Subscribe to our Review: Acronis True Image vs Symantec Ghost
A regular Ghost user tries out True Image V9 and concludes that Ghost V10 has met its match
Foreword from Gizmo
A drive imaging program is a utility that creates a backup snapshot or image of your disk drives, most commonly your system drive.
Imaging programs differ from data backup programs in that they can backup the Windows Operating system itself.
You can use that backup image to recover from system failures, spyware infections, installations gone wrong or any of the dozens of other things that can seriously mess up your PC.
Imaging programs can be used to backup data as well as your operating system but are not ideal for that task. Recent versions of imaging programs have improved in this area but many folks, myself included, prefer to use imaging programs to back up Windows and data backup programs like Genie, to backup regularly changing data.
Every PC I own has a drive imaging utility installed and I use these regularly to make image backups of the C: drives. I simply can't tell you just how many times I've been able to use these backup images to restore a non-working PC to perfect health. Restoring from an image only takes me minutes while a full Windows re-install can take many hours or even days when you take into account re-installing application programs. That's why I recommend the system drive of every PC should be imaged regularly using a reliable imaging program.
Now let me tell you the harsh truth: when it comes to the best imaging program it's a two horse race between the commercial products Acronis True Image and Norton Ghost with the freeware contenders trailing by a couple of miles. Not that there aren't some usable freeware products; it's just they aren't in the same league when it comes to function, features and reliability.
Choosing between True Image and Ghost is tough because they are both quality programs. That's why I asked regular Support Alert contributor J.W. to review the latest versions of these products.
Acronis True Image vs. Norton Ghost
When Gizmo asked me to review Acronis True Image V9, I was delighted. I had been using Norton Ghost V9 and wasn't happy with the product due to on-going problems with corrupted images. Additionally I had never used True Image so the review provided me with an opportunity to look at the how Ghost compared to its main competitor in a live system, doing real work. Installation Woes Right from the start I had problems with both Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image on my PC. The problems as it turned out were partly caused by Process Guard, a security application that runs on my PC. However this problem proved to be a blessing in disguise as it allowed me to test out the support provided by Symantec and Acronis. Symantec support for Ghost was abysmal; an odyssey of condescending replies, canned responses and the apparent inability of the Indian support staff to understand the English language. Eventually, I wrote a personal letter to the Chairman & CEO of Symantec, John W. Thompson, asking for his help and assistance. My plea worked and I was put in contact with an “Executive Support” group. They seemed much more anxious to help and started off well by sending me the latest version of Ghost 10. I was optimistic that with the receipt this new version that the problems I had been experiencing with corrupted Ghost image backups would disappear. Sadly, that was not to be. Even with the latest V10 release I had more invalid backup’s, completely baffling the “Executive Support” group. After a number of emails back and forth, they adamantly pronounce that not one but BOTH of my U320 SCSI hard drives were broken and needed to be immediately replaced! After expressing my incredulity with this diagnosis, they decided to try blaming the problem on my CPU processor. Anything it seemed other than their product. Their last email to me was pure bathos: “Do not bother responding to this email as there is nothing else I can help you with and it will not be responded to.” So much for Symantec "executive" level support. I was clearly on my own. The experience with Acronis support was much better. Their support team was also baffled, but at least they maintained their composure, didn’t make any nonsensical recommendations such as replacing my hard drives and were civil. Eventually I solved the problem myself; another application, Process Guard, was interfering with the operation of the programs. Once Process Guard was uninstalled, the immediate difficulties were resolved allowing me to move forward with my comparative review. But a vital lesson about support was learned and not to be forgotten. Furthermore some serious problems with Ghost remained. Even after removing Process Guard from my PC, I continued to have on-going problems with Ghost V10 with corrupted image files. Not all images had the problem, only some. I only discovered this when I attempted to recover from an image file only to find the image was unusable. Subsequently I started studying the image creation log files only to find that corrupt images were not uncommon. Worse still you get no warning or notification of the problem other than entries in the log files. Here's a typical entry. EVENT # : 5108 This problem may be unique to my PC but I suspect not. I suggest all Ghost users start monitoring their log files and test the integrity of existing, high value backups. And of you are experiencing problems, don't expect too much help from Symantec. 1) True Image will run on any Windows version from Windows 98 forward. Ghost 9/10 requires Win2000 SP4 minimum and Microsoft .Net Framework 1.1. True Image does not require .Net Framework. 2) Both products offer the ability to do full or incremental backups. Since I have plenty of free hard drive storage, I always do a full backup for all drives. I feel more comfortable with full backups abstractly rather than having to deal with partial backups if I should need to do a restore. 3) Ghost has changed the nomenclature for their backups in Ghost 10 to “Recovery Points”. Additionally, it appears that Ghost 9 backups are not compatible with Ghost 10. At least, I was unable to find a way to access my old Ghost 9 backups using Ghost 10. Furthermore, Ghost 9 & Ghost 10 cannot exist on the same machine. If accurate, this would be a serious deficiency in Ghost. Perhaps I could access the Ghost 9 backups using Ghost 2003 from DOS but I haven’t had time to try this. Why is this important? The Ghost backups I have kept are early stage Windows backups with the basic OS build and about 50% of my regular software installed. If I have to or choose to rebuild my OS, then starting from one of these backups significantly shortens the time to get a fully configured system up and running. 4) True Image can backup individual files or folders. Ghost does not offer this level of granularity and can only backup full drives or partitions. 5) Both products offer the ability to list and restore individual files or folders from an image backup. From the user viewpoint, Ghost is a bit more straightforward on this process. You just find the image archive you want and click the Explore button. Ghost mounts the image on a spare drive letter. True Image does the same but uses separate Wizards labeled PLUG & UNPLUG (mount & unmount a virtual drive). 6) Ghost has a useful feature that allows you to run a backup when one of these events occurs: a) Any application is installed b) Any user logs on to the computer c) Any user logs off from the computer d) The data added to a drive exceeds an amount (in megabytes) you specify e) The Maxtor OneTouch (an external hard drive) button has been pushed. 7) While True Image does not offer the ability to start a backup on the pre-configured events like Ghost does, it does offer a feature called Pre/Post Commands that allows you to do just about any task before and/or after a particular backup runs. Ghost does not offer a similar feature. I’d like to see the functionality in point #5 implemented in True Image. 8) Examining the UI’s for both applications, they are reasonably similar Windows driven interfaces both designed to show pretty “eye candy”. 9) There was a significant change in the UI from Ghost 9 to Ghost 10. Ghost 10 seems to me to have “dumbed” down the interface, which I did not appreciate. While all the functionality that was previously in Ghost 9 appears to be in Ghost 10, individual functions are spread out across multiple screens and are harder to get to. To me, True Image’s UI is clearer, more robust and I like it better. 10) This is the main UI for Norton Ghost 10: This is the main UI for Acronis True Image:
11) True Image has extra functions such as being able to turn off Windows System Restore and preparing and adding a new hard disk to your system, which Norton Ghost 10 does not offer. 12) True Image allows you to setup a secure and private partition called the Acronis Secure Zone to store backups in. Norton Ghost does not offer similar functionality. Used in conjunction with the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager, you can boot into a Linux version of True Image directly without using a boot CD. This functionality is useful where you might have totally hosed your boot partition. Note that when the Startup Recovery Manager is activated, the normal MBR record will be overwritten. 13) Norton Ghost 10’s help file is more robust and easier to locate information in than the True Image implementation: a) Clicking on the help button in True Image always takes you to the main help window, not to the section applicable to the area that you were in and are looking for help with. So you then have to waste time wandering through help file looking for the right item. The help file is non-standard and there aren’t any functions for searching or printing. b) Norton Ghost 10’s help file is standard Windows fare and includes index and search functionality. It is easy to use. 14) Unlike Ghost, True Image doesn’t include a menu drop down link to check for new updates (Live Update). a) Both products require activation/registration of the product first. b) The True Image update check is a manual process. You have to click Help-Web Support, which takes you to http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/. Then you have to click the "Get a product update" link. This takes you to a page with a list of the latest builds for ALL Acronis products. Then go back to the Help menu and check the About entry for what build you have. Return to the product update page and check your build against what is the latest build. This is a waste of clicks and user time. 15) True Image does not have the ability to limit the number of backups for a specific drive/partition as Ghost does. a) With Ghost, you can set a limit of say two backups for whatever backup job you have defined. Ghost appends a sequential number to each backup so that the file name is different from the previous backup. When the number of backups (for a particular job) is exceeded, Ghost automatically deletes the oldest one. b) True Image cannot do this and you would have to create a script or manually rename the backups if you want to maintain more than one version. Be aware that if you do not rename the previous backup that you want to save, True Image will overwrite it without issuing a confirmation message or warning. I have been told that duplicating this Ghost functionality to let the user set a backup job limit and adding a sequential number to the file name is near the top of the to-do list for True Image and will be implemented soon. I hope so! 16) I run a freeware program called Spy-The-Spy, which lets me monitor changes to files in certain folders on my C: drive in real time. Unlike Ghost 9, at periodic points throughout the day, Ghost 10 regularly updates a file called SYMLCRST.DLL (below). There are as many as 10 updates daily and they come at odd and varying intervals. I was unable to determine what triggers an update. Symantec Executive Support was also unable to provide an explanation as to WHY this file was bring regularly updated. Mr. Levi Smith claimed this was “proprietary” information!
17) Doing a comparison of the backups of Ghost vs. True Image, I found that on equal backups, True Image had an 8-10% smaller backup footprint size. Performance wise, both products took nearly the same amount of time to backup selected logical hard drives. 18) Looking at the image restore capabilities of both products a) The Ghost DOS interface is driven by the original install CD. Just insert the product CD and reboot. You do not have to create a separate boot CD, as you must do with True Image if you are not using their Startup Recovery Manager. True Image’s primary restore environment is Linux but there is also a more limited DOS environment if the Linux version doesn’t work. b) The Ghost 9 & 10 DOS interfaces are much slower to boot up than the True Image version and all Ghost operations were slower than with True Image on my system. 19) Both programs can backup to a hard disk. a) True Image also installs their own ASPI layer, allowing them to backup an image directly to a CD (or DVD if you have packet-writing software installed). b) Ghost can backup to a hard drive and other device types. But note that backing up to removable media is a manual operation and cannot be scheduled, as additional media may have to be inserted to contain the full backup. 20) Ghost 9 & 10 provides the user the ability to select destinations for error messages from the system event log, the Ghost internal log or SMTP email. I prefer the event log option since I run a program called Event Sentry that emails event errors to my POP3 email account. This eliminates me having to remember to look at the event log or the programs internal log to see if everything ran successfully.
21) True Image only provides a Windows log with an option to export this log to a file. Support for True Image has informed me that writing to the Windows Event Log is on their list of future enhancements for TI 9.x. 22) The Ghost log viewer for a completed backup provides only minimal information that the backup succeeded or failed. No information is provided on the start time in the viewer. You’d have to go look up the scheduled start time to determine that information, making computing the total time for a backup a manual and annoying two-step process. 23) The True Image log provides more information but gets a bit messy because of including distracting prep messages related to analyzing all drives before getting started on the backup job. TI support was not able to explain why they need to analyze other drives during a backup for a specific drive. Furthermore, in the message column of the viewer, even though the column is “stretchable”, they end those “Analyzing partition” messages with a “...” which usually means that there is too much information to fit in the space provided. However, according to support - not in this case. They could not explain WHY they use the “...” or what this was supposed to represent.
24) True Image can export status to a text log file, which Ghost can’t do. However, even though the export is in text format with a default “.log” extension, for some reason, it is littered with HTML tags (like below) making it very difficult to read. Acronis support did not know why this was occurring. Additionally, it is impossible to easily interpret the time stamps. Editor's note: This report is actually in XML and can be easily read in an XML viewer or editor. a) <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> <log build="2337" product="Acronis True Image" uuid="C23BC3C1-D098-4828-8C6F-37DE1B2813CB" version="9.0"> i) <event code="2" id="1" message="The "I_Backup" operation started" module="100" time="1140241688" type="2" /> ii) <event code="503" id="2" message="Analyzing partition 0-0..." module="1" time="1140241688" type="2" /> xix) <event code="504" id="19" message="Pending operation 116 started: "Creating partition image"" module="1" time="1140241692" type="2" /> xx) <event code="504" id="20" message="Pending operation 3 started: "Verifying backup archive"" module="1" time="1140241983" type="2" /> xxi) <event code="6" id="21" message="Operation has succeeded." module="100" time="1140242176" type="2" /> </log> b) However, True Image’s log detail is substantially better than Ghost. You see all the detail from start to finish of the operation and at least in the standard display window, it is easy to see the total amount of time consumed for the backup operation. Finally, it has been my experience over the years that few people verify their image backups or experimentally try to boot up the image restore DOS program before they need it. This is a serious mistake! I cannot stress strongly enough that it is CRITICAL that you VERIFY image backups. Being caught with a backup that you think is good but really isn’t, is a recipe for disaster. Second, you MUST test that you can boot into the DOS recovery program BEFORE you actually need it. Third, if you want to go the full mile, then you should also create a copy of your hard drive (or a logical disk) first using a process that you have confidence in and know works. Then try to do a test restore from an image backup outside of Windows, checking that everything works and becoming familiar with the process before a real error occurs (and rest assured, one eventually will occur). It’s far too easy to make serious mistakes while frustrated and under the stress of trying to restore a bad drive from DOS/Linux if you haven’t had any prior experience doing so or working with the driving program. While each program has certain unique features, the core functionality of both programs is essentially equal. However, True Image’s overall functionality, reliability and UI are more robust and more understandable than Symantec Norton Ghost versions 9 or 10. Most importantly, in my experience, Symantec’s Ghost versions 9 & 10 have proven to be unreliable and my experience with Ghost (really, all of Symantec) technical support has consistently been dreadful. I would still choose Acronis True Image over Ghost on functionality and presentation alone; however, on quality of support alone, I cannot and will not recommend any Symantec program. Furthermore, Symantec has a long & sordid history of acquiring products or complete companies and then discontinuing the products. I would not be surprised if Ghost were treated similarly in the not-distant future. Partition Magic, which they also acquired from PowerQuest a couple of years back in release 8 has yet to be updated by Symantec. The fact that Symantec tech support/development has been unable to isolate the regular random corruption problems I have been experiencing across two releases of the product does not bode well for the future of the Ghost product, in my mind. I have removed Symantec Ghost from my system. My recommendation and personal choice going forward for a disk-imaging program is Acronis True Image. (1) Norton Ghost V10, $69.99 No trial available, Windows XP Home Edition/Professional, Windows 2000 Professional ONLY http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/backup_recovery/ghost10/index.html (2) Acronis True Image V11, $49.99 14 day trial, Windows XP/Vista, 87MB Download Trial Version True Image Home V11 Support this site: If you buy from either of the sites listed above then this site will receive a small contribution from the vendor as a result of your purchase. This doesn't add to your cost but it helps with the running expenses of our site. If you don't feel comfortable with this then go directly to the vendor's site.
EVENT LOG : Application
EVENT TYPE : Error
SOURCE : Norton Ghost
CATEGORY : High Priority
EVENT ID : 100
COMPUTER : MYCOMP1
TIME : 2/10/2006 7:40:33 AM
MESSAGE : Description: Error EC8F17B7: Cannot create recovery points for job: Recovery point of I:\. Error EA39070A: The internal structure of the image file is invalid or unsupported.
Details: 0xEA39070A
Source: Norton Ghost 
Includes Norton Ghost 2003 for Windows Me & 98 users
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I have Acronis......love it.
BC
A couple questions.
1. Do either of these programs have the ability to boot from their disk with an option to support RAID 0 drivers on boot?
2. Is there any indication how either of these programs will function under WIN 7?
Thanks in advance.
please edit my last post from "comments 3,4" to read "comments of May 7 and May 11"
If you register, you could do this yourself. What have you got to loose? Anyway, thank you for your contributions.
Those who "know," regard Peter Norton as a legend in the history of PCs, processing, and programming. The original (pre-Symantec) Norton Utilities were some of the very best written software to date. For every giant step that Microsoft has taken to make the world a less productive, at least we could once look to Norton and Borland to write truly worthwhile (and beyond) software.
But no kidding. Furthering comments comments of May 7 and May 11, and others above: Symantec stomps on Norton's honor with their desecration of software and having the audacity to use Norton's name. I agree. Symantec is the problem. And, yes, before they put their grimy mitts upon it, Ghost was vital to me - and with Symantec, it became useless.
Here are my recent experiences -
From earlier experiences, I have sort of given up on imaging Partitions.
I now just image the whole drive.
Buy Seagate drives (more reliable).
Get Seagate's FREE Disc Wizard, (which burns to a bootable CD)
Don't run imaging software live (from within Windows).
Disconnect as many drives as you can (during Image builds, and also Image Restores).
I now do a three pronged approach -
- At least once, Image from drive to another drive (via IDE cables), and put away in a safe place. (I would try booting into it first)
- Image to an external USB drive, and Verify the image.
(If you are paranoid like me, you could also test recovering it to another drive)
- Have a large internal drive (with NO bootable OS), and place images into there.
(Again Verify the image)
Never move your images between drives, and especially not to/from external USB drives.
I have images on USB drives, that Verify. But after copying the image to internal drive, they become corrupt.
My Googling suggests that both Seagate, and Acronis have those problems. (Seagate's is based on Acronis.)
When it really hits the fan (PC dies), then you will have to Restore an image to a foreign PC -
After Restore, DO NOT boot into the drive.
Use XP CD, and do a Repair install.
Half way through the install, XP does a flippin reboot.
You have no guarantee that it will succeed.
If any of you have Bill Gates over for dinner, get him to do what I have described above.
Then just prior to the re-boot get him to hold a loaded revolver to his head.
Tell him to use it, if the following error occurs -
a disk read error has occurred
press ctrl+alt+del to restart
Googling, reveals better men than me, have been stumped by that one.
There are a plethora of causes, so you could try them all (I did).
But sometimes you will find that you cannot fix it.
I have suspected for a while, that it is the complexity of NTFS.
Recently, on a PC which refused to re-boot properly, during the Repair, I Restored an image, and immediately converted it to FAT32.
I then did the Repair Install, and it was 'a piece of cake'.
Rob
Seagate drives SUCK!
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&...
I'm guessing that the reason some of you are having problems with the software is that you have it running in the background performing incremental backups (not a good idea).
I've found that the best way to keep your personal files safe and up to date is by partitioning your hard drive or installing a second hard drive and then moving the "My Documents folder" to the new partition or hard drive. That way your personal files are not on the same disk as the operating system, so if your OS crashes your files should be safe.
Once you have separated your personal files from the OS, then you should backup Windows and all of your programs with either Acronis or Ghost, verify your backup and then turn Acronis or Ghost OFF until either of them is needed to restore your backup.
Personally I prefer Acronis because it creates a hidden partition on a different drive to the one your backing up and it will even backup onto DVD's for added peace of mind.
I must have been a really lucky user all this time. I take full system backups very seriously and always have. I began with the original Norton Ghost in the early 90's. It was solid as a rock and saved my bacon on many occasions. When Symantec bought out Norton, it seems they really mucked things up. Symantec "Ghost 2003" was as solid as a rock. I can't tell you how many times I was able to restore after I something went south. I liked the simplicity of the DOS load off a diskette. It was so easy and so fast that I would Bit level clone weekly. It took maybe 17 minutes. Still used it on XP-Pro and loved it!
Then I bought a new system and whoa....gotta get new version. I bought Symantec Ghost 12. Since I had restored so many times with the old Norton Ghost and the Symantec Ghost 2003 I had a false sense of security. I had a system crash and tired to restore with Ghost 12. No way! Total loss of data. This happened three times to me . (I'm a slow learner)! I have NEVER been able to restore from Ghost 12. It seems as though I've lost an old friend. I have a spare system that I play with and try new stuff. Acronis seems to work fine. I've created crashes on purpose just to see what would happen. It has restored well each time. I'm not one to be impressed by the GUI or any of that other eye candy, I just want a program to run "as advertised". It seems that Symantec destroyed Ghost. Bummer
I too have had issues with Ghost. Older versions were great. New ones are trash. Unfortunately all of Symantec is trash. Another thread. :(
I found that Acronis worked great up until you attempted to restore. It would NOT work. Come to find out there was some sort of bug that when you booted up with their CD, it would not recognize the backup media. Apparently they have fixed this 'minor' detail with that latest version. :(
The problem I have with Acronis is support. It is non-existent! They simply do not value customers and as such, have no customer service skills what so ever. Very depressing. Don't take my word for it. Try to get something resolved. I finally gave up and asked my credit card company to reverse the charges. Interestingly enough that was enough to finally get them to respond. Too late unfortunately. If they would just fix their support section I think I'd give them another try. I like their product and idea of how to do it.
Used Ghost and Acronis. Acronis is still the reliable one. I have made and restored countless images using Acronis, and never once failed. With Ghost, I will put the success rate at 50%. And we are talking about running on the same computer. Forget about the defective ram theory, it is simply not valid.
Agree with #30. How do you access SUPPORT from Acronis? Have tried everything and they even failed to register me after following instructions after download. Still trying to get SUPPORT to assist.
CMS Products are not freeware, and we don't appreciate unsolicited advertising.
peter
I personally have used WD Lifeguard tools for over 30 years.
Never had a problem cloning a drive until MS came up with XP and authentication. You would'nt think a byte by byte copy to an identical drive which was zeroed would be an issue. Guess again.
I put the blame squarely on MS shoulders as these same drives and system under a Win98 OS worked perfectly. Skipped all other OS until XP.
My2Cents
I have read the review and comments back to Jan, 2009.
I tried the trial version of Acronis True Image Home 2009 without success. I tried to clone one Western Digital 80 MB drive to an identical external drive, but the software kept hanging up and never completed the job. I emailed Acronis tech support, but they took so long to respond that my trial version expired. I uninstalled it and tried to install a new trial version, but was told my trial period had expired. Apparently, the first one left some signal on my system (can this be considered malware?).
So, I am still looking for some cloning/imaging software. But I also have a question: The claims in numerous comments about failed images really scare me! Using a 2-drive system, like I have, how can I verify that the image works like the original?
Thanks to anyone who can help.
You have the trial version with limited function. I have acronis installed and can assure you it really works. It has saved me numerous times. I suggest you buy the full version and give it a try. The acronis secure zone is awesome. Being able to press f11 in dos to restore a drive is great.
If you work with it I think you will really appreciate it. I have use norton ghost in the past with poor results. I really liked powerquest drive image pro, but symantec bought them out and ruined it.
I used Acronis True Image on my HP notebook that has various Nvidia hardware. Although the image CD will boot, when you actually try to write the image back to the HD, it says that it can't find a HD. In reading so far, it appears that True Image has a problem with some Nvidia drivers. They recommend changing settings in the BIOS but my BIOS has limited options and their recommended changes aren't available to me.
I'm a five year self taught half wit (as opposed to a total dimwit) and have had several versions of Acronis and none of them would ever recogonize my backup drives, informing me they were possibly 'dirty', whatever that means. They were all external drives, all new and freshly formatted so I just used the imaging part of the program and it worked fine. No compression involved as far as I know and when you image the disk it requires you to switch them out immediately, so if the image was bad you'd know it right away. And I always had my freshly cleaned and defragged original drive as my backup. Now I'm using Acronis 2009 on a new Dell with two drives and an external e-sata plug which is connected to a 250GB external drive. The new version backs up to my second internal drive or the e-sata drive and always validates the backup as the last part of the backup sequence. I've already had occasion to use one of these backups and it restored the whole system in a few minutes. To me, just the imaging part of the program made it worth the cost and now that it can actually schedule regular backups I find I prefer just making an image disk whenever I make any big changes to my system or once a month if I don't. With drive space so cheap these days I don't see why you'd need to compress a backup. I keep my OS drive pretty bare, with all my document files (which I just copy to about half a dozen places) on another drive and the backup files are the same size as the disk space I'm using on C: drive, so can't you make backups and opt out of compressing them? I really don't know enough to check but if the backup file is exactly the same size as the original that means it's not compressed, right? And I didn't play with any settings (I don't think) to shut down compression. It just seems that compressed files are less dependable than non compressed ones so why compress them in the first place? Space is cheap, compression brings problems with it, so why do it?
The information found by me on this site appeared very useful! Thanks to the owner!.
I am from United and also now am reading in English, tell me right I wrote the following sentence: "Faculty can buy airline tickets on our site."
With respect 8), Maida.
I've been using Ghost 2003 and Ghost 11 for a few years now and I like the software. I like the fact that a restored Ghost image is mostly defragmented, whereas an Acronis image is not. But that can be good if you want a true image.
Occasionally I make a ghost image and it doesn't pass the integrity test. It just drives me crazy and I wanted to know why. That's when I found this article and studied the replies.
I've spent days now replacing cards, hard drives, cpu's, and cables. I've run tests on ram, cps's and drives. Everything checks out good. Then I noticed when I swap the positions of ram cards, I sometimes get a different image file size. Sometimes the integrity is good, sometimes bad. This drew my attention to the ram. I tried many combinations and mapped the results.
The error always occurs when a certain ram card is installed. The card can work by itself and still cause integrity fail when used with another mem card. I'll get integrity fails with a certain combination and then run a Mem-86 test. Everything checks good.
If you're getting Ghost images that don't pass the integrity test, try changing ram.
Ghost 14 is just as bad - backups to "restore points" on networked drives are all corrupted when compression is used - always! Users have posted plaintive requests on Symantec forums for nine months to no avail. Three chats with Indian sub-technical support staff all confirm others' observations that they are indeed unqualified. Bleating about bad sectors on a drive that checks perfectly every time and a fundamental ignorance of logic or an inability to read customer's typed information. It is a scandal.
Smartsync Pro - Not an imaging product, but does a great job backing up files and folders. Compression function available. Simple interface, simple solution. A steal at $45. Had it for 4 years now with almost zero glitches.
I'm a long-time user of older versions of Ghost, before Symantec bought it. Now, Ghost is unstable, unfixed, unsupported (except by script-reading Romanians) crap.
So, Acronis True Image Home 11 was next to try. Here's the skinny:
Here are just a few examples of SHOWSTOPPING, UNFIXED BUGS in the Acronis bugware:
My issue is this. Of all the free imaging tools/software I have found they are kind of like starting my old car, where I had to twist the key to the left while turning it right, while at the same time had to jiggle the e-brake while my friend would tap the rear right hand brake light. Get the idea? For someone that finds starting my old car easier than sticking Gnome Partition Editor, together with CloneZilla, combined with a LiveCD, and holding my tongue just right I would like to find a free alternative like Eaz-Fix. I have used this software for 3 years now and have saved hours and hours of time. I can take a snapshot and if I don't like a software installation I can snap back with a simple reboot. It is amazing. I would like to see a review on it to compare it to Acronis True Image, if it works the same as True Image. Not sure. When a free alternative instant snapshot program becomes available, please post it here. That would make my day.
One tool that is handy with these snapshots is the freeware that Eaz-Fix puts out, called FolderMover. In one click I can move all my personal work off c: partition to d: partition so that my snapshot of c partition only contains Windows files and not my personal documents, downloads, etc. Check it out, is is like.
And if you have time I sure would appreciate your professional scrutiny of Eaz-Fix. Does it compare with True Image at all?
Eaz-Fix is not free, there is a 14 day trial. It sells for the same price as Acronis True Image.
I'm giving True Image a try. I've used ghost for years, and it handled dozens of restores perfetly. Then I went to V12. Apparently it's based on an entirely new technology. BESR. I had a simple plan in mind: Upgrade my 80GB laptop drive to a 250GB. Restore an older image from about a year ago and rebuild it as I like. I keep images in various stages of build becuase you never know when three months goes by before you find your drive was trashed way back when.
Anyway, so I restore the image from 9/08, do some unistalls, and update some programs, install some new ones. Then I try to image it with ghost, 4 hours later. CRC error. Image corrupt. Long story short, I spent 4 days varying images and programs trying to find the culprit. There are thousands of posts about this issue and BESR. Whatever it's doing, it is not to be trusted. I then went back and verified 10 40GB images and found 4 were bad. Ghost can no longer be trusted with your valuable data. Their tech support terrible. I hope my experieince with True Image is better. I'll be verifying and testing images without fail from now on.
I found out a few things testing True Image. Same issue. I turns out that as long as my images are left on the internatl hard drive, they are valid. As soon as I copy them, the are corrupt. I found a 1 TB drive that I can copy to and the file remains valid. Som there appears to be an issue with moving the image files. Better test them after you move them. This took days to figure out.
Ref Comment #18. I've successfully moved Acronis True Image (v8) backup/image files (.TIB) back and forth between internal and external hard drives with no issue. I just happened to restore my WinXp install from an image a few days ago.
Just throwing in my 2 cents worth with regard to the author's assessment.... Have to agree. Between the two products; both of which I've used, Acronis offers a much more stable thus useable product vs Norton Ghost.
I still have a free version of Acronis TI 5 that I received from a computer magazine years ago. It still works, though I've opted to go with a more recent free promo (v8) that I managed to take advantage of.
I'm still working at it. I'm not going to claim one is better than the other. At this point I don't fully trust either of them. My choice is based on what works with my configuration.
I ended up sticking with GHOST as True Image was interferring with my network. Kept getting a low memory error trying to connect to various systems. Did some research and found it was true image. Uninstalled it, and the problems went away.
Also, the issue with all those corrupt image files I was getting is mysteriously gone. I suspected that there was some USB driver corruption going on so I removed all of them and re-installed all of them from scratch. I also eliminated one suspect 250GB drive. Now for over 2 weeks and 16 25GB to 50GB ghost images later, which I copied to 5 different drives, I have not had one corrupt image. I must have run image verifications for over 200 hours total (running several simulataneous verifies over night of course).
So now I have a few good images. I will still never trust just one image given all the issues I've seen. And I cannot be sure just exactly what resolved the issue (for now), but sometimes that's the way it goes. I just created another 46GB image last night and copied it to 4 other drives. All images are valid.
I just came from chat with Norton. I have used Acronis and was curious if Norton would do any better. Acronis has a nasty habit of getting the pointer, (Mouse), input comingled with the host machine and virtual machine when trying to load a universal image to VM Ware.
I was totally frustrated with Norton Tech Support, the "Analyst" simply did not know his product. I was asking if Ghost had a "Universal Restore" similar to Acronis. I finally had to simply give up.
After reading this blog I believe Ghost is off the table.
I just baught Acronis True Image Home 2009 - PC Backup & Recovery. After reading the comments above,I have the following questions:
Is the product User Friendly for a person with limited computer knowledge?
Please let me know.
Hi - (I am not a novice, but do not have extensive computer experience. I run a Toshiba Satellite A75-231, 1500mb RAM and 110GB hard drive. I was trying to clone my internal hd to a USB external Western Digital Passport 250 MB hd.) My experience with True Image was horrible. Much too geeky and technical in both the interface and the user manual terminology. User manual was all but useless - 135 pages, no index, poor table of contents, lots of geeky terms I had no idea what they meant. After investing lots of time and effort to make it work, I gave up, uninstalled the Acronis program, and gave the program to my son. A.
I have used Partition Magic from version 1 thru ver 8.
I have used Norton Ghost 2003 for a number of years now. Recently I was introduced to Acronis True Image and have used that for a few months since Ghost 2003 isn't up to Vista's NTFS ver.
I have never experienced the problem of a corrupted image file yet with Ghost or True Image. In general, I like to run these utilities from a bootable CD rather than from an installation in the OS. I really don't see a lot of utility in the running of such backup software from within the OS as it is primarily the OS partition that I am backing up.
What is not much present in this discussion is the need for meaningful partitioning. Segregating the OS from the Data via partitioning greatly aids the ease of backups. That way, these backups are kept from getting too large, although Vista 64 gets a bit bloated.
Neither Symantec or Acronis offer these backup utilities with the partitioning software as a suite. In my opinion, this would be useful as these both go together. HDD space is so cheap now, and the drives have gotten so big, partitioning is almost essential. I usually turn the last half of the drive into a backup partition. I'm still using Partition Magic 8 for the partitioning needs, but I'm going to have to move up to something more modern soon as PQ Magic is not up to Vista's NTFS ver. I'll probably go with Acronis Disk Director, but I'd like to try it out first to see how it works.
Try GParted
You could try Easeus Partition Manager. Not sure if it's fully updated though. The Pro version isn't mega expensive.
Easeus is the highest-quality 'unknown' software house I know - their stuff is really good. I think a few people will tell you that. For example I had a disk die on me and tried around 15 different data recovery apps to recover my info. The only one that scored was Easeus - and I used all the big name stuff.
chris.p
I have never had a successful backup. Nero for starters. When I needed it the files on the final disc required were non-existant. I just got finished trying to restore with Norton Go-Back. No dice (a required file could not be found). Windows System Restore, what a laugher. It just doesn't work when you need it. So I'll give you my take for what it's worth. I've been able to retain my sanity by COPYING my data, photo and music files to another disc, and keeping my program discs labeled and handy. I did use floppies for this but I now have an external (Maxtor) drive that bailed me out this last time.
Oh yeah, I do have Acronis TrueImage Version 9 on my machine and what I can't figure out is when I wanted to make an image file it seemed to be saying it was going to wipe out the drive I was using and put the image on another drive. Now, how would that help?
I use Image for dos that you get when you buy Image for windows, from
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-windows.htm) and I have backed up and restored a few drives and have neaver had a problem. You can depend on it
I know it isn't free but it is worth it.
Bruce
Do yourself a favor and download GParted Live CD. Copy your partition (including the MBR) to an external hard drive. When you want to "recover," boot the live CD again, format your destination hard drive, and copy the backed up partition to the destination hard drive.
Ghost 2003 and earlier were brilliant. I could boot from CD, make an image of a partition and reverse the process if a crash occurred or some other Microsoft software stuffed up. When Ghost 10 came along as a freebie (with pizza or in a cereal box I recall) it was an unmitigated disaster, it was bloatware, wanted to do a huge install and take over every facet of the PC, it then decided crashes, blue screens, etc would be fun, Symantec Support were as useful as hooters on a boar pig and I told them Ghost was crap in no uncertain terms. Ranjit and Sanjay couldn't give a rats of course and they fell back on the old it was my hardware's fault. A pity 2003 is not happy with SATA drives and cant find the USB or CD/DVD on a new laptop otherwise I would still use it for all my PCs.
To be honest I think people who want their PC utilities to have all the bells and whistles, with schedulers, sparkly colors, skins, 48 ways to do the same thing, etc are complete tools and need to get a life. As William Shatner famously said "For God's sake people it is only a television show!" I want a simple boot-backup/restore utility, is there such a thing so I can get on with using my PCs?.
Ciao
Norbert of Australia
"I want a simple boot-backup/restore utility, is there such a thing so I can get on with using my PCs?."
Frankly, for Vista 64-bit, I don't think there is. We have to go back to old methods,
A floppy (if you have a drive) that will always boot your machine (or a bootable cd like Hiren's). Ability to re-install your O/S from original disk (may need a call to MS); ability to re-install your apps.
Then all you have to do is backup all your data to 2 or 3 different "hosts". But it's a palaver.
Desperately hoping someone knows a better method .....
Can't agree more with comment #7, which says "Unfortunately, these programs work flawlessly most of the time which leads the user to gain a false sense of security. The reality is that whenver you use any kind of compression/decompression process, you are "rolling the dice". Eventually, you are likely to receive the dreaded "source file is corrupt" message even if you had successfully verified the integrity of the file earlier."
I have used Acronis for years, with mostly good results, but when a previously verified "source file is corrupt", you are sunk.
A commercial product with which I have had excellent luck is ShadowProtect (http://www.storagecraft.com/products/ShadowProtectDesktop/), which has a couple of excellent "disaster recovery" features. They offer a free 30-day evaluation before buying.
We're really struggling with your link to a non-freeware product, which, strictly speaking breaks our rules.
But this is such a sensitive & difficult area, I feel any solution is better than none. We do promote "disk imaging" as the best backup solution for home users, but we're also a bit stuck on what to advise if the restoration doesn't work.
The only answer seems to be some ultra-reliable mechanism that truly verifies the "restorability" of a file ... but I don't know of one.
I've used Norton Ghost 2003 2 or 3 times to create backups of my Windows partition on bootable DVD's and it worked like a charm. My system always recovered without problems.
Recently i was trying to burn a DVD image of my Windows partition but the DVD's are created with errors and Ghost (while in its Dos mode) never finishes the burning process. It doesn't make any sense - the back-ups saved on my HDD are flawless.
After using the same Verbatim DVD's that I used before, when everything went smoothly , and some TDK DVD's, and having them all corrupted, it's time to switch to another product.
Have you tried burning at a slower speed?
Acronis support is non-existent. No email reply after 15 days to simply reset my website password to look at the knowledgebase. The interface is ambiguous in some areas as well. I'm sorry I spent the money.
Hi,
Over the years I have used PowerQuest Drive Image, then Ghost after Powerquest was acquired by Symantec, and now Acronis TrueImage. Drive Image (I forget the version) worked fine. At first, Ghost (I also forget the versions) worked OK too, but then an upgrade version created faulty images and was de facto useless. So, I was on the lookout for another option and I selected TrueImage for my desktop and for my laptop, first v.10 and now v.11.
Both versions work fine and right out of the box. I like the feature set and the no-hassle CD creation.
I did have some corrupted images with v.11 when creating images via USB2 and over the network. However, that was resolved by reducing the write speed by moving the corresponding slider somewhat to the left (Note: This option is on one of the screens in the backup task creation). I'm not sure what this error was due to, but it could have to do with my hardware not properly handling the high writing speed. Anyway, after that no more corrupted images. Perfect image everytime. And I do test them periodically by restoring onto a blank HDD. If you do get corrupted images, I suggest trying with a reduced writing speed.
A few months ago I purchased an eSATA card for my laptop and am creating the images to an external SATA drive. No more throttling needed. I have not had a single corrupted image on the SATA drive and the image creation is MUCH faster now than over USB2.
Also, I was pleasantly surprised that the boot CD created with TrueImage v.11 recognized the eSATA card (ECESATA22, Startech.com) immediately. No tweaking or updated drivers required.
BTW, if your computer's HDD has an HPA (Harware Protected Area) as favored by some computer manufacturers, that partition will not be imaged nor will it be seen by a disk utility. This has nothing to do with the software. AFAIK, the HDD reports itself to the BIOS with a lower capacity. Therefore, if a full HDD image (all partitions) is created, that image will not include the HPA partition and the HPA partition will of course not be restored to a new HDD. That's the original HDD's doing, courtesy of your computer's manufacturer. Not the software.
For the record, all backups are made to a separate HDD via CD boot. The current OS is Windows XP Pro SP3.
You wrote: BTW, if your computer's HDD has an HPA (Harware Protected Area) as favored by some computer manufacturers, that partition will not be imaged nor will it be seen by a disk utility. This has nothing to do with the software. AFAIK, the HDD reports itself to the BIOS with a lower capacity. Therefore, if a full HDD image (all partitions) is created, that image will not include the HPA partition and the HPA partition will of course not be restored to a new HDD. That's the original HDD's doing, courtesy of your computer's manufacturer. Not the software.
I have a hp pavilion xt973 that I bought from a repair place-never got the restore cd or the windows disk and now he's gone. I am looking into a way to backup or restore my windows installation in case of a crash. I have used restore twice for minor repairs and it has worked, but I know the day will come when it won't.
I tried to make my own restore disk but that option is not included in my system- XP Home SP3. HP web site says I have a hidden partition included with my model, 4.5 GB and this replaces the need for recovery CD's. What now? Will any imager work or should I just use linux knoppix on that fateful day and to try to recover what I can? I have thought of copying my entire drive to usb-will that be easier/best? I don't have a DVD or external hard drive. I am going to buy a 8 gb usb if it would work.
I am self taught- in only 4 years- so easy would be best. Looking forward to your reply and thanks for your post.
Khris
Hi Khris,
The hidden partition on your system does, as you write, replace the need for recovery CDs. At least in the eyes of the manufacturers. When the system is recovered from the recovery partition, then the system is restored to factory fresh conditions. Everything that was added since the PC left the factory will be erased, i.e. software, data, etc. Easy to troubleshoot for the manufacturers. However, the restore partition does not really replace CDs because with CDs, Windows can be reinstalled without affecting the data (assuming all goes well and that the data were not damaged in the crash).
It is possible to make an image of the partition or partitions other than the hidden one. It is also possible to restore these to the same locations on the original HDD. I have done this successfully on Dell. This does leave the hidden partition untouched. In fact it leaves everything untouched, except the restored partition or partitions. That of course only works if only the partition or partititions in question were affected by the malfunction. If the boot sector, or the hidden partition, or the hardware were damaged, then that's another matter.
In any case, if things come to worst, you should be able to restore your backed up partitions or partitions onto a new HDD from this image. The hidden partition will not be there, of course. Personally I don't consider that a big loss in light of the limitation mentioned above.
I have no experience with knoppix, so I cannot comment on that. A USB stick with 8 gb capacity seems small, but then I don't know how much is on your HDD. If at all possible, I would recommend getting a second HDD because with only one HDD, there is no way to test the backup image besides restoring it onto the original HDD. Definitely not something to do as part of a test. And the image should not be left untested waiting for the day when it will be needed.
Looks like you have acquired quite a bit of knowledge in 4 years. Hope this helps. Please post again if I can be of further help.
Roger
Well I tried several programs but the only one that I have found that ALWAYS does the job is Image for Windows/Image for Dos/Image for Linux. The only problem is that it is not free. However, one of the above will work for you. (You get the licence for all three in one package). Sometimes you have to load the Image for Linux even though you may be using windows. It also depends on whether you want a byte-by-byte validation etc. etc. The best feature though is that I have asked many questions regarding the software (at least a dozen) and there has ALWAYS been an email reply within the hour - even at weekends. It is obviously run by a man from home (called David apparently) and has never let me down yet. I can't recommend it enough. I have no connection with the company and I am an ex editor from here so have no axe to grind.
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-windows.htm
Go to Newegg and Amazon and look at the reviews of True Image Home 2009 and Ghost. Many, many well-documented horror stories. It would be good for someone to review the entire range of imaging software available to see if there's a package out there that can really do what it's supposed to do -- reliably, without major problems, and with decent support. If there were a quality product out there, I'd buy it in an instant.