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Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction.........................................................................................10 1.1 What is Acronis® True Image Home? ............................................................................... 10 1.2 New in Acronis True Image Home 2009 ............................................................................ 10 1.3 System requirements and supported media ....................................................................... 12 1.3.1 1.3.2 1.3.
5.4.6 Archive splitting........................................................................................................ 39 5.4.7 File-level security settings.......................................................................................... 40 5.4.8 Media components.................................................................................................... 40 5.4.9 Error handling ..........................................................................................................
11.1 Validating backup archives ............................................................................................. 80 11.2 Operation results notification.......................................................................................... 82 11.2.1 Email notification .................................................................................................... 82 11.2.2 WinPopup notification..............................................................................................
B.1.1 B.1.2 B.1.3 Installing a hard disk, general scheme .................................................................... 126 Motherboard sockets, IDE cable, power cable.......................................................... 126 Configuring hard disk drives, jumpers..................................................................... 127 B.2.1 B.2.2 B.2.3 B.2.4 Setup utility..........................................................................................................
Chapter 1. Introduction 1.1 What is Acronis® True Image Home? Acronis True Image Home is an integrated software suite that ensures security of all information on your PC. It can backup the operating system, applications, settings and all of your data, while also securely destroying any confidential data you no longer need.
offer you to refresh such backups regularly (by default, once every seven days). So you simply need to click Protect and your system will be protected from a disaster. • File search using Google Desktop and Windows Search – If you use one of these search engines, you will be able to search for files through multiple archives by name or by a part of the name and then restore individual files easily and quickly.
1.3 System requirements and supported media 1.3.1 Minimum system requirements Acronis True Image Home requires the following hardware: • Pentium processor or higher • 128 MB RAM • CD-RW/DVD-RW drive for bootable media creation • Mouse or other pointing device (recommended). 1.3.
* Acronis True Image Home does not support dynamic and GPT disks. ** An FTP server must allow passive mode file transfers. Data recovery directly from an FTP server requires the archive to consist of files of no more than 2GB each. It is recommended that you change the source computer firewall settings to open Ports 20 and 21 for both TCP and UDP protocols and disable the Routing and Remote Access Windows service. *** Burned rewritable discs cannot be read in Linux without a kernel patch. 1.
Chapter 2. Acronis True Image Home installation and startup 2.1 Installing Acronis True Image Home 2.1.1 Installing boxed version To install Acronis True Image Home: • Run the Acronis True Image Home setup file. • Before installation, the setup file will check for a newer Acronis True Image Home build on the Acronis website. If available, the newer version will be offered for installation. • In the Install Menu, select the program to install: Acronis True Image Home.
• Click on the download link, save the downloaded executable file to disk and then run it (or choose to run the file after downloading). • If you have purchased the commercial version of the program, enter (or paste) the serial number. Otherwise, the installer will install the trial version, which will remain fully operational for 15 days. Typical, Custom and Complete installation is available. Having pressed Custom, you can choose not to install Rescue Media Builder. 2.
Please keep in mind that the backups created by the later program version may be incompatible with the previous program versions, so if you roll back Acronis True Image Home to an older version, you likely will have to re-create the archives using the older version. We strongly recommend that you create new bootable media after each Acronis True Image Home upgrade. 2.
Chapter 3. General information proprietary Acronis technologies and 3.1 The difference between file archives and disk/partition images A backup archive is a file or a group of files (also called “backups” in this guide), that contains a copy of selected file/folder 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, is compressed and stored.
last full backup. 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. A standalone full backup might be an optimal solution if you often roll back the system to its initial state or if you do not like to manage multiple files. 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.
• If after deleting all the previous backups there is still not enough space for completing the backup, you will get an error message and the backup will be canceled. The program distinguishes only two types of backups in the zone: disk image backups and file-level backups. My Data, System State, My E-mail, and My Application Settings backups are considered as file-level type backups.
True Image Home that differs only slightly from the complete version. For information on restoring damaged partitions, see Chapter 6. Restoring backup data. Be careful! Drive 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 Home might correspond to the E: drive in Windows.
appropriate data destruction method depending on the importance of your confidential information. The File Shredder provides the same capabilities for individual files and folders. Finally, the System Clean-up wizard ensures elimination of all your activity traces; while working with a PC, you leave thousands of bytes of evidence showing your actions (records in various system files) that you don’t even know about.
Chapter 4. Getting to know Acronis True Image Home 4.1 Acronis One-Click Protection Acronis One-Click Protection tool allows you to begin protecting your computer as soon as you install Acronis True Image Home. During the first start of the just installed Acronis True Image Home, the program will offer you to protect your computer by immediately backing up its system volume and Master Boot Record (MBR) as well as scheduling subsequent full backups.
for backup, it will use the Acronis Secure Zone (if Acronis Startup Recovery Manager is activated, the program will update its bootable components). In case the zone is too small for backing up the system partition, the program will move to the next best option. 4) If the first two options are unavailable but you have at least two internal hard drives, the program will back up to a non-system hard drive using a partition with the maximum free space.
When archive storage location is a USB flash drive, the backup will begin automatically when the device is plugged in but only if a scheduled backup has been missed. The USB flash drive must be the same as the one used for all previous backups; if you plug another flash drive, the backup process won’t start. The system will always keep the last backup archive. When a task for another backup begins, the older backup is deleted – freeing space for the backup in progress.
Clicking the items in the right pane takes you to the corresponding wizard or screen where you can either start the selected task or function right away or make further selections. All the features listed in the right pane are duplicated on the left side of the screen occupied by the so called sidebar. The sidebar also provides easy access to all functionality of Acronis True Image Home. The main functions are listed in the lower part of the sidebar.
And now let's get acquainted with some other screens you will use while working with Acronis True Image Home. One of the most important and informative screens is Protection State.
Another useful screen shows logs of program operations and scheduled tasks. A calendar provides quick access to the logs (for past dates) or tasks (for future dates). You just click on a desired date. For more information see 11.3 Viewing Tasks and Logs. We will not bore you with a description of other screens, because many of them are selfexplanatory and some are described in the appropriate chapters of this guide.
Chapter 5. Creating backup archives 5.1 Preparing for your first backup First of all you must decide where you will store your backups. Acronis True Image Home supports quite a lot of storage devices. For more information see 1.3.4 Supported storage media. Since hard disk drives are now quite inexpensive, in most cases purchasing an external hard drive will be an optimal storage device for your backups.
Images, however, provide no defense against damaged files. If your hard disk contains damaged files when you are making an image, those problems will appear in the image as well. For that reason, although we strongly recommend you to create images of your hard disk on a regular basis, that is just part of a reliable backup strategy. You should supplement the images with file archives. Do you need file-level backups? Do you have bank records, e-mails, photos, etc.
My Application Settings (file-level backup of Windows applications settings) File-level backup operations are supported only for the FAT and NTFS file systems. We do not recommend backing up any data from drives protected by BitLocker Drive Encryption feature, because in most cases restoring data from such backups will be impossible. Selecting a backup type starts the Backup Wizard, which will guide you through the steps of creating a backup task.
It is important to note that the program backs up only your settings, and not the application executable files. If an application seems to malfunction or ceases to run, reinstall it using the last updates and then recover your settings from the backup. To select all the supported applications found on the computer for backing up, check the Installed Applications box. For instant messenger applications, the program will back up both the settings and history.
CD/DVD and the Acronis Secure Zone are not supported as locations for zip archives. If you want to append an incremental or differential backup file to an existing archive, select Add to existing backup archive and click the Select button to select the existing archive you are going to update. If the archive already has incremental or differential backups, you can select any of the target archive files. It doesn't matter which one you select, as the program recognizes them as a single archive.
5.3.3 Scheduling By default, the Do not schedule option is chosen so the task will run after completing the wizard and clicking Proceed on the Summary page. However, you may wish to schedule the task being configured by choosing one of the scheduling options. For more information see Chapter 8. Scheduling tasks. 5.3.4 Backup method Select whether you want to create a full, incremental or differential backup.
regardless of the overall limitations you set on the archive at the Automatic consolidation step.
example, C:\Program Files\Common Files\. Note that the path must end with the "\" symbol, otherwise the folder will not be excluded. These filter settings will take effect for the current task. For information on how to set the default filters that will be used each time you select folders to back up, see 5.4.2 Source files exclusion. 5.3.6 Selecting the backup options Select the backup options (that is, backup file-splitting, compression level, password protection, etc.).
5.3.7 Setting automatic consolidation Automatic consolidation of a backup archive is enabled by setting the overall limitations for the archive. These limitations include: • a maximum number of backups • a maximum storage period for the archive files • a maximum archive size By default there are no limits set and automatic consolidation is not performed.
size and creation date are automatically appended to the description, so you do not need to enter this information. 5.3.9 The operation summary and the backup process At the final step, the backup task summary is displayed. Up to this point, you can make changes in the created task by clicking on the desired step and changing the settings.
5.4.2 Source files exclusion By default, the program excludes files with the following extensions from backups: .bak, .~, .tmp, and .tib. You can also set other default filters for file exclusion, for example, you may want hidden and system files and folders not to be stored in the backup archives as well. In addition, you can apply your own filters using the common Windows wildcard characters. For example, to exclude all files with extension .exe, add *.exe mask. My???.exe will exclude all .
5.4.5 Backup performance The three options below might have a more or less noticeable effect on the backup process speed. This depends on overall system configuration and the physical characteristics of the devices. 1. Backup priority The preset is Low. The priority of any process running in a system determines the amount of CPU usage and system resources allocated to that process. Decreasing the backup priority will free more resources for other CPU tasks.
recovery directly from an FTP server requires the archive to be split into files of no more than 2GB). A backup destined for the Acronis Secure Zone cannot be split. Suppose you have a full backup of your PC on an external hard disk, but want to make one more backup copy of the system to keep it in a different location from the first one for added security. However, you do not have one more external hard disk, and a USB stick would not accommodate such a large backup.
When backing up to removable media, you can make this media bootable and will not need a separate rescue disk. The Acronis One-Click Restore is a minimal addition to your rescue media, allowing oneclick data recovery from an image archive stored on this media. This means that when booting from the media and clicking “restore,” all data will be restored to its original place automatically. No options or selections such as resizing partitions will be available.
advisable to select the When not enough space in ASZ delete the oldest archive box when planning unattended scheduled backups to the Acronis Secure Zone. 5.4.10 Additional settings 1. Validate backup archive when it is created The preset is disabled. When enabled, the program will check the integrity of the just created or supplemented archive immediately after backup.
After you make the backup reserve copy settings, Acronis True Image Home will create reserve copies each time you select the My Data backup type. If a reserve copy could not be made due to expiration of free space in the selected location or due to disconnection of the selected storage device (e.g. a USB stick), the program will write an error message to the event log. 5.4.
5.5 Making reserve copies of your backups When you choose the My Data backup type for backing up selected files and folders, you can create reserve copies of your backups and save them on the file system, a network drive, or a USB stick. In addition to enhancing the archive security with replication, this feature allows you to copy a set of documents, for example, to a USB stick for working on them at home.
3. Finish configuring your backup task as usual. 4. Click Proceed in the Summary window and do not forget to take the USB stick home. Please, be aware that built-in support of zip files in Windows does not cover operations with multivolume zip archives, and zip archives exceeding 4GB in size or which contain files of more than 4GB each. Also remember that CD/DVDs are not supported as locations for reserve copies created as zip archives and flat files. 5.
disk space but if this was impossible, you were forced to find some other location for the backup and start it anew wasting a lot of time as a result. 5.6.
To complete the backup, you may either try to free some space on the disk and click Retry or select another storage device. To choose the latter option, click Browse in the information window. The Browse for Location window appears. The left pane shows the storage locations available on your computer. After you select a disk in the left pane, the program shows the free space on that disk in the right pane.
After a while you chose to upgrade to Windows Vista. To be on the safe side, you made an incremental backup before the upgrade and named it "DiskCBeforeUpgrading". Upon upgrading you made sure that the new system and all your applications operate normally and made one more incremental backup naming it "DiskCWindowsVista". After working under Windows Vista for some time you decided that you would like to try Linux as well.
As was already mentioned, you can save full and incremental or differential backups to different locations. For example, you can save the initial full backup to an external USB hard drive, and then burn the subsequent incremental backups (or differential backups that are an even better choice) to CDs or DVDs. It is also possible to save such backups to a network share.
Chapter 6. Restoring backup data 6.1 Restore under Windows or boot from CD? As mentioned above (see 2.3 Running Acronis True Image Home), Acronis True Image Home can be used in several ways. We recommend that you first try to restore data using Acronis True Image Home under Windows, because this provides more functionality. Boot from the bootable media or use the Startup Recovery Manager (see 3.4 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager) only if Windows does not start up.
If the archive is located on removable media, e.g. CD, insert the last disk in the series first and then insert disks in reverse order when the Restore Wizard prompts you. Data recovery directly from an FTP server requires the archive to consist of files of no more than 2GB. If you suspect that some of the files are larger, first copy the entire archive (along with the initial full backup) to a local hard disk or a network share disk. See notes and recommendations for supporting FTP servers in 1.3.
At the Destination step select a new location on the directory tree. You can create a new folder for the files to be restored by clicking Create new folder. 5. Select files and folders to restore. You can choose to restore all data or browse the archive contents and select the desired folders or files. 6. The next step allows you to keep useful data changes made since the selected backup was created. Choose what to do if the program finds a file with the same name as in the archive, in the target folder.
Selecting the Overwrite existing files checkbox will give the archived files unconditional priority over the files on the hard disk, though, by default, the system, hidden files and folders, as well as more recent files and folders are preserved from overwriting. If you want to overwrite those files and folders too, unselect the appropriate checkboxes. In addition, you can preserve from overwriting the files that meet the criteria you specify in this window. 7.
8. At the final step, the restoration summary is displayed. Up to this point, you can make changes in the created task by choosing the step you want to change and by editing its settings. Clicking Proceed will launch the task execution. 9. The task progress will be shown in a special window. You can stop the procedure by clicking Cancel. Please keep in mind that the aborted procedure may still cause changes in the destination folder. 6.
recommendations for supporting FTP servers in 1.3.4 Supported storage media. When restoring a backup of Windows Vista system disk containing restore points, some of your restore points (or all of them) may be missing if you boot from the restored system disk and open the System Restore tool. If the archive was protected with a password, Acronis True Image Home will ask for it. The partitions layout and the Next button will be unavailable until you enter the correct password. 2.
You can restore files from disk/partition images only if they have the FAT or NTFS file systems. 6.3.4 Selecting a disk/partition to restore The selected archive file can contain images of several partitions or even disks. Select which disk/partition to restore. During a single session, you can restore several partitions or disks, one by one, by selecting one disk and setting its parameters first and then repeating these actions for every partition or disk to be restored.
cloning with both drives connected will result in a problem. During Windows booting its loader checks the disk signatures of all of the connected drives, and if it finds two identical disk signatures, the loader changes the signature of the second disk, which would be the clone disk.
To illustrate why you might need to do this, let’s imagine that both the operating system and data were stored on the same primary partition on a damaged disk. If you are restoring a system partition to the new (or the same) disk and want to load the operating system from it, you will select Active. Acronis True Image Home automatically corrects boot information during restore of the system partition to make it bootable even if it was not restored to the original partition (or disk).
6.3.8 Assigning a letter to the restored partition Acronis True Image Home will assign an unused letter to a restored partition. You can select the desired letter from a drop-down list or let the program assign a letter automatically by selecting the Auto setting. You should not assign letters to partitions inaccessible to Windows, such as to those other than FAT and NTFS. 6.3.9 Setting restore options Select the options for the restoration process (that is, restoration process priority, etc.).
Unselecting the Do not perform operations until the commands execution is complete box, selected by default, will permit the restore procedure to run concurrently with your commands execution. If you want the restore to be performed even if your command fails, uncheck the Abort the operation if the user command fails box (checked by default). You can test execution of the command you created by clicking the Test command button.
Chapter 7 Try&Decide The Try&Decide feature allows creating a secure, controlled temporary workspace on your computer without requiring you to install special virtualization software. You can perform various system operations not worrying that you might damage your operating system, programs or data. After making virtual changes, you may apply them to your original system. If you make changes that you want to keep, you might want to commit those changes to the system.
You can leave the Try&Decide mode turned on as long as you like (may be days on end, however in such a case applying changes may take a long time), since this mode "survives" across reboots of your operating system. If you use Windows Vista, please, be aware that in the Try&Decide mode the program may use the free space in the Acronis Secure Zone quite intensively, even when your computer is idle. This is due to Windows Vista's housekeeping activities such as indexing that run in the background.
The moment comes eventually when you decide to turn the mode off by clicking the Stop button. After clicking the button, the program will show a dialog where you should decide what to do with the changes to your system made in the Try&Decide mode - apply or discard: Choosing Apply changes will allow you to keep the changes made to the system, and choosing Discard changes will return your system to the state it was in before turning on the Try&Decide mode.
7.1 Using Try&Decide Now let's see how to use this feature. First of all, you should decide for yourself which part of your system you want to protect and set the Try&Decide options correspondingly. Those options also provide other settings for the Try&Decide mode. 7.1.2. Try&Decide options You can configure Try&Decide options as required. • Partition protected by T&D – specify the partition you want to protect from unauthorized changes during a Try&Decide session.
One more benefit of the Try&Decide feature. Now you can let your children use your computer without worrying that they may inadvertently harm the operating system or mess up your business documents. We assume that your kid has the Limited user account type. 1. Turn on the Try&Decide mode. Making any changes to the Try&Decide options or turning off the Try&Decide mode will require administrator authority. 2. Log off and then log on using your kid's account. 3. Let your kid use the computer.
Chapter 8. Scheduling tasks Acronis True Image Home allows you to schedule periodic backup and validation tasks. Doing so will give you peace of mind, knowing that your data is safe. You can create more than one independently scheduled task. For example, you can back up your current project daily and back up the system disk once a week. One consideration in choosing a backup schedule is media management.
• Periodically – the task will be executed periodically with a frequency to be specified in the Run this task periodically pane, where you specify the time between runs for the task being scheduled.
8.1.2 Setting up upon event execution If you choose the upon event execution option, set the event upon which to execute the task: • System startup – the task will be executed at every OS startup • System shutdown – the task will be executed before every system shutdown or reboot • User logon – the task will be executed each time the current user logs on to the OS • User logoff – the task will be executed each time the current user logs off of the OS.
8.1.3 Setting up daily execution If you choose daily execution, set the Start time and days on which you want to execute the task: • Every day • Every weekday • Every х days – once every several days (specify the interval). If you want the task to be repeated several times per day, select Run the task every x hour(s) until the end of the day box and specify the interval in hours. Copyright © Acronis, Inc.
8.1.4 Setting up weekly execution If you choose weekly execution, set the Start time, specify the task execution periodicity in the Run the task every x week(s) on: box (every week, every two weeks, etc.) and select the days on which to execute the task. 8.1.5 Setting up monthly execution If you select monthly execution, set the Start time and days on which to execute the task: • On the – on the specified day (e.g. on second Tuesday or fourth Friday); select this from the drop-down lists.
8.2 Managing scheduled tasks To manage the scheduled tasks, click Tasks and Log on the sidebar and you will go to the Manage Tasks and Log screen with the Scheduled tasks tab selected by default in the right pane. The tab displays all scheduled tasks along with their name, status, schedule, last run time, last result, and owner. To view the other task details, mouse over their names. By default you see only your own tasks, but you have the option to view or manage tasks of other users.
Chapter 9. Managing Acronis Secure Zone The Acronis Secure Zone is a special partition for storing archives on the same computer that created the archive. The Acronis Secure Zone is a required component for using the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. For more information about these functions see 3.3 Acronis Secure Zone, 3.4 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. When you select Tools -> Manage Acronis Secure Zone in the main menu, the program searches for the zone on all local drives.
4. In the next window, enter the Acronis Secure Zone size or drag the slider to select any size between the minimum and maximum ones. The minimum size is about 50 MB, depending on the geometry of the hard disk. The maximum size is equal to the disk’s unallocated space plus the total free space on all partitions selected at the previous step. When creating the zone, the program will first use the unallocated space. If there is not enough unallocated space, the selected partitions will be decreased.
5. You can set a password to restrict access to the zone. The program will ask for the password at any operation relating to it, such as data backup and recovery, mounting images or validating archives on the zone, rescue boot with the F11 key, resizing and deleting the zone. Acronis True Image Home repair or update will not affect the password. However, if the program is removed and then installed again while keeping the Acronis Secure Zone on the disk, the password to the zone will be reset. 6.
2. Select to increase or decrease the zone size. You might need to increase it to provide more space for archives. The opposite situation may arise if any partition lacks free space. 3. Select partitions from which free space will be used to increase Acronis Secure Zone or that will receive free space after the zone is reduced. 4. Enter the new size of the zone or drag the slider to select the size. When increasing the Acronis Secure Zone, the program will first use unallocated space.
3. Enter the new password and confirm it or select Do not use password protection. You can also select a secret question that will be asked in case you forget the password. 4. To perform the password change operation, click Proceed in the final wizard window. 9.4 Deleting Acronis Secure Zone 1. If you want to remove the Acronis Secure Zone, select Tools -> Manage Acronis Secure Zone in the main menu and then choose Remove Acronis Secure Zone. 2.
Chapter 10. Creating bootable media You can run Acronis True Image Home from an emergency boot disk on a bare-metal system or a crashed computer that cannot boot. You can even back up disks on a non-Windows computer, copying all its data into the backup archive by imaging the disk one sector at a time. To do so, you will need bootable media that has a copy of the standalone Acronis True Image Home version installed on it.
• Acronis True Image Home full version Includes support of USB, PC Card (formerly PCMCIA) and SCSI interfaces along with the storage devices connected via them, and therefore is strongly recommended. In the next window you can set Bootable Media Startup Parameters in order to configure rescue media boot options for better compatibility with different hardware. Several options are available (nousb, nomouse, noapic, etc.). All the available startup parameters are listed in Appendix D. Startup Parameters.
4. If you are creating a CD, DVD or any removable media, insert a blank disc so the program can determine its capacity. If you choose to create a bootable disc ISO image, specify the ISO file name and the folder in which to place it. 5. Next, the program will estimate how many blank diskettes are required (in case you have not chosen ISO or CD/DVD) and give you time to prepare them. When you are finished, click Proceed. After you create a boot disc, mark it and keep it in a safe place.
Chapter 11. Other operations 11.1 Validating backup archives You can check the integrity of your backups to be certain that your archives are not damaged. You may perform such validations using the Validate Wizard. 1. To start the Validate Wizard, choose Operations -> Validate Backup Archive from the main program menu. 2. Select the archive to validate. Click Next to continue. If the selected archive is protected with a password, Acronis True Image Home will ask for the password in a dialog box.
4. Clicking Proceed in the summary window will launch the validation procedure if you leave the Run task now box selected. If you have decided to validate the backup archive on schedule, the Run task now box will be unselected by default and the validation will proceed according to the schedule you set, though you can also validate the backup right away by selecting this box. After the validation is complete, you will see the results window. You can cancel validation by clicking Cancel.
11.2 Operation results notification Sometimes a backup or restore procedure can last for 30 minutes or more. Acronis True Image Home can notify you when it is finished using the WinPopup service or via e-mail. The program can also duplicate messages issued during the operation or send you the full operation log after operation completion. By default all notifications are disabled. 11.2.
If the outgoing SMTP server requires logging on to an incoming mail server before it allows sending outgoing messages, enter the necessary information for the incoming mail server.
after choosing Do not schedule at the Scheduling step in the Backup or Validation wizard, regardless of whether they have been completed or not. The color marks in the calendar show information about the days with scheduled tasks, tasks completed with errors, and successfully completed tasks. The current day is highlighted in bold font. Clicking a day marked with a scheduled task shows a task(s) scheduled for this date.
To view the logs for a specific period, select the period by clicking the right arrow buttons in the From: and To: fields of the Show for the period area. Clicking the arrow in the From: field opens a pop-up calendar where you can set the start day of the period by doubleclicking the appropriate day number. Then set the end day using the same procedure for the To: field. You can change months and years in the pop-up calendars using the left and right arrows in the month name area.
archives in a metadata information database, you must manage backup archives (e.g. delete some of them) by using the program's tools and not Windows Explorer. To manage your backup archives, go to the Manage and restore screen by clicking Manage and Restore on the Welcome screen or selecting Backup and Restore -> Manage and Restore on the sidebar.
manage those backups as well as restore the data they contain. When scanning reveals any password-protected backup archives, Acronis True Image Home cannot determine their parameters, because earlier versions of Acronis True Image Home did not maintain a metadata information database, so it shows only their names and paths. If you know the password for a particular backup archive, click Move to Backup List on the toolbar. Acronis True Image Home will ask you to enter the password.
The file name-based consolidation allows deleting the backups that you do not need anymore from any archive while maintaining the archive consistency. You can delete from an archive, if need be, the base full backup. The program will create another full backup in place of the oldest remaining backup. The two kinds of backup procedures have the following difference: Automatic consolidation only can consolidate two backups in one.
4. Choose the location and name for the archive copy. By default, the program suggests the same location and the original backup archive will be overwritten. But you can choose a new location and in such a case the source archive will stay as is, unless you choose to delete it by selecting the Delete original archive box. This requires more disk space, but ensures security of the archive in case the consolidation fails because of power failure or lack of disk space.
AM. You can make sure of this by starting the consolidation wizard again, selecting the archive MyBackup and proceeding to the next window. 11.6 Removing backup archives You may want to remove backups and backup archives you no longer need.
If you click Delete, the program will remove the backup archive from its metadata information database as well as from the hard disk. Copyright © Acronis, Inc.
Chapter 12. Exploring mounting images archives and Acronis True Image Home offers two kinds of archive contents management: mounting for images and exploring for both images and file-level archives. Exploring images and file-level archives lets you view their contents and copy the selected files to a hard disk. To explore a backup archive, double-click on the corresponding tib file. You can also right-click on the file and choose Explore in the shortcut menu.
2. By default the search is performed in all the sources where Acronis True Image Home can search information. You can select an information source of interest by choosing the appropriate tab among Backups and Backup content. • The Backups tab shows the results of the search for tib and zip archives by archive filename. Double-clicking on a filename opens the corresponding archive in Windows Explorer where you can explore the archive contents.
2. Search in the Help topics and comments to backup archives is carried out differently. First of all, you cannot use "*" and "?" as Windows wildcard characters. As in this case the program uses full text search, it will just find all occurrences of these characters in the Help topics (if any). The full text search uses the following rules: • Search criteria consist of words separated by space character(s) or by a logical operator: "AND", "OR", "NOT" (please, take note of the upper case).
In addition to indexing the files in backup archives by their names, the Google Desktop and Windows Search provide Acronis True Image Home with the ability to perform full-text indexing of many files in tib archives, so you will be able to use this feature and perform searches of the files' content. Full-text indexing of files in backup archives is provided only for the file types recognizable by Google Desktop and Windows Search.
3. Right-click on the Google Desktop icon in your system tray once more and select Indexing -> Re-Index. Click Yes in the confirmation window that appears. Google Desktop will add all the new content to the existing index. Give Google Desktop some time for indexing all tib files on your computer's hard disks and adding the indexing information to its index database. The required time depends on the number of tib archives and the number of files they contain.
Clicking in the browser window on a line related to the desired file version opens a small dialog with just two options: View and Restore. Choosing View starts the application associated with this file type and opens the file. Choosing Restore starts Acronis True Image Home and you can then restore the file to a desired location.
2. Click Advanced, select the File Types tab and then make sure that the tib extension is selected and ".tib IFilter" is shown in the Filter Description field. Select Index Properties and File Contents. 3. Click OK and while the Indexing Options window is open, check that the disks where you store your tib backup archives are shown in the "Included Locations" list. If the list does not contain those disks, the tib files will not be indexed.
If you store backups on a network share, Windows Search can index them too. You just have to add the share to the Indexed Locations list by typing the appropriate UNC path after selecting the Add UNC Location tab of Advanced Options. Give Windows Search some time for indexing all tib files on your computer's hard disks and adding the indexing information to its index database. The required time depends on the number of tib archives and the number of files they contain.
Windows Search results Windows Vista search results 12.3 Mounting an image 1. Start the Mount Wizard by selecting Operations -> Mount Image in the main program menu or by right-clicking on an image archive and selecting Mount in the Windows Explorer shortcut menu. 2. Select the archive for mounting. 100 Copyright © Acronis, Inc.
If you selected an archive containing incremental images, you can select one of the successive incremental images (also called "slices") by its creation date/time. Thus, you can explore the data state at a certain moment. To mount an incremental image, you must have all previous images and the initial full image. If any of the successive images are missing, mounting is not possible. By default the program will mount the latest incremental image.
4. If you select the Mount the partitions in the read-write mode box, the program assumes that the mounted image will be modified and creates an incremental archive file to capture the changes. It is strongly recommended that you list the forthcoming changes in the Comments section to this file. For you to be able to make comments, the optional Comments step appears in the wizard. 5. The program displays a summary containing a single operation.
You can also do this in Windows Explorer by right-clicking on the disk icon and choosing Unmount. Copyright © Acronis, Inc.
Chapter 13. new disk Transferring the system to a 13.1 General information Sooner or later, most computer users find that their hard disk is too small. If you just don’t have space for more data, you can add another disk just for data storage as described in the following chapter. However, you might find that your hard disk does not have enough space for the operating system and installed applications, preventing you from updating your software or installing new applications.
13.2 Security Please note the following: if the power goes out or you accidentally press RESET during the transfer, the procedure will be incomplete and you will have to partition and format or clone the hard disk again. No data will be lost because the original disk is only being read (no partitions are changed or resized).
You can determine the source and destination using the information provided in this window (disk number, capacity, label, partition, and file system information). 13.3.3 Selecting destination disk After you select the source disk, you have to select the destination where the disk information will be copied. The previously selected source becomes grayed-out and disabled for selection. If any disk is unpartitioned, the program will automatically recognize it as the destination and bypass this step.
13.3.4 Partitioned destination disk At this point, the program checks to see if the destination disk is free. If not, you will be prompted by the Conformation window stating that the destination disk contains partitions, perhaps with useful data. To confirm deletion of the partitions, click OK. Note that no real changes or data destruction will be performed at this time! For now, the program will just map out cloning. All changes will be implemented only when you click Proceed.
If you elect to transfer information "as is," a new partition will be created for every old one with the same size and type, file system and label. The unused space will become unallocated. Afterwards, you will be able to use the unallocated space to create new partitions or to enlarge the existing partitions with special tools, such as Acronis Disk Director Suite. As a rule, "as is" transfers are not recommended as they leave a lot of unallocated space on the new disk.
First, select a partition to resize and click Edit on the toolbar. This will open the Partition Settings window, where you can resize and relocate the partition. You can do this by entering values in the Free space before, Partition size, Free space after fields, by dragging partition borders or the partition itself. If the cursor turns into two vertical lines with left and right arrows, it is pointed at the partition border and you can drag it to enlarge or reduce the partition’s size.
13.3.7 Cloning summary The cloning summary window graphically (as rectangles) illustrates information about the source disk (partitions and unallocated space) and the destination disk layout. Along with the disk number, some additional information is provided: disk capacity, label, partition and file system information. Partition types — primary, logical and unallocated space — are marked with different colors. Cloning a disk containing the currently active operating system will require a reboot.
Chapter 14. Adding a new hard disk If you don't have enough space for your data, you can either replace the old disk with a new higher-capacity one (data transfers to new disks are described in the previous chapter), or add a new disk only to store data, leaving the system on the old disk. If the computer has a bay for another disk, it would be easier to add a data disk drive than to clone a system drive. To add a new disk, you must first install it in your computer. 14.
Click the Accept button and you will be taken back to the Partition Creation screen. Check the resulting partition's settings and start creating another partition by clicking Create new partition again. You can also edit the new partition's settings by clicking Edit on the toolbar or delete it by clicking Delete. If you allocate all unallocated space on the disk to the new partition, the Create new partition button disappears. 14.
Chapter 15. Security and Privacy Tools Acronis True Image Home includes tools for secure destruction of data on an entire hard disk drive, individual partitions, as well as for erasing individual files and eliminating user system activity traces. These tools ensure the security of your confidential information, as well as maintain your privacy when you work with a PC, because they clean-up the evidence showing your actions (records in various system files) that you don’t even know about.
3. To permanently destroy the selected files using the desired method, click Proceed in the next window. 15.2 Acronis DriveCleanser Many operating systems do not provide users with secure data destruction tools, so deleted files can be restored easily by using simple applications. Even a complete disk reformat can not guarantee you permanent confidential data destruction. Acronis DriveCleanser solves this problem with guaranteed and permanent data destruction on selected hard disks and/or partitions.
Be careful, because clicking OK in this warning window and then Proceed in the Summary window will result in wiping the system partition containing your Windows operating system. Acronis DriveCleanser utilizes a number of the most popular data destruction methods described in detail in Appendix C. Hard Disk Wiping methods of this manual. If you want to create a custom data destruction algorithm, choose Custom… and go to 15.3 Creating custom algorithms of data destruction.
In this example, the switch is set to Format. This will allow you to see the results of partition and data destruction, along with the reformatting of the partition. After you select a post-wiping action and click Next, Acronis DriveCleanser will display the data destruction task summary. Up to this point, you can make changes in the created task. Clicking Proceed will launch the task execution.
15.3 Creating custom algorithms of data destruction Acronis DriveCleanser gives you the opportunity to create your own algorithms for wiping hard disks. Although the software includes several levels of data destruction, you can choose to create your own. This is recommended only for users familiar with the principles of data destruction used in secure disk wiping methods.
To save your algorithm, you need to give it a filename and show the path to the folder you want to store it in by selecting the folder from the tree shown in the left pane. Each custom algorithm is stored in a separate file with its own name. If you try to write a new algorithm to an pre-existing file, the existing file’s contents will be erased.
You can view the search results and manually select the items you wish to remove. 15.5 System Clean-up Wizard settings If you want to change the default system clean-up settings, click the corresponding link in the first window of the System Clean-up Wizard. To enable or disable any System Clean-up component, check or uncheck its Enable this component flag. In the System Clean-up Wizard Properties window you can also set clean-up parameters for each system component.
Under the Windows operating system, a search string can represent a full or partial filename. A search string can contain any alphanumeric symbols, including commas and Windows wildcard symbols, and can have values similar to the following: • *.* – to clean all files with any file names and extensions • *.doc – to clean all files with a specific extension – Microsoft document files in this case • read*.
15.5.4 "Drive Free Space" setting Here you can manually specify physical and/or logical drives to clean up free space on. By default, the System Clean-up Wizard cleans up free space on all available drives. If you want to change the settings of this parameter, you can use the Remove button to delete from the list the drives you don't need to clean free space on. If you wish to add these drives to the list again, use the Add button. 15.5.
15.5.6 "Network Places Filter" setting Here you can enter (separated by semicolons) any hostnames or IP addresses of network places, servers, FTP servers, network shares, etc. to which you have made connection by supplying network credentials (a user name and password). While entering hostnames and IP addresses you can use * and ? wildcards. To see the list of network places for which the stored network user credentials will be wiped according to your filter, click Show Network Places. 15.
Appendix A. Partitions and file systems A.1 Hard disk partitions The mechanism that allows you to install several operating systems on a single PC or to carve up a single physical disk drive into multiple “logical” disk drives is called partitioning. Partitioning is performed by special applications. In MS-DOS and Windows, these are FDISK and Disk Administrator.
The FAT16 file system has a 2GB limit that permits a maximum 65,507 clusters that are 32KB in size. (Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista support partitions up to 4GB with up to 64KB clusters). Usually the smallest cluster size is used to make the total cluster amount within the 65,507 range. The larger a partition, the larger its clusters. Usually the larger the cluster size, the more disk space is wasted. A single byte of data could use up one cluster, whether the cluster size is 32KB or 64KB.
A.2.6 Linux ReiserFS ReiserFS was officially introduced to Linux in 2001. ReiserFS overcomes many Ext2 disadvantages. It is a 64-bit journaling file system that dynamically allocates space for data substructures. Copyright © Acronis, Inc.
Appendix B. Hard disks and BIOS setup The appendices below provide you with extra information on how the hard disk is organized, how information is stored on disks, how disks should be installed in the computer and plugged into the motherboard, configuring disks with BIOS, partitions and file systems, and how operating systems interact with disks. B.1 B.1.
Hard disks with an IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) interface are connected to the motherboard via a 40- or 80-thread flat marked cable: one of the threads of the cable is red. Two IDE hard disks can be connected to each of the sockets, i.e. there can be up to four hard disks of this type installed in the PC. (There are three plugs on each IDE cable: two for hard disks and one for the motherboard socket.
The hard disk with the jumper in master position is treated by the basic input/output system (BIOS) as bootable. The jumpers on hard disks that are connected to the same cable can be in the cable select for master/slave position. In this case, BIOS will deem as "master", the disk that is connected to the IDE cable, which is closer to the motherboard than the other one. Unfortunately, hard disk markings were never standardized.
Large PC manufacturers like Dell and Hewlett-Packard produce motherboards themselves, and develop their own BIOS versions. You should always refer to the documentation that came with your computer for instructions on proper BIOS configuration. B.2.2 Standard CMOS setup menu Parameters in the standard CMOS setup menu usually define the geometry of the hard disk.
In BIOS setup, you can set the Type parameter to User Type HDD (user-defined type). In this case, you also have to specify the value of the translation mode parameter, which can be Auto/Normal/LBA/Large. Translation mode is how sector addresses are translated. This parameter appeared because in BIOS versions, there were limitations to the maximum address capacity of disks, which is 504 MB (1024 cylinders x 16 heads x 63 sectors x 512 bytes).
The BIOS numbers disks according to the order in which they are connected to IDE controllers (primary master, primary slave, secondary master, secondary slave); next go the SCSI hard disks. This order is broken if you change the boot sequence in BIOS setup. If, for example, you specify that booting has to be done from hard disk E:, numbering starts with the hard disk that would be the third in usual circumstances (it is usually the secondary master).
also need a free power lead fitted with a SATA power connector. Most systems that come with SATA ports have at least one SATA power connector. If this is not the case, you will need a Molex-to-SATA adapter. In case your system has the SATA power connector but it is already occupied, use a Y-adapter that splits a lead in two. B.3.1 Steps for installing a new internal SATA drive. 1. Find an unused SATA port using the documentation provided with your PC.
Appendix C. Hard Disk Wiping methods Information removed from a hard disk drive by non-secure means (for example, by simple Windows delete) can easily be recovered. Utilizing specialized equipment, it is possible to recover even repeatedly overwritten information. Therefore, guaranteed data wiping is more important now than ever before. The guaranteed wiping of information from magnetic media (e.g.
The description of built-in information wiping methods No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 134 Algorithm (writing Passes method) United States 4 Department of Defense 5220.22M United States: 4 NAVSO P-5239-26 (RLL) United States: 4 NAVSO P-5239-26 (MFM) German: VSITR 7 Russian: GOST P50739-95 1 6. Peter Gutmann’s method 35 7. Bruce Schneier’s method 7 8.
Appendix D. Startup Parameters Additional parameters that can be applied prior to booting Linux kernel Description The following parameters can be used to load Linux kernel in a special mode: • acpi=off Disables ACPI and may help with a particular hardware configuration. • noapic Disables APIC (Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller) and may help with a particular hardware configuration. • nousb Disables loading of USB modules. • nousb2 Disables USB 2.0 support. USB 1.
Forces to use PCI BIOS, and not access the hardware device directly. For instance, this parameter may be used if the machine has a non-standard PCI host bridge. • pci=nobios Disallows use of PCI BIOS; only direct hardware access methods are allowed. For instance, this parameter may be used if you experience crashes upon boot-up, probably caused by the BIOS. • pci=biosirq Uses PCI BIOS calls to get the interrupt routing table.
