Hot deal on Acronis True Image for Ghost owners.

[FreakinRich]

HI,

I just went to the Acronis website I found a VERY special offer.

For a limited time, for Ghost users you can buy a special edition of Acronis's True Image for only $9.99! The only restriction to this version is that you have Ghost installed on your system. It is has all of the features of the full version of True Image.

Use the link below and follow the instructions.

It asks you to put your name, email, and upc code off of your Ghost box.

I didn't have my box and sent a note to the address given at the bottom of the page: info@acronis.com and told them that I did have the CD and I gave them the number on the CD. This was 1:25 pm Hawaii time, (7:25 EST) and 3 minutes later they sent me a code to use.

A few minutes later with having given credit card info I was done and sent a link to download it

Right now I'm 77% of the way downloading it.

here again is the link to the offer:

http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/offer.html

rrrrrich

 

[Matt L]

I've been using Acronis for a few months now and really like it. It will be the best when it can back up directly to DVD, as it stands now you have to save to a file then burn the file to DVD. With CDs it works great as is. Lots of great features.

 

[Yo2]

Ghost is a great product. It also comes bundled as part of the NSW pro version which can sometimes be found for under $20. What are adbvantages of Arconis over Ghost?

 

[stevejst]

Ghost is a great product. It also comes bundled as part of the NSW pro version which can sometimes be found for under $20. What are adbvantages of Arconis over Ghost?

To be or not to be is coming when you have to recover the image back on a corrupted system partition. I can assure you that Ghost is not going to betray you while with Acronis you are playing a poker.

 

[FreakinRich]

I have ghost 2001 and I remember well it's shortcomings in actually writing to multiple cd's. Granted it's been fixed in 2002 and 2003, but, it shows it's not bullet proof. While I do have great respect for ghost, they want a $49 for an upgrade and I just got this for $9.99.

Regarding what it can do it just smartly backed up my xp (running) system partition from the desktop and then dumped it back in after booting from a cd which it burned during installation. It rebooted just fine and I'm using it now.

The sharp thing it did was it happily set this image up to look like logical drive g: which could be worked with using windows explorer.

I haven't heard of ghost doing this.

If you check around you'll find that now this new player is being called #1 by many over Ghost and Drive Image. This includes being c/net's "Editor's Choice".

Time will tell, but after one use I am satisfied far more than with ghost.

rrrrich

 

[stevejst]

Listen, I used Ghost, DImage, and Acronis professionally on an important network. I don't care about gadgets, all I care is the quality of the program. I don't need gadgets since I create backup logical partitions on my own and I use those for backup images, preferably on the same computer or the network. Imaging from a running primary partition is a gamble, Acronis claims it can do it but that is not the case.
I tried and everything was recovered to look OK untill I tried to use the network once again. I lost shared folders, I was unable to unlock some etc. It created a ton of work for me, I overcame but my conclusion is - crap with nice pink windows. Back to Ghost, and DImage. That is all. In fact DImage 6 is my favorite since I have created Powerquest powerdisk with all the utilities I need. I know for sure that Ghost is a great piece of system software and would recommend it to anyone that really depends on a reliable disk imaging. Not so with Acronis though of course you might like it.

 

[ozone13]

The newest DImage also allows you to make an image of your system partition without having to reboot. Ghost will eventually be next. Even with this shortcomming, I prefer Ghost 2003 over all the other partition programs. NEVER has failed me yet. *knock-on-wood*

 

[FreakinRich]

Yup, they cover such in their FAQs. The cover preparing for a backup in such cases where system id's need to be unique. They have a link to get " Microsoft System Preparation Tool (sysprep)" and give instructions for using it.

As far as regular networking I'm hooked to my Tower (I'm typeing on my laptop.) An hour ago I recorded the evening news on my Ati and ported it to the laptop while writing the earlier response. No net problems here.

As far as Dimage making an image without rebooting that is just what I did 'above'.

If it weren't for the price I'd probably be in Dimage. But frankly, I'm pretty happy with this.

By the way, this has the option of doing a sector copy, pure pure pure. In Acronis's words:

"Special sector-by-sector support for other partitions and corrupted file systems."


If your happy with Dimage and Ghost , then stay there. This message was for folks looking for a cheap alternative / upgrade. If you caught it I only have Ghost 2001 pe, and they upgraded me for 10 bucks.

Aloha, Rich

 

[fargus]

The sharp thing it did was it happily set this image up to look like logical drive g: which could be worked with using windows explorer.

Umm... Ghost Explorer lets you explore and modify images.

Sticking with my favorite, thanks anyway.

 

[FreakinRich]

Quote:
Umm... Ghost Explorer lets you explore and modify images.


Yup, but you can't explore them with Windows Explorer.

Ghost's image explorer, as I recall, was much clunkier.

rrrich

 

[ozone13]

Originally posted by: FreakinRich
Yup, they cover such in their FAQs. The cover preparing for a backup in such cases where system id's need to be unique. They have a link to get " Microsoft System Preparation Tool (sysprep)" and give instructions for using it.

As far as regular networking I'm hooked to my Tower (I'm typeing on my laptop.) An hour ago I recorded the evening news on my Ati and ported it to the laptop while writing the earlier response. No net problems here.

As far as Dimage making an image without rebooting that is just what I did 'above'.

If it weren't for the price I'd probably be in Dimage. But frankly, I'm pretty happy with this.

By the way, this has the option of doing a sector copy, pure pure pure. In Acronis's words:

"Special sector-by-sector support for other partitions and corrupted file systems."


If your happy with Dimage and Ghost , then stay there. This message was for folks looking for a cheap alternative / upgrade. If you caught it I only have Ghost 2001 pe, and they upgraded me for 10 bucks.

Aloha, Rich

Note I said also in response to acronis making an image while in windows.

Anyways, note that in order to install this "promotion", you HAVE to have Ghost installed already. You can't just have purchased ghost, but it must be on your system. No shortcuts. Seems annoying because if you like that other product and want to uninstall Ghost, I'm assuming you can't. I hate programs residing on my computer that I don't use.

 

[FreakinRich]

Yup, I see the also up there. I thought you were saying that Dimage also does . . . in additon to other things Dimage does; sorry for not getting the meaning of your 'also'.

I just checked and my Symantec folder is only 6 megs; I'll live with that and the extra forty bucks in my pocket.

Yup, I covered the promotion requirement above.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

rrrich

 

[rasputinj]

I have used both Acronis and Ghost, I found Ghost to be more stable and had a couple of problems with Acronis, so I just stick with what works Ghost.

 

[ozone13]

Originally posted by: FreakinRich
Yup, I see the also up there. I thought you were saying that Dimage also does . . . in additon to other things Dimage does; sorry for not getting the meaning of your 'also'.

I just checked and my Symantec folder is only 6 megs; I'll live with that and the extra forty bucks in my pocket.

Yup, I covered the promotion requirement above.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

rrrich

I wasn't trying to thread-crap....just stating my personal experience.

Good deal if you are wanting to try something other than Ghost.

 

[jimmyhaha]

if Acronis True Image can create image on the fly without reboot, how good is the "integrity" of the image ?

btw, ghost.exe is only ~ 1mb and fit on a floppy, what about Acronis True Image ?

The only thing I dislike ghost is that I need to reboot for image creation...

hmm..

 

[rgroves]

I've used Ghost - After Norton bought it, they started charging way too much for corportate licenses. Ghost used to be less than $5 per license, and Norton came in and did nothing to the program and raised the price to almost double that. That's B.S.

We switched over to PowerQuest Deploy Center (Corporate version of Drive Image, but more powerful and stable than DImage). We've been using it for almost a year now, and frankly, it kicks Norton's butt around the block several times.

Both Norton Ghost and PowerQuest Deploy Center for corporate users is not cheap at all. Powerquest cost us roughly $75,0000 for 5001 licenses, and Norton was around $80,000. The license/support renewals were the big difference. Powerquest is $20,000 and Norton was $45,000.

Acronis could be a very good and usefull product, and I'll see about giving it a try. It definitely is a cheap alternative, but with having tried it myself, I question it's reliability, stability, and have not heard anyhting about the company, so I will not pass judgement for/against them.

 

[DaiShan]

Originally posted by: stevejst
Listen, I used Ghost, DImage, and Acronis professionally on an important network. I don't care about gadgets, all I care is the quality of the program. I don't need gadgets since I create backup logical partitions on my own and I use those for backup images, preferably on the same computer or the network. Imaging from a running primary partition is a gamble, Acronis claims it can do it but that is not the case.
I tried and everything was recovered to look OK untill I tried to use the network once again. I lost shared folders, I was unable to unlock some etc. It created a ton of work for me, I overcame but my conclusion is - crap with nice pink windows. Back to Ghost, and DImage. That is all. In fact DImage 6 is my favorite since I have created Powerquest powerdisk with all the utilities I need. I know for sure that Ghost is a great piece of system software and would recommend it to anyone that really depends on a reliable disk imaging. Not so with Acronis though of course you might like it.

If you use it professionally, I would suggest giving Powerquest deploy center a try. It is very easy to use, and allows network imaging and has the ability toe create boot disks to boot to restore images from the network. Very handy program and runs about twice as fast as ghost. We have used it on over a thousand images here at work, and works like a champ!

 

[mboy]

Much agreed on the Power Quest. I use it at work and it is simply AWESOME!!!
That being said, I use Acronis at home and I do like it. Not super fast, but does work well and will allow to wirte/read image from USB or firewire drive.

 

[simo]

Powerquest Drive Image 7 is great - live system XP/NTFS backups to DVD-Rs anyone? Disk cloning for moving to a larger hard disk? Partition editor? It's got it all.

I've used Ghost 2003 and 7 and Acronis (6 IIRC) and Acronis was truly awful - try restoring over a network or from a SCSI/RAID drive and
you're screwed, Ghost never gave me back a bootable partition and can't really handle Linux.

DI7 can be downloaded for as low as $58 and you will be sent the restore CD.

 

[DeaDSOuLz]

I am very suprised no one has mentioned Altiris Rapid Deploy. If you are talking true corporate use, I think Altiris Disk Imaging Products are the best. For the individual user or small office, Ghost, Dimage, or TrueImage can usually get the job done.

 

[rgroves]

I don't like Altiris. We evaluated their migration software, it nearly destroyed 4 machines. The users data was so messed up, if it wasn't for a back up of the machine right before the migration their machine adn data would've been lost.

We even talked with an engineer from Altiris, and they walked us step by step through setting up a PC, and migrating it to another PC, and if crashed, and corrupted the data. It stumped the engineers, and after 6 weeks of try thi and try that Altiris gave up and said it's just not going to work for your environment. WTF ??!!?!??!

It's becuase they gave up on us that I will never use their products again.

 

[jpetermann]

I have an Abit IC7-G and I would like to know which one of these will actually work with the Intel Raid on the 875 boards and allow you to "ghost" or whatever over to the SATA controller on the board.... I have tried Ghost 2002, 2003, Drive Image and True Image... they all fail/lock up on my rig when i attempt to use them. Maybe I am just doing it wrong...

 

[randomlinh]

can you create a bootable dvd and have it restore an image w/ drive image?

 

[GrumpyMan]

Drive Images cd is boot-able which is used in recovery, in the 7 version anyway. You also get DI 2002 along with it when purchased. I like it even though you have to have .Net 1.1 from MS on your machine before it can work, which is also included just in case on the CD and the down-loadable version off their site. Has already saved my ass a couple of times and it's fast, 24 gigs in ~12 to 14 minutes, well fast for me anyway.

 

[Chancellor]

Can any of these aforementioned products clone a partition to an external (USB 2.0) hard drive? I thought Ghost could handle it, but apparently not???