ATI Home 2012 and me

I have successfully used Acronis since first using version 6, 8, 10 and now version 12. Each of them have presented different obstacles for me but eventually I was able to make my usable backups. This version 12 is giving me far more difficulty than I feel it should. Perhaps it is me lacking the ability to understand the application; and that is most certainly possible. Is there a simple 1.2. 3. step to create a usable backup on my Compaq? Throw your questions to me and I'll try to answer them. As usual, TIA.

Simple solution: Use TI 10.

Have you updated to the latest release of TI 12? Note that TI 13 is now out.

Believe me; reverting to 2010 Home was my first defensive thought but then I have to wonder why I bought 2012 !!!
And now Acronis is touting their latest version 2013.The only update is what came with the boxed CD and that was/is Build 7133 for 2012, as I recall. 10 has/had a few sticky areas also. I 'thought' each succeeding version was designed for easier use. Maybe Acronis is trying to keep pace with Firefox updates.

Unfortunately, Acronis is suffering from the same software bloat from their feature additions as many other software makers are. If they would keep it simple and increase their testing budget so they can try it on a wider variety of hardware and software combinations, they could avoid many potential issues.

What issues are you having with TI 12? What issues did you have with TI 10?

Note: The reviews so far on TI 13 are no better than for 11 or 12.

Can you describe the "difficulty"? The Backup wizard should take you through it step by step.

For updates, you need to go to the Acronis site. However, those are usually bug fixes, not major changes to the app itself.
http://www.acronis.com/support/updates/

I actually stayed on TI2010 as well. Didn't see a compelling reason to upgrade.

Note that Chrome updates way more often than Firefox. They just don't publicize it.

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With 2012, I don't seem to be able to get past the opening screen when I try to make a full backup of my computer to an external HDD. I have done it monthly, usually, in the past and have had to restore and install a backup to restart my computer and install the backup. Saved me a number of times. I tried Easeus Todo several monts ago to do a backup, saved it but never used nor tested it. Later deleted it because of the adverse comments I read about the ap but I found this ap easy to use and very fast. (Sorry I never tested the backup.)
BTW, I haven't given up on 2012--yet. I'll fight with it some more but I just wanted some feed back from you folks.

Do you mean TI is not loading properly? If so, maybe you need to reinstall and update to the latest version. The latest one I see is Build #7133.

Did you try looking at the user guide?
www.acronis.com/download/docs/atih2012/userguide

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I have done it monthly, usually, in the past and have had to restore and install a backup to restart my computer and install the backup

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What do you mean? Can't you boot from the Acronis Boot CD to run a restore?

If you can be more specific, we'll have an easier time figuring out what you need.

Actually, I usually boot from the CD to do a backup with TI 2010. I think you can still do this with TI 12, but I have not checked to be sure. Doing so eliminates running it under Windows, which can also eliminate some of the issues. It won't work on all hardware combinations though, and in some cases, it runs a LOT slower, although it does work.

I've continued to use TI 2010 since I bought it when it came out. I have had no serious issues with it at all... ever.

My neighbor/friend bought TI on my recommendation last year.. version 2012.. and has had quite a few problems with it.

First, on installation it hosed her MBR. Fortunately that was fixable with her Win 7 install/repair DVD. Then it refused to do complete backups on the external drive on which it was supposed to automatically. The GUI is also pretty clunky and hard to get around. Took me a while to figure it out and even then it was kind of hit and miss to get it to do specific tasks.

She/I eventually came to the conclusion that it just wasn't going to do the job easily (or at all). I got her to switch to using Windows built in backup imaging program and she has had no problems with that at all.

I still feel bad about getting her to spend money on TI 2012.

Thanks for the continued posts to my thread. I also use my copy of the boot CD, sometimes the original Acronis install CD, to begin my backups. The last attempt was a backup of partitions and disks and took over 2 hours to complete and I don't recall ever making such a backup before. I felt uneasy(?) about and finally deleted it. It was also a 202GBs backup. I Have not done another backup since last month.
I was going to inquire about using the win 7 backup but fink has hit on that now and I may just try that and perhaps forget about using Acronis. I just don't see many remarks about the windows backup feature. I could just remove ATI 2012 and reinstall 2010 using my install CD. I don't know what to do. I'm listening.
BTW, is our spell checker working correctly? And what is the meaning of a yellow dialog that appears occasionally in the lower right corner of the window when creating a post that reads: auto-saved

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The last attempt was a backup of partitions and disks and took over 2 hours to complete and I don't recall ever making such a backup before. I felt uneasy(?) about and finally deleted it. It was also a 202GBs backup.

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Do you have the OS and Data on the same partition? 200GB is huge! I have separate partitions for the OS/Apps and Data. My current Win7Pro image is only 13GB.

If you are using Firefox, there is a known spellcheck issue with 16.0.2.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=790475

The autosave is to save your form entry in case you accidentally close the page. If you close and reopen the you will see a "restore autosaved content" button

Thanks for staying with me on this Midknyte. Perhaps you can now better understand why I finally deleted the backup from my external HDD. Unfortunately, I only have the one partition and have meant to separate the OS and my data; creating 2 partitions.
As to the spell checker, when I use it I never see reported misspelled words and I am not that good at spelling !!! And I am one of the fewer users of IE (9).
I had to ask about the auto-save thing. Had I known how to use it last night, I could have saved some time rewriting a post I had just finished and lost before posting it.

Using Windows backup for an image that size won't be any faster than TI but the image might be a bit larger because it doesn't compress the data by default like TI does. Your media (pics, movies etc) are already compressed so that won't change much if at all but the programs etc will take up approx an additional 30 to 40 percent of space... maybe as much as a few Gigs depending on how many programs you have installed.

I also store my media on a separate partition like Midknyte.. my images with TI are around 13Gigs in size and take less than 10 minutes to both create and restore.

One potential serious problem with a huge image such as yours (with TI, not sure about Windows backup) is that if even only one small section of the image gets corrupted then you wont be able to use it as a complete image replacement and with a file that huge the chances for some sort of corruption is not insignificant. You will be able to extract single/multiple items from a corrupted TI image but if you try to use it for a full image/partition replacement it will stop when it reaches the corrupt part of the file and will not continue thus leaving you pretty much dead in the water since you've already deleted your existing Windows partition to install the backup but can't install the backup because it's corrupted.

I am having difficulty understanding why the last backup was so big. My usual backup is less than 100GBs. I must have done 'something' wrong before starting the backup; but what, I don't know.

Do you usually make a new complete backup or do you add to the existing one?