Acronis True-Image10 wiped my XPS-M1330 system partition

I gave my daughter an XPS M1330 for Xmas. She says it is running allright.

But I was not quite satisfied when giving it to her.

On all my computers, I practice partition imaging.
I always reduce the system partition to a minimum of software.
All data, AND an image of the system partition, are kept on another partition.
Then, in case of problems, I just restore the system partition and everything is clean
and running again within minutes.

So I did this on the M1330 too. I was using True Image 10.
Creating an image of C (system partition with Vista + some applications) was
problemless. The compressed image was less than 2 GB.

BUT, when testing a restore of this image, True Image frose half way, leaving the system
partition as unallocated space.
So I had to recreate the partition and reinstall Vista , + drivers and everything.
I tried this painfull exercise 3 times before giving up.

Trying to get help from Acronis or from Dell appeared to be waste of time.


I have an idea that it could be a problem with the SATAdrivers that are built in the
TrueImage restore module.
That restore module is some linux software running with Vista closed down...


So I am hoping that Acronis has adressed that issue now. But how to check that ?

Has anybody here restored a partition successfully on an M1330 ? Which software are
you using ? True Image 11 ? Other ?

Paul8 wrote:
> I gave my daughter an XPS M1330 for Xmas. She says it is running allright.
>
> But I was not quite satisfied when giving it to her.
>
> On all my computers, I practice partition imaging.
> I always reduce the system partition to a minimum of software.
> All data, AND an image of the system partition, are kept on another partition.
> Then, in case of problems, I just restore the system partition and everything is clean
> and running again within minutes.
>
> So I did this on the M1330 too. I was using True Image 10.
> Creating an image of C (system partition with Vista + some applications) was
> problemless. The compressed image was less than 2 GB.
>
> BUT, when testing a restore of this image, True Image frose half way, leaving the system
> partition as unallocated space.
> So I had to recreate the partition and reinstall Vista , + drivers and everything.
> I tried this painfull exercise 3 times before giving up.
>
> Trying to get help from Acronis or from Dell appeared to be waste of time.
>
>
> I have an idea that it could be a problem with the SATAdrivers that are built in the
> TrueImage restore module.
> That restore module is some linux software running with Vista closed down...
>
>
> So I am hoping that Acronis has adressed that issue now. But how to check that ?
>
> Has anybody here restored a partition successfully on an M1330 ? Which software are
> you using ? True Image 11 ? Other ?
>
>
>
The best way I've found to work with Acronis/Vista is to create a
VistaPE boot disk which will then contain all drivers required. The
Acronis forums have several posts about it. I typically backup a 50 GB
system partition in about 12 minutes. I'm using Acronis TI 11 and all
of my backups/recoveries are done in the VistaPE environment and NEVER
on a running "booted up" Vista system. I also do full backups and never
gamble with incremental or scheduled backup tasks. This approach also
solved those irritating "corrupt backup image" problems that seem to
plague the TI recovery disk.

Paul8,

So TI started the restore OK but froze later. As it saw your HD there are no
SATA driver issues. Have you asked your question on the TI Forum?

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=65






"Paul8" <getpaul@get2net.dk.fjernes> wrote in message
news:g2cj8b$dik$1@news.dansketelecom.com...
>
> BUT, when testing a restore of this image, True Image frose half way,
> leaving the system partition as unallocated space.

"Paul8" wrote:
> I gave my daughter an XPS M1330 for Xmas.
> She says it is running allright.
>
> But I was not quite satisfied when giving it to her.
>
> On all my computers, I practice partition imaging.
> I always reduce the system partition to a minimum
> of software. All data, AND an image of the system partition,
> are kept on another partition. Then, in case of problems,
> I just restore the system partition and everything is clean and running again
> within minutes.
>
> So I did this on the M1330 too. I was using True Image 10.
> Creating an image of C (system partition with Vista +
> some applications) was problemless. The compressed image
> was less than 2 GB.
>
> BUT, when testing a restore of this image, True Image frose
> half way, leaving the system partition as unallocated space.
> So I had to recreate the partition and reinstall Vista , + drivers
> and everything. I tried this painfull exercise 3 times before
> giving up.
>
> Trying to get help from Acronis or from Dell appeared to be
> waste of time.
>
>
> I have an idea that it could be a problem with the SATA
> drivers that are built in the TrueImage restore module.
> That restore module is some linux software running with
> Vista closed down...
>
>
> So I am hoping that Acronis has adressed that issue now.
> But how to check that ?
>
> Has anybody here restored a partition successfully on an
> M1330? Which software are you using ? True Image 11 ?
> Other ?


I think you ran into this problem:
http://www.multibooters.co.uk/partitions.html

Vista and its installer use increments of 2,048-sectors in
offsetting the start of a Primary partition from the start of the
hard drive and from the start of an Extended partition. (That's
1MB). Other partition managers see this offset as unallocated
space. This can confuse pre-Vista partition managers - virtually
all the partition mangers in the known universe. I've heard that
Acronis *claims* that version 11 of True Image understands
this, but I also hear that there are still bugs. The utility that
supposedly understands Vista's partitioning scheme is BootItNG,
but I've not tried it. The sure-fire way to handle it is to re-install
Vista in a partition created by another partition manager, even
Gparted - the Linux utility. Vista can understand pre-Vista
partitions, but pre-Vista partition managers cannot understand
Vista's partitions.

*TimDaniels*

"Timothy Daniels" <SpamBucket@NoSpamPlease.biz> skrev i en meddelelse
news:4849da18$0$20166$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...
> I think you ran into this problem:
> http://www.multibooters.co.uk/partitions.html
>
> Vista and its installer use increments of 2,048-sectors in
> offsetting the start of a Primary partition from the start of the
> hard drive and from the start of an Extended partition. (That's
> 1MB). Other partition managers see this offset as unallocated
> space. This can confuse pre-Vista partition managers - virtually
> all the partition mangers in the known universe. I've heard that
> Acronis *claims* that version 11 of True Image understands
> this, but I also hear that there are still bugs. The utility that
> supposedly understands Vista's partitioning scheme is BootItNG,
> but I've not tried it. The sure-fire way to handle it is to re-install
> Vista in a partition created by another partition manager, even
> Gparted - the Linux utility. Vista can understand pre-Vista
> partitions, but pre-Vista partition managers cannot understand
> Vista's partitions.
>
> *TimDaniels*

Quite interesting article from Multibooters.

This will strongly confirm my decision to keep working with XP instead of Vista.
Also to keep running with basic BIOS settings such as ATA instead of AHCI.

Life is too short for Vista

On Jun 7, 1:46*am, "Timothy Daniels" <SpamBuc...@NoSpamPlease.biz>
wrote:
>
> * * Vista and its installer use increments of 2,048-sectors in
> offsetting the start of a Primary partition from the start of the
> hard drive and from the start of an Extended partition. *(That's
> 1MB). *Other partition managers see this offset as unallocated
> space. *This can confuse pre-Vista partition managers - virtually
> all the partition mangers in the known universe. *I've heard that
> Acronis *claims* that version 11 of True Image understands
> this, but I also hear that there are still bugs. *The utility that
> supposedly understands Vista's partitioning scheme is BootItNG,
> but I've not tried it. *

I use BootItNG on Vista and it's fine.

Having said that, the version I'm using is at least four years old,
I've never updated it.

"Juan Kerr" wrote using "Quoted-Printable" instead of "None":
>"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
>
> Vista and its installer use increments of 2,048-sectors in
> offsetting the start of a Primary partition from the start of the
> hard drive and from the start of an Extended partition. (That's
> 1MB). Other partition managers see this offset as unallocated
> space. This can confuse pre-Vista partition managers - virtually
> all the partition mangers in the known universe. I've heard that
> Acronis *claims* that version 11 of True Image understands
> this, but I also hear that there are still bugs. The utility that
> supposedly understands Vista's partitioning scheme is BootItNG,
> but I've not tried it.

I use BootItNG on Vista and it's fine.

Having said that, the version I'm using is at least four years old,
I've never updated it.

---------------------
[Would you please post with "None" as the MIME encoding instead
of "Quoted-Printable" so that you can be quoted.]
---------------------

From what I read, the problems seem to arise mostly in Extended
partitions if a subset of logical drives made by a mix of Vista and pre-
Vista utilities are deleted by one or the other utility. In filling in the
table entry in a surviving logical drive that indicates the offset to the
next suviving logical drive, the utilities may not understand each other's
formats, and a logical drive may "disappear".

*TimDaniels*