Automatic Recovery

But that was not what i was looking for. i wanted an option more or less what Hp or other branded Pc's use....

For instance we do a clean install and install all the necessary applications like antivirus, MS office, adobe etc then make an image with some imaging software like Snapshot or Norton ghost. The image is placed in another partion.

For an emergency or if v need to do a clean install we cud just recover the image from the drive we had saved it before using some shortcut keys like ALT + F10 or just F11 or by choosing an option from the boot menu before the system searches for an OS.

They have a cadre of programmers that craft this solution. It's not something you buy (or at least I think you would not buy) and I've yet to see an offering under a few million. Such systems are worth it to HP since they can spread the cost over thousands of laptops.

This is something your programming staff should craft.

Bob

through its Recovery Manager (Boot, select F11, restore)

Unlike Other solutions you can actually begin working DURING the restoration.

Oh ! 'n edward, that F11 part sounds good to be tried out. so once i take an image of a partition i can restore it using F11 or any function keys without any CD's, rite ! well if that is what it does then i shud really go for it. I've downloaded the trial version yesterday but cudn't find an option to take the imgage of one partition. It has only cloning of a Drive.

If everything works out well then i could put this into practice.

my last post was more like a quesion. so can it be done like that.

I have not seen that option in TrueImage to just press F11.

I have the full version and I have yet to read much of its Help function or {small} manual.

However the manual does say this;

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. To run the program, press F11 during PC bootup, when you see a corresponding message that tells you to press that key. Acronis True Image 10.0 Home will be run in the standalone mode, allowing you to recover the damaged partitions.

My apologies to CNET for re-producing a whole paragraph here, but I thought it would be easier than searching Acronis' web site or elsewhere for the information.

So, it looks like there should be an F11 function on bootup but I guess I have some more research to do because I haven't seen that. I guess, but I could be wrong, that you would need to bootup from the CD, then press F11 when told to.

I am not convinced this is exactly what you want. It seems to me you want an HP type partition on the hard disk, (Dell does it too), where, if your OS goes wrong, you can just reload it from that partition with very little input from you. The trouble is that you will have to create that partition first, (TrueImage doesn't do that), and then save the TrueImage file to that partition.

TrueImage makes an exact copy of the system and this means that, if your current whole system takes up, (for example), 65GB of hard disk space, then so will the TrueImage copy. So you would need your current hard disk to be less than half full, then divide it into two equal size partitions.

Dividing already in use partitions is risky, eg if you are using drive C:\ for your OS and everything else then you will need to re-partition C:\ into two. You would need specialized software to do that like Partition Magic, and even then you should backup your important personal files in case anything goes wrong.

It then seems to me that, having two partitions on the drive, both with exact copies of your system, in effect produces a dual boot system, (although the recovery partition would not boot without editing the boot.ini file), and I am not sure this is what TrueImage is for.

Please take what I say with a little caution. I am still learning about TrueImage.

Mark

According to what the manual has said, which you have re-produced here, seems there is nothing mentined about booting from a CD. so i feel this is wat i might need. Oh Oh Oh ! I belive Acronis should be installed on the pc to be run during boot or else how's it gonna boot, rite ! I should also get back to the help manuals now.

I'll update this thread when i know more abt it.

Thanks

With andrew from the the technical support. I feel this is something good. But i have yet to try it out. Just when i was browsing for the some tips on Acronis i bumbed into Snapshot, yea the old Drive Snapshot which INDEED is very good. I din really understand the command line commands, welll i do understand 'em but don't see anywhere in the command refering to and any ' .exe ' file. For Eg: C:\> SNAPSHOT C: X:\C-Drive.sna
how is this command gonna perform when there is no .exe file specified. here's the link ->http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/commandline.htm

It seems ok. I'm not sure what you mean about the exe but using the Windows interface as shown here, http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/start.htm it will backup the whole drive whether they are exe's included or not.

But how well it performs or not is something I can't comment on.

Mark