How Can I Partition My HDD Before I Install Acronis True Image Home 2010?

[highbids]

I've got Windows XP Pro SP 3 with a new XP install on it.

I'd like to partition my WD 120MB HD before I install
Acronis True Image Home 2010

Can I do this with out any problems later on with true image
if so whats the best way to do it & the software I need & should
I make NTFS or fat32 for a format.

 

[hughva]

Why do you want to do this?

Free Hard Disk and Partition Imaging and Backup Software
http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/backupandimage.shtml

 

[Flannelwarrior]

Download gparted
Burn the .iso onto CD
select boot from CD in BIOS
Boot from CD and use the utility to partition

 

[highbids]

I want to partition it to store incremental backups that Acronis True Image Home 2010
will be making.

Right now I have xp on a 120MB WD HD & was told to install Acronis first & then
partition the HD after I burn a image rescue disk.

After the first rescue disk is created with the image I plan on using the new partition
to add incremental backups from time to time.

 

[LookinAround]

I want to partition it to store incremental backups that Acronis True Image Home 2010 will be making.

Oh no! That would be a mistake! And nothing to do with Acronis but you need to store your backups on physically separate backup media (like a physically different HD). Otherwise, if your one HD crashes (is physically damaged) you can lose your system AND all the stuff you;ve backed up!

 

[highbids]

Your right about that I've got a extra hard drive & I think I should install it
and make it a slave drive & store the increamential backups there.

Can I do this with Acronis True Image Home 2010 should I first make a bootable
cd rescue disk & & then can I make another image like what's on the cd rescue
disk but put it on the slave drive & just make incremential backups.

 

[LookinAround]

<snip>can I make another image like what's on the cd rescue
disk but put it on the slave drive & just make incremential backups

Understand, the rescue CD is just a bootable version of the Acronis True Image program. So if your computer can't boot into windows you can instead boot from CD. So not sure why you'd want/need a copy of the CD image on a hard drive

So also understand the rescue CD just provides you bootable software (i.e. Acronis True Image). It makes no difference how your drives are partitioned at the time you create your rescue CD

 

[highbids]

So it's basicly just copy of my windows running on my cd-rom.

I'm installing a second hard drive instead of partitioning the master
one.

Is there anyway to make incremential backups of my system from time
to time & if there's a problem windows will be completly installed to
that date instead of it just running off the cd-rom.

 

[LookinAround]

So it's basicly just copy of my windows running on my cd-rom

No. It's actually just the program Acronis True Image designed to boot from CD and run by itself (i.e. it doesn't need or use Windows to run by itself when booted from CD)

Is there anyway to make incremential backups of my system from time
to time & if there's a problem windows will be completly installed to
that date instead of it just running off the cd-rom.

When you run your Acronis backup select to backup My Computer and choose the partitions to backup (which would include your C: partition which includes Windows on that partition). Or you can simply tell Acronis to backup the entire hard drive (which then includes all partition on the disk)

Acronis then backs up everything on each partition as an "image". Meaning if you want to restore, you can simply select the C: partition and restore the C: partition exactly (including Windows) meaning your entire partition is restore exactly as at the time of the backup.

Also incremental backups are "incremental" changes since the last backup. So the first time you do "incremental" Acronis will actually create a full complete backup and then incremental. I think this will all be clearer once you actually run Acronis and you'll see its prompts.

/* edit */

Right now I have xp on a 120MB WD HD & was told to install Acronis first & then
partition the HD after I burn a image rescue disk.

In re-reading your statement above, i'll guess the reason someone suggested creating Acronis rescue CD first was in the off chance that re-partitioning might corrupt the drive. This way you're guaranteed to have the rescue CD already made. That would make sense

 

[highbids]

Thanks for the response it was quit good I'll follow your directions
it sounds the best.

 

[ntoren]

Space required for a mirror image backup?

I am considering using a 2 year old Western Digital external HD, 250 GB size, USB connection, as a place to store mirror image backups from 3 different computers. Any reason not to? HD too old to be repartitioned/reformatted? I plan on using Macrium Reflect software on all three computers (two Vista desktops and one Windows 7 laptop).

Is a mirror image backup around the same size as the data stored on the computer? Might be helpful to know as I determine the size of the partitions.

Many thanks for continued help.

 

[ntoren]

Further question or two:

1. If I'm writing mirror image backups from three computers to one HDD I assume I'd need to partition the drive into three partitions?

2. And every month or so when I want to wipe those out and rewrite the mirror images, what's the best way to "erase" the old ones?

 

[LookinAround]

i've never used Macrium Reflect software but i'll assume it's similar to other products in that you don't need repartition your backup drives. Backup images are simply stored as one or more files in a folder. So you can keep all the different backups on a single partition.

Also, the size of the image is usually smaller the the original disk capacity for two reasons (but again will vary by backup product)
> The backup uses compression to save the data in a smaller space
> Some products (e.g. Acronis True Image but don't know Macrium Reflect) give you the option when creating an image backup
Sector-by-sector backup - backs up every physical sector on your HD. This process is very slow and requires lots of space to image every physical sector on your HD (whether it's currently allocated for use or not)
"Not" sector-by-sector - Will only backup allocated sectors (not unallocated sectors) and won't backup things not required for a restore (e.g. no need to backup your pagefile)

IMHO The sector by sector method is only really required when you worry about HD corruption and whether your disk has data you need on unallocated sectors (e.g. imaging a drive when you fear it might already be faulty)

If you believe your HD is fine and has a good filesystem the smarter, quicker, smaller "not" sector by sector method works quite well

 

[ntoren]

Great advice, thank you.
Further question regarding a new Seagate external HDD I just opened and used: Seagate's backup software appeared to perform fine but the log reports ERROR on 43 files. Most of them are in the APPData folder and I am just wondering if this is something to be concerned about or are those things that I wouldn't need in a restore. FYI, this HDD is being used for "normal" backing up not mirror image copies.