properties window. This window contains two panels. The left panel contains the properties tree and the right describes the selected property in detail. The disk information includes its physical parameters (connection type, device type, size, etc.); partition information includes both physical (sectors, location, etc.), and logical (file system, free space, assigned letter, etc.) parameters. You can change the width of a column by dragging its borders with the mouse. 16 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 Chapter 4. Using Acronis True Image Home 4.1 Main program window The main program window contains the menu, the toolbar, the sidebar, the Active Tasks pane and the main area. The main area contains operation icons, while the sidebar features Tools and Help panels. Most of the operations are represented two or even three times in different window areas, providing several ways to select them for more convenience. For example, you can start the necessary operation or tool by clicking its icon in the main area or by selecting the same item from the Operations or Tools menu. The main window contains operation icons divided into two groups. The Task group contains the following operations: · · · · Backup ­ create a backup archive Recovery ­ restore data from a previously created archive Clone Disk ­ transfer the OS, applications and data from the old disk to the new one Add New Disk ­ add a new disk for data storage leaving the OS and applications on the old one. Mount Image ­ connect a disk/partition image as a virtual drive Unmount Image ­ disconnect the connected virtual drive Validate Backup Archive ­ run the archive integrity checking procedure Show Log ­ open the Log Viewer window Manage Acronis Secure Zone ­ create, delete and resize a special hidden partition for storing archives (Acronis Secure Zone) Activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager ­ activate the boot restoration manager (F11 key). The Tools group contains the following items: · · · · · · Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 17 · Manage System Restore ­ turn on/off Microsoft Windows System Restore tool and set its options directly from Acronis True Image Home Program menu The program menu bar features the Operations, View, Tools and Help items. The Operations menu contains a list of the available operations, including scheduling tasks. The View menu contains items for managing the program window look: · · · · · · · · · · Toolbars ­ contains commands that control toolbar icons Common Task Bar ­ enables/disables the sidebar Status Bar ­ enables/disables the status bar Active tasks ­ enables/disables the Active Tasks pane at the bottom of the main area. Manage Acronis Secure Zone ­ create, delete and resize a special hidden partition for storing archives (Acronis Secure Zone) Activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager ­ activate the boot restoration manager (F11 key) Validate Backup Archive ­ run the archive integrity checking procedure Create Bootable Rescue Media ­ run the bootable media creation procedure Show Log ­ open the Log Viewer window Options ­ open a window for editing default backup/restore options, setting text appearance (fonts), configuring email/Winpopup notifications etc. The Tools menu contains the following items: The Help menu is used to invoke help and obtain information about Acronis True Image Home. Active Tasks pane The Active Tasks pane displays the scheduled and currently-being-executed tasks. It features its own toolbar. You can customize this toolbar view by right-clicking on it and selecting the desired options. Status bar At the bottom of the main window, there is a status bar divided into two parts. The left side briefly describes the selected operation; the right side indicates operation progress and results. If you double-click on the operation results, you will see the logs window. Taskbar notification area icon During most of the operations, a special indicator icon appears in the Windows taskbar notification area (the right portion of the status bar with the clock). If you mouse over the icon, you will see a tool tip indicating the operation's progress. This icon doesn't depend on the main program window being open. It is present for background execution of scheduled tasks as well. 4.2 Available operations You can perform the following operations on the computer. · Backup and restore data, including system disks/partitions 18 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 Click Backup or Recovery, then follow the Wizard's instructions. See details in Chapter 5. Creating backup archives and Chapter 6. Restoring the backup data. · Schedule backup operations Click the very left button on a tasks pane toolbar, then follow the Wizard's instructions. See details in Chapter 7. Scheduling tasks. · Set up backup/restore options, such as backup process priority or files overwriting mode. Select Tools -> Options -> Default backup options or Default restoration options and make settings. See details in 5.3 Setting backup options and 6.4 Setting restore options. · Validate backup archives wherever they reside, be it local, network or removable media Validating backup archives. · Click Validate Backup Archive, then follow the Wizard's instructions. See details in 10.1 Browse logs of Acronis True Image Home operation Click the very right button on a tasks pane toolbar at the bottom of the window. See details in 10.2 Viewing logs. · Manage Acronis Secure Zone Click Manage Acronis Secure Zone, then follow the Wizard's instructions. See details in Chapter 8. Managing Acronis Secure Zone. · Activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager Click Activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager, then follow the Wizard's instructions. See details in 3.4 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. · Mount partitions' images to explore and modify their contents, or to restore individual files Click Mount image, then follow the Wizard's instructions. See details in Chapter 11. Mounting an image as a virtual drive. · Unmount previously mounted partition images Unmounting an image. · · · · Click Unmount image, then follow the Wizard's instructions. See details in 11.2 Transfer the system to a new hard disk Format partitions on a new hard disk Turn on/off Windows System Restore tool Create bootable rescue media or its ISO image See Chapter 12. Transferring the system to a new disk. See Chapter 13. Adding a new hard disk. See 10.3 Managing System Restore. See Chapter 9. Creating bootable media. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006 19 Chapter 5. Creating backup archives To be able to restore the lost data or roll back your system to a predetermined state, you should first create a data or entire-system backup file. If you are not concerned about restoration of your operating system along with all settings and applications, but plan to keep safe only certain data (the current project, for example), choose file/folder backup. This will reduce the archive size, thus saving disk space and possibly reducing removable media costs. Backing up the entire system disk (creating a disk image) takes more disk space but enables you to restore the system in minutes in case of severe data damage or hardware failure. Moreover, the imaging procedure is much faster than copying files, and may significantly speed the backup process when it comes to backing up large volumes of data (see details in 3.1 The difference between file archives and disk/partition images). 5.1 Backing up files and folders (file backup) 1. Invoke the Create Backup Wizard by clicking on the backup operation icon in the main program window. 2. Click Next. 3. Select Backup files and click Next. 4. From the tree pane, select files and folders to back up. You can select a random set of files, folders, partitions, disks and even computers. If you select a partition, disk or computer, and archive all its files, including system and hidden files, the bare-metal restore of that disk (partition, computer) still will not be possible. You also may not be able to boot the restored operating system. Therefore, it is recommended that you select only files and folders containing user data. To back up a disk or partition, use image backup. 5. Click Next. 20 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006