Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009. All rights reserved.

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2 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009

 ACRONIS, INC.
End User License Agreement (EULA)

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Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 3

Limitations. Notwithstanding any references to “purchase”, the Software is licensed and not sold pursuant to
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4 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009

party ceases to do business in the normal course, becomes insolvent, or becomes subject to any bankruptcy,
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the Software and all copies to the LICENSOR and delete all Software and all copies from the Hardware.

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A part of the Software is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2. The text of the
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More information about the part of the Software licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License is
available at:
http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/support/licensing/

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 5

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 Minimum system requirements .................................................................................. 12
1.3.2 Supported operating systems..................................................................................... 12
1.3.3 Supported file systems .............................................................................................. 12
1.3.4 Supported storage media .......................................................................................... 12
1.4 Technical support............................................................................................................ 13
Chapter 2. Acronis True Image Home installation and startup ............................14
2.1 Installing Acronis True Image Home ................................................................................. 14
2.1.1 Installing boxed version ............................................................................................ 14
2.1.2 Installing Acronis True Image Home from Acronis website............................................ 14
2.2 Extracting Acronis True Image Home ................................................................................ 15
2.3 Running Acronis True Image Home .................................................................................. 15
2.4 Upgrading Acronis True Image Home ............................................................................... 15
2.5 Removing Acronis True Image Home ................................................................................ 16
Chapter 3. General information and proprietary Acronis technologies ................17
3.1 The difference between file archives and disk/partition images ........................................... 17
3.2 Full, incremental and differential backups.......................................................................... 17
3.3 Acronis Secure Zone™..................................................................................................... 18
3.4 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager ................................................................................... 19
3.4.1 How it works ............................................................................................................ 19
3.4.2 How to use .............................................................................................................. 19
3.5 Viewing disk and partition information .............................................................................. 20
3.6 Try&Decide™.................................................................................................................. 20
3.7 Acronis DriveCleanser, File Shredder, and System Clean-up ................................................ 20
3.8 Support for Zip format..................................................................................................... 21
Chapter 4. Getting to know Acronis True Image Home ........................................22
4.1 Acronis One-Click Protection ............................................................................................ 22
4.2 Program workspace......................................................................................................... 24
Chapter 5. Creating backup archives ....................................................................28
5.1 Preparing for your first backup ......................................................................................... 28
5.2 Selecting what data to back up ........................................................................................ 28
5.3 Performing backup .......................................................................................................... 29
5.3.1 Selecting data for backup .......................................................................................... 30
5.3.2 Selecting the target archive location ........................................................................... 31
5.3.3 Scheduling ............................................................................................................... 33
5.3.4 Backup method ........................................................................................................ 33
5.3.5 Source files exclusion ................................................................................................ 34
5.3.6 Selecting the backup options ..................................................................................... 35
5.3.7 Setting automatic consolidation.................................................................................. 36
5.3.8 Providing a comment ................................................................................................ 36
5.3.9 The operation summary and the backup process ......................................................... 37
5.4 Fine-tuning your backups................................................................................................. 37
5.4.1 Archive protection..................................................................................................... 37
5.4.2 Source files exclusion ................................................................................................ 38
5.4.3 Pre/post commands .................................................................................................. 38
5.4.4 Compression level..................................................................................................... 38
5.4.5 Backup performance ................................................................................................. 39

6 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009

 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 .......................................................................................................... 41
5.4.10 Additional settings................................................................................................... 42
5.4.11 Backup reserve copy settings ................................................................................... 42
5.4.12 Creating a custom data category for backups ............................................................ 43
5.5 Making reserve copies of your backups ............................................................................. 44
5.6 Archive to various places ................................................................................................. 45
5.6.1 Why you need this feature......................................................................................... 45
5.6.2 What makes it work .................................................................................................. 46
5.6.3 Using backup to various places .................................................................................. 46
Chapter 6. Restoring backup data.........................................................................50
6.1 Restore under Windows or boot from CD?......................................................................... 50
6.1.1 Network settings in rescue mode ............................................................................... 50
6.2 Restoring files and folders from file archives...................................................................... 50
6.3 Restoring disks/partitions or files from images ................................................................... 54
6.3.1 Starting the Restore Wizard ....................................................................................... 54
6.3.2 Archive selection....................................................................................................... 54
6.3.3 Restoration method selection..................................................................................... 55
6.3.4 Selecting a disk/partition to restore ............................................................................ 56
6.3.5 Selecting a target disk/partition.................................................................................. 57
6.3.6 Changing the restored partition type .......................................................................... 57
6.3.7 Changing the restored partition size and location......................................................... 58
6.3.8 Assigning a letter to the restored partition .................................................................. 59
6.3.9 Setting restore options .............................................................................................. 59
6.3.10 Restoration summary and executing restoration ........................................................ 59
6.4 Setting restore options .................................................................................................... 59
6.4.1 Files to preserve during restoration ............................................................................ 59
6.4.2 Pre/post commands .................................................................................................. 59
6.4.3 Restoration priority ................................................................................................... 60
6.4.4 File-level security settings.......................................................................................... 60
6.4.5 Additional settings .................................................................................................... 60
Chapter 7 Try&Decide ...........................................................................................61
7.1 Using Try&Decide............................................................................................................. 64
7.1.2. Try&Decide options.................................................................................................. 64
7.2 Try&Decide usage examples ............................................................................................. 64
Chapter 8. Scheduling tasks ..................................................................................66
8.1 Creating scheduled tasks ................................................................................................. 66
8.1.1 Setting up once only execution .................................................................................. 67
8.1.2 Setting up upon event execution ................................................................................ 68
8.1.3 Setting up daily execution ......................................................................................... 69
8.1.4 Setting up weekly execution ...................................................................................... 70
8.1.5 Setting up monthly execution..................................................................................... 70
8.2 Managing scheduled tasks ............................................................................................... 71
Chapter 9. Managing Acronis Secure Zone ...........................................................72
9.1 Creating Acronis Secure Zone........................................................................................... 72
9.2 Resizing Acronis Secure Zone ........................................................................................... 74
9.3 Changing password for Acronis Secure Zone...................................................................... 75
9.4 Deleting Acronis Secure Zone........................................................................................... 76
Chapter 10. Creating bootable media ...................................................................77
Chapter 11. Other operations................................................................................80

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 7

 11.1 Validating backup archives ............................................................................................. 80
11.2 Operation results notification.......................................................................................... 82
11.2.1 Email notification .................................................................................................... 82
11.2.2 WinPopup notification.............................................................................................. 83
11.3 Viewing Tasks and Logs ................................................................................................. 83
11.4 Managing backup archives ............................................................................................. 85
11.5 Consolidating backups ................................................................................................... 87
11.6 Removing backup archives ............................................................................................. 90
Chapter 12. Exploring archives and mounting images .........................................92
12.1 Searching ..................................................................................................................... 92
12.2 Google Desktop and Windows Search integration ............................................................. 94
12.3 Mounting an image...................................................................................................... 100
12.4 Unmounting an image ................................................................................................. 102
Chapter 13. Transferring the system to a new disk ............................................104
13.1 General information..................................................................................................... 104
13.2 Security...................................................................................................................... 105
13.3 Executing transfers...................................................................................................... 105
13.3.1 Selecting Clone mode ............................................................................................ 105
13.3.2 Selecting source disk............................................................................................. 105
13.3.3 Selecting destination disk ...................................................................................... 106
13.3.4 Partitioned destination disk .................................................................................... 107
13.3.5 Selecting partition transfer method......................................................................... 107
13.3.6 Cloning with manual partitioning ............................................................................ 108
13.3.7 Cloning summary .................................................................................................. 110
Chapter 14. Adding a new hard disk ...................................................................111
14.1 Selecting a hard disk ................................................................................................... 111
14.2 Creating new partitions ................................................................................................ 111
14.3 Disk add summary....................................................................................................... 112
Chapter 15. Security and Privacy Tools...............................................................113
15.1 Using File Shredder ..................................................................................................... 113
15.2 Acronis DriveCleanser .................................................................................................. 114
15.3 Creating custom algorithms of data destruction.............................................................. 117
15.4 System Clean-up ......................................................................................................... 118
15.5 System Clean-up Wizard settings .................................................................................. 119
15.5.1 "Data Destruction Method" setting.......................................................................... 119
15.5.2 "Files" setting ....................................................................................................... 119
15.5.3 "Computers" setting .............................................................................................. 120
15.5.4 "Drive Free Space" setting ..................................................................................... 121
15.5.5 "Commands" setting.............................................................................................. 121
15.5.6 "Network Places Filter" setting ............................................................................... 122
15.6 Cleaning up separate system components ..................................................................... 122
Appendix A. Partitions and file systems..............................................................123
A.1 Hard disk partitions...................................................................................................... 123
A.2 File systems ................................................................................................................ 123
A.2.1 FAT16.................................................................................................................. 123
A.2.2 FAT32.................................................................................................................. 124
A.2.3 NTFS ................................................................................................................... 124
A.2.4 Linux Ext2............................................................................................................ 124
A.2.5 Linux Ext3............................................................................................................ 124
A.2.6 Linux ReiserFS...................................................................................................... 125
Appendix B. Hard disks and BIOS setup .............................................................126
B.1 Installing hard disks in computers ................................................................................. 126

8 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009

 B.1.1 Installing a hard disk, general scheme .................................................................... 126
B.1.2 Motherboard sockets, IDE cable, power cable.......................................................... 126
B.1.3 Configuring hard disk drives, jumpers..................................................................... 127
B.2 BIOS .......................................................................................................................... 128
B.2.1 Setup utility.......................................................................................................... 128
B.2.2 Standard CMOS setup menu .................................................................................. 129
B.2.3 Arranging boot sequence, advanced CMOS setup menu ........................................... 130
B.2.4 Hard disk initialization errors.................................................................................. 131
B.3 Installing a SATA hard drive ......................................................................................... 131
B.3.1 Steps for installing a new internal SATA drive.......................................................... 132
Appendix C. Hard Disk Wiping methods..............................................................133
C.1 Information wiping methods’ functioning principles......................................................... 133
C.2 Information wiping methods used by Acronis ................................................................. 133
Appendix D. Startup Parameters.........................................................................135

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 9

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. With this
software, you can back up selected files and folders, Windows applications’ settings, settings
and messages of Microsoft e-mail clients — or even the entire disk drive or selected
partitions. Should your disk drive become damaged or your system attacked by a virus or
malware, you can restore the back-up data quickly and easily, eliminating hours or days of
work trying to rebuild your disk drive’s data and applications from scratch.
Acronis True Image Home provides you with all the essential tools you need to recover your
computer system should a disaster occur, such as losing data, accidentally deleting critical
files or folders, or a complete hard disk crash. If failures occur that block access to
information or affect system operation, you will be able to restore the system and the lost
data easily.
The unique technology developed by Acronis and implemented in Acronis True Image Home
allows you to perform exact, sector-by-sector disk backups, including all operating systems,
applications and configuration files, software updates, personal settings, and data.
Acronis True Image Home helps you protect your identity as well. Simply deleting old data
will not remove it permanently from your computer. Acronis True Image now includes
Acronis DriveCleanser that permanently destroys files and wipes personal information from
partitions and/or entire disks, as well as a wizard that cleans up your Windows system of all
traces of user activity.
You can store backups on almost any PC storage device: internal or external hard drives,
network drives or a variety of IDE, SCSI, FireWire (IEEE-1394), USB (1.0, 1.1 and 2.0) and
PC Card (formerly called PCMCIA) removable media drives, as well as CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW,
DVD+R/RW, magneto-optical, Iomega Zip and Jaz drives.
When performing scheduled backup tasks, Acronis True Image Home automatically selects a
backup mode (full, incremental, differential) in accordance with the backup policy set by the
user.
If you are going to install a new hard disk drive, Acronis True Image Home will help you to
transfer information from the old one in minutes, including operating systems, applications,
documents, and personal settings. After migrating to the new hard disk you can destroy all
confidential information on the old one securely. This is the recommended procedure if you
intend to donate, throw away, or sell the old hard disk drive.
Wizards and a Windows Vista-style interface will make your work easier. Just perform a few
simple steps and let Acronis True Image Home take care of everything else! When a system
problem occurs, the software will get you up and running in no time.

1.2 New in Acronis True Image Home 2009

• One-Click Protection – During the first start of Acronis True Image Home after
installation, the program will take stock of your computer storage devices and if you have
enough free space on one of the hard drives or in the Acronis Secure Zone; it will offer to
immediately protect your system by backing up your system volume and Master Boot
Record to the storage location of its choice. In addition, Acronis True Image Home will

10 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009

 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. In addition,
they provide Acronis True Image Home with the ability to perform full-text indexing of
the files in tib archives, so you will be able to perform searches of the files content.
• Making reserve copies of your backups - You can make reserve copies of your
backups and save them on the file system, a network drive, or a USB stick. You have a
choice of making a reserve copy as regular (flat) files, a zip compressed file, or a tib file.
• Support for Zip format – Now you can create file-level backup archives as zip files. Zip
is one of the most widely used and popular archiving formats. In addition, Microsoft
Windows has built-in support of this file format making it possible to extract files from
backups created by Acronis True Image Home without using the program itself.
• Consolidation of backup files – you can create a consistent copy of an archive while
deleting selected backups. This allows deleting the backups you do not need anymore
from any archive without harming that archive.
• Automatic consolidation - you can set limitations for backup archives, namely
maximum archive size, maximum number of backups, and maximum storage period for
the archive files. In case any of the preset limits are exceeded, Acronis True Image
Home will combine the first full backup with the next incremental one into one full
backup which will be dated the later backup date. Then, if necessary, this backup will be
combined with the next, until the occupied storage space (or number of backups)
decreases to the preset limit. Thus, the archive integrity will not be affected, in spite of
the fact that the oldest backups will be deleted. This procedure is called automatic
consolidation. In the previous versions of Acronis True Image Home a similar procedure
was used for automatically managing backup archives in so called backup locations, but
now automatic consolidation is available for all archives except those stored on CD/DVDs.
• Automatic computer shutdown after backup or restoration finishes – you can
now perform a backup at night and go to sleep without bothering about turning off the
computer – the program will do this on its own.
• Automatic backup to a USB flash drive - if the archive storage location is a USB
flash drive, the backup will begin automatically when the device is plugged in, but only
when a scheduled backup has been missed. The flash drive must be the same as the one
used for all previous backups; if you plug in another flash drive, the backup process
won’t start.
• Archive to various places – you can save full, incremental and differential backups of
the same data entity (for example, a partition, disk, E-mail) almost anywhere you like. In
the earlier versions of Acronis True Image Home all backups belonging to the same data
entity could be stored only in the same place. Now you have ultimate flexibility in
choosing a place for backups of the same data entity – a network share, CD/DVD, USB
stick, FTP-server, any local internal or external hard drive, etc. Furthermore, you can now
give meaningful names to incremental and differential backups, for example, something
like "SystemDiskbeforeRepartitioning".
• More user-friendly – Completely redesigned user interface and usability enhancements
make Acronis True Image Home easier to use than ever before.

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 11

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).

1.3.2 Supported operating systems

Acronis True Image Home has been tested on the following operating systems:
• Windows XP SP 3
• Windows XP Professional x64 Edition SP2
• Windows Vista SP 1 (all editions)
Acronis True Image Home also enables the creation of a bootable CD-R/DVD-R that can back
up and restore a disk/partition on a computer running any Intel- or AMD- based PC operating
system, including Linux®. The only exception is the Intel-based Apple Macintosh, which is
not supported in native mode at this time.

1.3.3 Supported file systems

• FAT16/32
• NTFS
• Ext2/Ext3
• ReiserFS
• Linux SWAP
If a file system is not supported or is corrupted, Acronis True Image Home can copy data
using a sector-by-sector approach.
The Ext2/Ext3, ReiserFS, and Linux SWAP file systems are supported only for disk or
partition backup/restore operations. You cannot use Acronis True Image Home for file-level
operations with these file systems (file backup, restore, search, as well as image mounting
and file restoring from image), as well as for backups to disks or partitions with these file
systems.

1.3.4 Supported storage media

• Hard disk drives *
• Networked storage devices
• FTP servers**
• CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R (including double-layer DVD+R), DVD+RW, DVD-RAM,
BD-R, BD-RE***
• USB 1.0 / 2.0, FireWire (IEEE-1394) and PC card storage devices
• ZIP®, Jaz® and other removable media

12 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009

* 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.

1.4 Technical support

Users of legally purchased and registered copies of Acronis True Image Home are entitled to
free technical support. If you experience problems installing or using Acronis products that
you can’t solve yourself by using this guide, then please contact Acronis Technical Support.
More information about contacting Acronis Technical Support is available at the following
link: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/.
In order to open a support trouble ticket, please fill out the Web form on the Acronis site;
support will only open a trouble ticket if it is initiated from this form.

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 13

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.
• Follow the install wizard instructions on the screen.

Typical, Custom and Complete installation is available. Having pressed Custom, you can
choose not to install Rescue Media Builder.
With Rescue Media Builder you can create bootable rescue disks (see details in Chapter
10. Creating bootable media). You might not need this tool if you purchased a boxed
product that contains a bootable CD. Installing the Bootable Rescue Media Builder will
allow you to create bootable media or its ISO image at any time from the main program
window or running Bootable Rescue Media Builder on its own.
When installed, Acronis True Image Home creates a new device in the Device Manager list
(Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager -> Acronis Devices ->
Acronis True Image Backup Archive Explorer). Do not disable or uninstall this device,
as it is necessary for connecting image archives as virtual disks (see Chapter 12. Exploring
archives and mounting images).

2.1.2 Installing Acronis True Image Home from Acronis website

To install Acronis True Image Home:

14 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009

• 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.

2.2 Extracting Acronis True Image Home

When installing Acronis True Image Home, you can save the setup (.msi) file on a local or
network drive. This will help when modifying or recovering the existing component
installation.
To save the setup file:
• Run the Acronis True Image Home setup file.
• In the Install Menu, right-click on the program name and select Extract.
• Select a location for the setup file and click Save.
Recovering or updating the existing Acronis True Image Home installation with use of the
.msi file must be done from the command line as follows:
1. Choose Start -> Run
2. Type cmd.
3. When the command-line interpreter window opens, type the following command:
msiexec /i path_to_msi_file\msi_file_name.msi REINSTALL=ALL
REINSTALLMODE=vomus
4. After the install wizard window opens, choose Typical, Custom or Complete
installation for repairing or changing the program's components.

2.3 Running Acronis True Image Home

You can run Acronis True Image Home in Windows by selecting Start -> Programs ->
Acronis -> Acronis True Image Home -> Acronis True Image Home or by clicking on
the appropriate shortcut on the desktop.
If your operating system does not load for some reason, you can run Acronis Startup
Recovery Manager. However, this must be activated prior to use; see 3.4 Acronis Startup
Recovery Manager to learn more about this procedure. To run the program, press F11 during
bootup when you see a corresponding message that tells you to press that key. Acronis True
Image Home will be run in the standalone mode, allowing you to recover the damaged
partitions.
If your disk data is totally corrupted and the operating system cannot boot (or if you have
not activated Acronis Startup Recovery Manager), load the standalone Acronis True Image
Home version from the bootable media, supplied with the retail box or created by you using
Rescue Media Builder. This boot disk will allow you to restore your disk from a previously
created image.

2.4 Upgrading Acronis True Image Home

If you already have Acronis True Image Home installed, the new version will simply update
it; there is no need to remove the old version and reinstall the software.

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 15

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.

2.5 Removing Acronis True Image Home

Select Start -> Settings -> Control panel -> Add or remove programs -> <Acronis
True Image Home> -> Remove. Then follow the instructions on the screen. You may
have to reboot your computer afterwards to complete the task.
If you use Windows Vista, select Start -> Control panel -> Programs and Features ->
<Acronis True Image Home> -> Remove. Then follow the instructions on the screen.
You may have to reboot your computer afterwards to complete the task.

16 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009

Chapter 3. General information and
proprietary Acronis technologies
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.
Backing up disks and partitions is performed in a different way: Acronis True Image Home
stores a sector-by-sector snapshot of the disk, which includes the operating system, registry,
drivers, software applications and data files, as well as system areas hidden from the user.
This procedure is called “creating a disk image,” and the resulting backup archive is often
called a disk/partition image.
By default, Acronis True Image Home stores only those hard disk parts that contain data (for
supported file systems). Further, it does not back up swap file information (pagefile.sys
under Windows XP/Vista) and hiberfil.sys (a file that keeps RAM contents when the
computer goes into hibernation). This reduces image size and speeds up image creation and
restoration. However, you might use the Create an image using the sector-by-sector
approach option that lets you include all of the sectors of a hard disk in an image.
A partition image includes all files and folders. This includes all attributes (including hidden
and system files), boot record, and FAT (file allocation table); as well as files in the root
directory and the zero track of the hard disk with master boot record (MBR).
A disk image includes images of all disk partitions as well as the zero track with master boot
record (MBR).

By default, files in all Acronis True Image Home archives have a “.tib” extension. Do not
change this file extension.
It is important to note that you can restore files and folders not only from file archives, but
from disk/partition images too. To do so, mount the image as a virtual disk (see Chapter 12.
Exploring archives and mounting images) or start the image restoration and select Restore
specified files or folders.

3.2 Full, incremental and differential backups

Acronis True Image Home can create full, incremental and differential backups.
A full backup contains all data at the moment of backup creation. It forms a base for
further incremental or differential backup or is used as a standalone archive. A full backup
has the shortest restore time compared to incremental or differential ones.
An incremental backup file only contains data changed since the last backup of any type
(full, incremental, or differential one). Therefore, it is smaller and takes less time to create,
but as it doesn’t contain all data; all the previous backups and the initial full backup are
required for restoration.
Unlike an incremental backup, when every backup procedure creates the next file in a
“chain”, a differential backup creates an independent file, containing all changes since the

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 17

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. It is particularly effective if your data changes tend to be few compared to the full
data volume.
The same is true for incremental backup. These are most useful when you need frequent
backups and the ability to roll back to a specific point in time. Having created a full backup
once, if you then create an incremental backup each day of a month, you will get the same
result as if you created full backups every day. Incremental images are considerably smaller
than full or differential images.
Incremental or Differential?
The difference is typically that in an incremental backup, only the files changed or added
since the last time the backup ran are added to the archive. With a differential backup, all
the files changed or added since the initial full backup, are added to the archive. Thus,
differential backups take longer to run than incremental backups. When restoring from an
incremental backup, the program must copy the entire initial backup and then step through
each of the previous backups to retrieve all the updated files. A differential backup, on the
other hand, can be restored more quickly because the software must copy only the original
backup and the most recent one.
An incremental or differential backup created after a disk is defragmented might be
considerably larger than usual. This is because the defragmentation program changes file
locations on the disk and the backups reflect these changes. Therefore, it is recommended
that you re-create a full backup after disk defragmentation.

3.3 Acronis Secure Zone™

The Acronis Secure Zone is a special, hidden partition for storing backups on the computer
system itself. For archive security purposes, ordinary applications cannot access it. In the
Acronis True Image Home wizards’ windows, the zone is listed along with all partitions
available for storing archives. The Acronis Secure Zone is necessary if you plan to use the
Acronis Startup Recovery Manager feature (see below).
The Acronis Secure Zone is available as a location to store backup files as long as there is
free space in the zone. If there is not enough space, older backups will be deleted to create
free space.
Acronis True Image Home uses the following approach to clean up the Acronis Secure Zone:
• If you are in the process of creating a backup and there is not enough free space in the
zone to create it, the program will display a dialog which warns you that the Acronis
Secure Zone is full. You can click Cancel to cancel the backup operation. In that case,
you may want to increase the size of the Acronis Secure Zone and then run the backup
operation again. If you want to free some space in the zone, click OK and the oldest full
backup of the type being created will be deleted with all subsequent
incremental/differential backups, then the backup operation will recommence.
• If deleting the oldest backup does not free enough space, you will get the same warning
message again. You may delete the next oldest backup (if any) and repeat this until all
the previous backups are deleted.

18 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009

• 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. For example, if you have an e-mail backup (My E-
mail) in the zone and there is not enough space for backing up some folders (My Data), the
program will delete the e-mail backup to free space for the folders backup.
You can back up data automatically on a schedule (see Chapter 8. Scheduling tasks). In
order to not worry about zone overflow during a scheduled backup, it is recommended to
enable automatic consolidation of backups in the zone by setting a limit on the archive size
(see 5.3.7 Setting automatic consolidation), though taking into account the above approach
this recommendation is best suited for storing in the zone backups of the same type.
However, if you keep long chains of incremental backups, it will be good practice to
periodically check the zone free space, indicated on the Protection State -> System
Information screen or on the second screen of the Manage Acronis Secure Zone
Wizard.
For information on how to create, resize or delete Acronis Secure Zone using this wizard, see
Chapter 9. Managing Acronis Secure Zone.

3.4 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager

3.4.1 How it works
The Acronis Startup Recovery Manager lets you start Acronis True Image Home without
loading the operating system. With this feature, you can use Acronis True Image Home by
itself to restore damaged partitions, even if the operating system won't start up for some
reason. As opposed to booting from Acronis removable media, you will not need a separate
media or network connection to start Acronis True Image Home.

3.4.2 How to use

To be able to use Acronis Startup Recovery Manager at boot time, prepare as follows:
1. Install Acronis True Image Home.
2. Create Acronis Secure Zone on the hard disk (see Chapter 9. Managing Acronis Secure
Zone).
3. Activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. To do so, click Activate Acronis Startup
Recovery Manager and follow the wizard’s instructions.
If you try to activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager before you created the Acronis
Secure Zone, you will be prompted to create the zone; then the Acronis Startup Recovery
Manager will be activated. If the Acronis Secure Zone already exists, Acronis Startup
Recovery Manager will be activated immediately.
When Acronis Startup Recovery Manager is activated, it overwrites the master boot record
(MBR) with its own boot code. If you have any third-party boot managers installed, you will
have to reactivate them after activating the Startup Recovery Manager. For Linux loaders
(e.g. LiLo and GRUB), you might consider installing them to a Linux root (or boot) partition
boot record instead of MBR before activating Acronis Startup Recovery Manager.

If a failure occurs, turn on the computer and press F11 when you see the "Press F11 for
Acronis Startup Recovery Manager" message. This will start a standalone version of Acronis

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 19

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.
You won't be able to use the previously activated Acronis Startup Recovery Manager if the
Try&Decide mode is started.

3.5 Viewing disk and partition information

You can change the way data is represented in all schemes you see in various wizards.
To the right are three icons: Arrange Icons by, Choose Details and i (Display the
properties of the selected item), the latter duplicated in the context menu opened by
right-clicking objects.
To sort messages by a particular column, click the header (another click will switch the
messages to the opposite order) or the Arrange Icons by button and select the column.
To select columns to view, right-click the headers line or left-click the Choose Columns
button. Then flag the columns you want to display. When left-clicking the Choose Columns
button, you can also change the display order of columns using the Move Up and Move
Down buttons.
If you click the i (Display the properties of the selected item) button, you will see the
selected partition or disk properties window.
This window contains two panels. The left panel contains the properties tree and the right
describes the selected property in detail. The disk information includes its physical
parameters (connection type, device type, size, etc.); partition information includes both
physical (sectors, location, etc.), and logical (file system, free space, assigned letter, etc.)
parameters.
You can change the width of a column by dragging its borders with the mouse.

3.6 Try&Decide™
The Acronis True Image Home Try&Decide feature allows you to perform potentially
dangerous operations such as software installation or opening e-mail attachments without
putting your PC at risk. It does this by creating essentially a controlled, secure, temporary
workspace that is insulated from the rest of your computer. If the system crashes or your
computer stops responding during these operations, you should revert the system to the
previous state by discarding changes made in the Try&Decide mode. If operations are
successful, you have a choice of applying the changes to the real system. (For more details
see Chapter 7 Try&Decide.)

3.7 Acronis DriveCleanser, File Shredder, and System Clean-up

Acronis True Image Home contains utilities 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. When replacing your old hard drive with a new, higher-capacity one,
you may unwittingly leave on the old disk lots of personal and confidential information that
can be recovered, even if you have reformatted it. The Acronis DriveCleanser provides for
the destruction of confidential information on hard disk drives and/or partitions with the help
of techniques that meet or exceed most national and state standards. You can select an
20 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009
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. This could include user names and
passwords, as well as other personal information that could be used to steal your identity if it
fell into the wrong hands. This utility wipes them completely from the disk drive.

3.8 Support for Zip format

Now you will be able to retrieve files from backups anywhere without using Acronis True
Image Home, if you choose the zip format instead of the tib format. You can back up files,
for example, to a USB stick and retrieve files from such archives on your notebook at home
without installing Acronis True Image Home, because the most widely used operating
systems, namely Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X have built-in support of the zip file
format.
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.

The Zip format is available when backing up files and/or folders as well as when making
reserve copies of your backups. Acronis True Image Home provides for the zip format most
of the functionality available for the tib format, except password protection and encryption –
you can schedule backups, validate zip backup archives, restore files and folders from zip
archives, make incremental and differential backups, and so on.
Acronis True Image Home can restore and validate only its own zip archives. If a zip archive
was created by a file archiver program, it cannot be restored and validated by Acronis True
Image Home.

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 21

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.
The Acronis One-Click Protection tool performs only full backups of the system volume;
scheduling an incremental or differential backup is not possible. In addition, it does not
support backup of drives protected by BitLocker Drive Encryption in Windows Vista.

Acronis True Image Home will take stock of your computer's configuration and then offer the
optimum destination for backups.
For this purpose the program will use the following algorithm:
1) First of all the program estimates the space required for operation of the One-Click
Protection tool. As the average compression ratio when backing up data into tib files is 2:1,
you can use this value as a guide. Let’s say your system partition has 20GB of programs and
data. Under normal conditions, that will compress down to approximately 10GB and the disk
space required for operation of the One-Click Protection tool might amount to 10GB plus 250
MB for temporary files.
2) If there is an external hard drive, your backups will be stored on that drive, since such a
backup place will provide maximum protection for your computer. The safety of your
computer will be even greater, if you get into the habit of disconnecting the external drive
and storing it at another location.
3) If you have upgraded from a previous Acronis True Image Home version and already
have the Acronis Secure Zone, the program will check its size and if the zone size is sufficient

22 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009

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.
5) When your computer has only one hard drive:
• If the hard drive has several partitions (not counting hidden ones), then the program will
use a non-system partition with maximum free space
• If the drive has only one non-hidden partition, namely, the system partition:
o If the program detects any internal hidden partition (non-ASZ), it will back up to the
system partition
o If the partition has enough free space, the program will create the Acronis Secure
Zone and back up there as well as activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager
o If the partition has insufficient free space, the program will use the writing CD/DVD
drive (if it exists) and will append Acronis One-Click Restore and a full standalone
version of Acronis True Image Home as well. In this case the program will use the
maximum compression ratio
After applying this algorithm to your computer configuration, Acronis True Image Home will
offer the optimum place for storing your backups. If you would prefer another storage
location, click the Specify destination link and select the storage location most suitable for
you.
Clicking Protect will start the backup task. But before proceeding with the backup, the
program will ask you under whose user credentials the subsequent scheduled backups will
run.

Clicking Cancel will cancel One-Click Protection. If you decide to use this feature later, click
Home on the sidebar and then choose One-Click Protection on the right pane of the
Welcome screen.

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 23

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.
If there is not enough free space on your PC, the program will notify you that it cannot back
up the system volume and will suggest that you specify a destination for backup yourself.

4.2 Program workspace

Starting Acronis True Image Home takes you to the Welcome screen. This screen provides
quick access to practically all the program's functionality.

24 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009

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. If you
choose an item in the lower part, the upper part of the sidebar displays subitems related to
the chosen item (if any) and the right part of the main window shows detailed information
for the current subitem or a list of options available for that subitem.
Status bar
At the bottom of the main window, there is a status bar that briefly describes the selected
operation or screen. If you select a backup archive, task or log, the status bar will show
information on the selected item.
Taskbar notification area icon
During most of the operations, a special indicator icon appears in the Windows taskbar
notification area (the right portion of the status bar with the clock). If you mouse over the
icon, you will see a tool tip indicating the operation’s progress. Right-clicking on the icon
opens a contextual menu where you can change process priority or cancel the operation if
necessary. This icon doesn’t depend on the main program window being open. It is present
for background execution of scheduled tasks as well.
Acronis True Image Home uses wizards, which guide you through many operations. Like the
main program window, wizards also have the sidebar listing all the steps (both required and
optional) needed for completing the operation. For example, see the Backup Wizard
screenshot below.

The completed steps are marked with green checkmarks. The green arrow shows the current
step. After you complete all the required steps, the Summary button becomes available. If
you wish to omit the optional steps, click Summary, read the summary of the operation to
be performed (to make sure that the default settings satisfy you) and then click Proceed to
start the task. Otherwise proceed to the optional steps where you can change the default
settings for the current task.

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 25

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. It shows a wealth of information on the protection state of your computer and permits
taking measures that will enhance protection of your system (or provide it if the system is as
of yet unprotected) – the screen has links for creating a system partition backup, and
bootable rescue media, for activating Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. In addition, you
will get information on the number of backup archives, as well as the date and time of the
last backup, number of scheduled tasks and the last task result, and state of the Try&Decide
mode. The screen also shows information on the state of your hard disks (total capacity, free
space, space occupied by backup archives and other files), information on the state of the
Acronis Secure Zone (free and occupied space).

To go to one more screen of interest, click Backup and Restore -> Manage and restore
on the sidebar. This screen gives detailed information on your backup archives and provides
for quickly performing operations on these archives – Restore, Validate, Remove,
Consolidate, Update, Explore backup archives and Mount image backups by a single click on
a button on the toolbar. Clicking the button starts the appropriate wizard or performs the
appropriate action. On this screen you can assign ratings to your backups, for instance, you
may want to assign a high rating to an important backup. A backup rating is indicated by the
number of "stars" in the Rating column (more stars means higher rating). The default rating
is three stars, but you can raise or lower it by clicking on the stars in the column. The
assigned backup ratings may be helpful, for example, when sometime later you will need to
consolidate the backups stored in an archive – it will be easier to choose which backups to
keep after consolidation. For more information on manual backup consolidation see 11.5
Consolidating backups. In addition, these ratings might save you a lot of time you will
otherwise spend on exploring multiple files in your backup archives trying to guess which of
the outdated backups can be deleted without losing important data.

26 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009

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 self-
explanatory and some are described in the appropriate chapters of this guide. In addition, all
screens have brief descriptions of the features they allow to access or use and you can
always open contextual help by clicking the corresponding button.
By the way, you can also select all the features through the main program menu, which is
always at your disposal on the toolbar.

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 27

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. In addition to
enhancing the security of your data – you can keep it off-site (for example, at home if you
back up your office computer and vice versa); many models are hot-pluggable, so you can
attach and detach the drive as you need. You can choose various interfaces – USB 2.0,
FireWire, eSATA depending on the configuration of your computer ports and the required
data transfer rate. In many cases the best choice will be an external USB 2.0 hard drive,
though it has a pitfall – such a drive may slow down if it works together with slower USB 1.1
devices. If you have a Gigabit Ethernet home network and a dedicated file server or NAS, for
example, Buffalo TeraStation 1.0 TB NAS Gigabit Ethernet Home Server, you can store
backups on the file server or NAS practically like onto an internal drive. Blank optical discs
such as CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW are very cheap, so they will be the lowest cost
solution for backing up your data, though the slowest one (not counting backups to an FTP
server through a slow Internet connection).

5.2 Selecting what data to back up

As operating systems and application software become ever larger (for example, Windows
Vista x64 requires 15GB of free space on a hard disk), usually it will take you several hours
to reinstall your operating system and application software from original CDs or DVDs on a
new hard disk. Furthermore, the practice of buying application software by downloading
from the Internet is becoming more and more popular. If you lose your registration
information, for example, the activation key and/or registration number, which are usually
sent by software vendors through e-mail, you may have problems with restoring your right
to use the application. So making a backup of your entire system disk (making a disk image)
will save you a lot of valuable time in case of a disaster, as well as safeguard you against
other possible problems.
Backing up the entire system disk (creating a disk image) takes more disk space, but enables
you to restore the system in minutes in case of a system crash or hardware failure.
Moreover, the imaging procedure is much faster than copying files and could speed up the
backup process significantly when it comes to backing up large volumes of data (see details
in 3.1 The difference between file archives and disk/partition images).
You might think it would take a while to make a copy of your entire hard disk, but the
proprietary technologies used in Acronis True Image Home ensure that image creation is
quite fast. And the program can also back up incrementally or differentially, so after the first
time, updating your image to reflect the current state of your hard disk requires only copying
the files that are new or changed and will require much less time. Because images can save
you a lot of time when you need to recover the operating system, it is recommended that
you make them part of your backup strategy. In our opinion creating your system volume
image backup is vital for protecting your computer system from a disaster, so now Acronis
True Image Home offers to back up the system volume and Master Boot Record during the
first start of the program after installation. For more information see 4.1 Acronis One-Click
Protection.

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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. you accumulated on your computer for
several years? Hardware and software can be replaced, your personal data cannot.
Though there may be some exceptions, the optimal backup strategy for most users consists
of creating both images and file-level backups.
After the initial full backup, file-level backups usually take comparatively little time to run,
making it easy to back up your data once (or even several times) each day. This ensures
that your most recent backup is never more than a day old. Because they also offer
insurance against accidental deletion (or change) and file damage, file-level backups are an
essential part of a good backup strategy. But file-level backups alone are not sufficient for
two main reasons:
1) If your startup hard drive completely fails, you won’t be able to do any work at all until
you’ve replaced it; and 2) Reinstalling an operating system and applications from their
original CDs or DVDs is a lengthy and arduous procedure that you could avoid (or speed up
greatly) with an image of your hard disk.
You should create images of your primary disk and any other volume you normally use. If
you have multiple partitions on a drive, it is advisable to include all of them in the image,
because failure of the hard drive in most cases will mean that all the partitions it contains
also fail.
Here are some more recommendations you can use to plan your backups. You should store
your system drive image in the Acronis Secure Zone or, better still, on a hard drive other
than your primary hard disk C:. This gives an additional guarantee that you will be able to
recover your system if your primary hard disk drive fails. You should also keep your personal
data separate from your operating system and applications, for example, on disk D:. Such an
arrangement allows speeding up the creation of data disk (or partition) images and reduces
the amount of information you will need to restore.

5.3 Performing backup

1. Start Acronis True Image Home
2. Choose Backup and Restore in the lower area of the sidebar and the Create backup
task item will be selected by default.
3. Select what type of data you want to back up.
Acronis True Image Home offers you the following backup types:
My Computer (image backup of any set of disks/partitions)
My Data (file-level backup of any set of files, folders, or an entire file category)
System State (file-level backup of system files, drivers, etc.)
My E-mail (file-level backup of Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express, and Windows
Mail settings and messages).

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 29

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. You can also start the Backup Wizard by choosing Operations ->
Backup in the main menu and then selecting a backup type. Depending on the backup type
chosen, the number of steps in the Backup Wizard may change. For example, in case of
backing up the System State, the program backs up predefined data and requires the
minimum number of settings for configuring a backup task.

5.3.1 Selecting data for backup

When the Backup Wizard screen appears, select the data you wish to back up (in case of
choosing the System State, this step will be omitted).
My Computer - select the disks or partitions to back up. You can select a random set of
disks and partitions. The wizard's right pane shows the hard drives of your computer.
Selecting a hard drive results in selecting all partitions on that drive. If a hard drive has more
than one partition, you may want to select individual partitions for backing up. To do so,
click on the Down arrow at the right of the drive's line. Select the desired partition(s) in the
displayed partition list. By default the program copies only the hard disk sectors that contain
data. However, sometimes it might be useful to make a full sector-by-sector backup. For
example, perhaps you deleted some files by mistake and want to make a disk image before
trying to undelete them because sometimes un-deleting may create havoc in the file system.
To make a sector-by-sector backup, select the Use the sector-by-sector approach box.
Please note that this mode increases processing time and usually results in a larger image
file because it copies both used and unused hard disk sectors. In addition, when configuring
a sector-by-sector backup of a complete hard disk you can include in the backup unallocated
space on the hard disk by selecting Back up unallocated space. Thus you will include in
the backup all physical sectors on the hard drive.
My Data - select the file category(s) to back up: documents, finance, images, music,
and video. Each category represents all files of associated types found on the computer’s
hard drives. Furthermore, you can add any number of custom categories containing files and
folders. The new categories will be remembered and displayed along with the above. You
can change contents of any custom or default file category (edit the category) or delete it.
The default file categories cannot be deleted.
For more information on custom categories see 5.4.12 Creating a custom data category for
backups. If you do not want to keep custom contents of the current backup by creating a
data category, simply select the files/folders from the tree. This set will be effective only for
the current backup task. File filtering can be applied to manually added folders in the
optional Source files exclusion step.
My Application Settings - back up custom settings of Windows applications. This is a
subset of file-level backup that backs up predefined folders and requires minimum user
selections. The program displays a list of supported applications that has been found on the
computer, sorted by categories. You can select a random set of categories and applications.

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 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.
The list of supported applications will be expanded gradually. Updates will be available with
new program builds or via the Internet.
My E-mail - Acronis True Image Home offers a straightforward way to back up messages,
accounts and settings for Microsoft Outlook 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007, Microsoft Outlook
Express, and Windows Mail. E-mail backup is a subset of file-level backups that backs up
predefined folders and requires minimum user selections. However, if need be, you can
select Microsoft Outlook components and folders individually. The list of supported e-mail
clients will be gradually built up. Updates will be available with new program builds or via the
Internet.
You can select the following items:
Messages contained in .PST/.DBX Database Files
E-mail accounts
For Microsoft Office Outlook 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007
Mail Folders
Calendar
Contacts
Tasks
Notes
Signatures
News Folders
User Settings
Address Book
For Microsoft Outlook Express
Mail Folders
Address Book (select Windows Address Book).
Acronis True Image Home provides backup of IMAP (Internet Messages Access Protocol)
mail folders for Microsoft Outlook. This means that you can back up folders stored on a mail
server. For Microsoft Outlook Express and Windows Mail only local e-mail folders backup is
available.

5.3.2 Selecting the target archive location

Select the destination location for the backup and specify the archive name.
If you are going to create a new archive (i.e. perform a full backup), select Create new
backup archive and enter the path to the archive location and new archive file name in the
Backup Location: field below or click Browse, select the archive location on the directory
tree and enter the new file name in the File name line, or use the file name generator (a
button to the right of the line).
When you have chosen the My Data backup type for backing up files and/or folders, you
can select the zip archive type. For more information see 3.8 Support for Zip format.
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 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.
If you want to change the location of added backup files, browse for a new backup location
after clicking the Browse button, otherwise leave the location the same as that of the
existing archive.

The "farther" you store the archive from the original folders, the safer it will be in case of
disaster. For example, saving the archive to another hard disk will protect your data if the
primary disk is damaged. Data saved to a network disk, an FTP server or removable media
will survive even if all your local hard disks are damaged. You can also use the Acronis
Secure Zone for storing backups (see details in 3.3 Acronis Secure Zone).
See notes and recommendations for supporting FTP servers in 1.3.4 Supported storage
media.

After selecting the archive location and naming the backup archive to be created, you have
completed all the required steps for a backup task and this is confirmed by the fact that the
Summary button becomes selectable. All the remaining steps are optional and in many
cases you may omit them and just click Summary and then Proceed on the Summary
page. For example, when you want to proceed with backup right away, you can omit the
Scheduling step. If you do not want to exclude any files from the backup, you can omit the
Source files exclusion step. When you want to use the default backup options, you can
omit the Backup options step, and so on.
Now let's see what optional steps you can set up while configuring a backup task.

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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. If you have not
backed up the selected data yet, or the full archive is old and you want to create a new
master backup file, choose full backup. Otherwise it is recommended that you create an
incremental or differential backup (see 3.2 Full, incremental and differential backups).
If you select the Full method, the Automatic consolidation step (see 5.3.7 Setting
automatic consolidation) will be disabled. If you are adding a backup to the existing backup
archive, the Full method will be unselectable.

You can set a backup policy for the backup task. Acronis True Image Home offers three
types of backup policies:
1) create full backups only
2) create full backups after a specified number of incremental backups
3) create full backups after a specified number of differential backups
When the first backup on a schedule is executed, a full backup will be created. If you choose
(2) or (3) by selecting the Create a new full backup after box, the next backups will be
incremental (or differential) until the specified number of incremental (differential) backups
is reached. After the selected number of incremental or differential backups is made, the
next time a new full backup and a set of subsequent incremental (differential) backups will
be created; this process will then continue until you decide to change it.
When the Remove old archives box is selected, creation of a new full backup in
accordance with the specified backup policy results in deletion of the complete old backup
chain – the old full backup and its subsequent incremental (or differential) backups
Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 33
regardless of the overall limitations you set on the archive at the Automatic consolidation
step.
If you decide to keep old backups (by not selecting the Remove old archives box) and
creation of a new full backup results in violation(s) of the limits set for automatic
consolidation, the program will use the following algorithm:
1) if the actual number of backups exceeds the maximum number of backups, the program
automatically consolidates the old full backup with the oldest incremental (differential) one
to correct this quota violation;
2) if after correcting the number of backups limit violation there remains other quota
violation(s), the program consolidates the oldest backup to correct the storage period of old
backups limit violation (if possible - otherwise it deletes the old full backup);
3) if after correcting the storage period of old backups limit violation there remains the
archive size limit violation, the program consolidates the old full backup with the oldest
incremental (differential) one, then will repeat consolidation (if necessary and possible);
4) if after consolidating all the previous backups the archive size quota violation remains, the
old backup archive will be deleted in order to correct the violation;
5) if the new full backup file size exceeds the archive size limit, the program will record a
warning into the logs.

5.3.5 Source files exclusion

This step will be present only for the My Computer and My Data backup types. It enables
you to exclude unnecessary files from your backup in case when you just want to exclude
some file types without creating custom categories. You can exclude hidden or system files
and folders, as well as files matching the criteria you specify. You can add your own criteria
by clicking Add. While adding criteria, you can use the common Windows wildcard
characters and type several criteria in the same line separating them by semicolons. For
example, to exclude all files with .gif and .bmp extensions, you may type *.gif;*.bmp. One
more thing – if, for example, you want to exclude all the files with the name of test
regardless of their extension, you should specify exclusion criteria such as test.*, otherwise
those files will not be excluded. You can also specify the path to a folder to be excluded, for

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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.). The settings of the options will be applied only to the current backup task.

Or, you can edit the default backup options if you want to save the current settings for
future tasks. See 5.4 Fine-tuning your backups for more information.

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 35

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. To enable
automatic consolidation, you must select at least one of the limits and either leave its default
value or change it according to your needs.
If limits are set, then after creating a backup the program checks the archive for quota
violations, such as exceeding a pre-set maximum number of gigabytes set aside for backups
and, if any limitation is exceeded, consolidates the oldest backups. For example, if you’ve
pre-set your archive to store 50GB of backup files and your backups reach 55GB, you have
exceeded a quota and the system will respond automatically based on rules that you’ve
already set. This operation creates a temporary file and thus requires disk space. Consider
also that the quota must be violated so that the program can detect the violation. Therefore,
to be able to consolidate the files, the program needs some space on the disk in excess of
the archive quota. The extra amount of space can be estimated as the size of the largest
backup in the archive.
In case of setting a limit on the number of backups, the actual number of backups can
exceed the maximum number of backups by one. This enables the program to detect quota
violation and start consolidation. Similarly, if you pre-set a backups storage period, for
example, 30 days, the program will start consolidation when the oldest backup is stored for
31 days.

5.3.8 Providing a comment

Provide a comment for the archive. This can help identify the backup and prevent you from
restoring the wrong data. However, you can choose not to make any notes. The backup file

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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.
Clicking Proceed will start the task execution if you have configured the task to be started
manually, by choosing the Do not schedule option at the Scheduling step, or have left
selected the Run task now box for a scheduled task.
The task progress will be shown in a special window. You can stop the procedure by clicking
Cancel.
You can also close the progress window by clicking Hide. The backup creation will continue,
but you will be able to start another operation or close the main program window. In the
latter case, the program will continue working in the background and will automatically close
once the backup archive is ready. If you prepare some more backup operations, they will be
queued after the current one.

5.4 Fine-tuning your backups

You can fine-tune your backups to specific tasks. Such fine-tuning is made by configuring
backup options before starting a backup task.
You can set temporary backup options by editing the default backup options while creating a
backup task.
In addition, when backing up your data files, you can create custom data categories for
backup.

5.4.1 Archive protection

The preset is no password.
Suppose you have some files with sensitive information, for example, your tax return, which
you need to back up. Acronis True Image Home can help you protect your sensitive
information from getting into the wrong hands. The simplest (and the least secure) way is
protecting your backup with a password. Let's remind you that to make a password more
difficult to guess, it should consist of at least eight symbols and contain both letters (upper
and lower case, preferably) and numbers. If you think that a password will not give you
sufficient security, use encryption for your backup. Acronis True Image Home allows
encrypting backup files with the industry-standard AES cryptographic algorithm. A 128-bit
encryption key is sufficient for most applications. The longer the key, the more secure your
data. However, the 192 and 256-bit long keys significantly slow down the backup process,
though in the case being considered this most likely will not be an issue, because the files
will not be too large. The encryption settings are available only for password-protected
archives.
If you try to restore data from a password-protected archive, or append an
incremental/differential backup to such an archive, Acronis True Image Home will ask for the
password in a special window, allowing access only to those who know the password.

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 37

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 .exe files with names consisting of five symbols and starting with “my”.
This option affects real folders selected at My Data backup. If the name of a whole folder
matches a mask you set, this folder will be excluded with all its content. Backup of a file
category uses file filters preset at creation of the category. My Application Settings,
System State or My E-mail backup implies dedicated lists of files that must not be filtered.

5.4.3 Pre/post commands

You can specify commands or batch files to be executed automatically before and/or after
the backup procedure. For example, you may want to remove some temporary (.tmp) files
from the disk before starting backup or configure a third-party antivirus product to be used
each time for scanning the files to be backed up before the backup starts. Click Edit to open
the Edit Command window where you can easily input the command, its arguments and
working directory or browse folders to find a batch file.
Please, do not try to execute interactive commands, i.e. commands that require user input
(for example, "pause"). These are not supported.
Unselecting the Do not perform operations until the command's execution is
complete box, selected by default, will permit the backup process to run concurrently with
your commands execution.
If you want the backup to be performed even if your command fails, unselect the Abort the
operation if the user command fails box (selected by default).
You can test execution of the command you created by clicking Test command.

5.4.4 Compression level

The preset is Normal.
Let's consider such an example - you need to backup to a USB stick some files with a total
size comparable or exceeding the USB stick's capacity and want to make sure that the stick
accommodates all the files. In this case use the Maximum compression for the files to be
backed up. However, you should take into account that the data compression ratio depends
on the type of files stored in the archive, for example, even the Maximum compression will
not significantly reduce the backup size if it contains files with already compressed data like
.jpg, .pdf or .mp3. It does not make any sense to select the Maximum compression for
such files because in this case the backup operation will take significantly longer and you will
not get an appreciable reduction of backup size. If you are not sure about the compression
ratio of a file type, try to back up a couple of files and compare the sizes of the original files
and backup archive file. A couple of additional tips: generally, you can use the Normal
compression level, because in most cases it provides an optimal balance between backup file
size and backup duration. If you select None, the data will be copied without any
compression, which may significantly increase the backup file size, while making the fastest
backup.

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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. Increasing the backup priority might speed up the backup
process due to taking resources from the other currently running processes. The effect will
depend on total CPU usage and other factors.
2. HDD writing speed
The preset is Maximum.
Backing up in the background to an internal hard disk (for example, to Acronis Secure Zone)
may slow other programs’ performance because of the large amounts of data transferred to
the disk. You can limit the hard disk usage by Acronis True Image Home to a desired level.
To set the desired HDD writing speed for data being backed up, drag the slider or enter the
writing speed in kilobytes per second.
3. Network connection speed
The preset is Maximum.

If you frequently back up data to network drives, think of limiting the network bandwidth
used by Acronis True Image Home. To set the desired data transfer speed, drag the slider or
enter the bandwidth limit for transferring backup data in kilobytes per second.

5.4.6 Archive splitting

Sizeable backups can be split into several files that together form the original backup. A
backup file can be split for burning to removable media or saving on an FTP server (data

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 39

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. Using Acronis True Image Home you can make a reserve
backup copy on blank DVD-R/DVD+R discs, which are very cheap nowadays. The program
can split large backups into several files that together form the original backup. If you have
enough space on your PC's hard disk, you can first create a backup archive consisting of
multiple files with a specified size on the hard disk and burn the archive to DVD+R discs later
on. To specify the split file size, select Fixed size mode for Archive splitting and enter the
desired file size or select it from the drop-down list.
If you do not have enough space to store the backup on your hard disk, select Automatic
and create the backup directly on DVD-R discs. Acronis True Image Home will split the
backup archive automatically and will ask you to insert a new disc when the previous one is
full.
Creating backups directly on CD-R/RW or DVD+R/RW might take considerably more time
than it would on a hard disk.

5.4.7 File-level security settings

Preserve files' security settings in archives
By default, files and folders are saved in the archive with their original Windows security
settings (i.e. permissions for read, write, execute and so on for each user or user group, set
in file Properties -> Security). If you restore a secured file/folder on a computer without
the user specified in the permissions, you may not be able to read or modify this file.
To eliminate this kind of problem, you can disable preserving file security settings in
archives. Then the restored files/folders will always inherit the permissions from the folder to
which they are restored (parent folder or disk, if restored to the root).
Or, you can disable file security settings during restoration, even if they are available in the
archive (see 6.4.4 File-level security settings below). The result will be the same.
In archives, store encrypted files in decrypted state
The preset is disabled.
If you do not use the encryption feature available in Windows XP and Windows Vista
operating systems, simply ignore this option. (Files/folders encryption is set in Properties -
> General -> Advanced Attributes -> Encrypt contents to secure data).
Check the option if there are encrypted files in the backup and you want them to be
accessed by any user after restore. Otherwise, only the user who encrypted the files/folders
will be able to read them. Decryption may also be useful if you are going to restore
encrypted files on another computer.
These options relate only to file/folder backups. In addition, they are unavailable for zip
backup archives.

5.4.8 Media components

The preset is disabled.

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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 one-
click 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.
If you want more functionality during restoration, write a full standalone version of Acronis
True Image Home to the rescue media. As a result, you will be able to configure the
restore task using Restore Data Wizard.
By clicking the Advanced tab you can select Acronis True Image Home (full version) and
Acronis True Image Home (safe version). The safe version will be available for those who
purchased the boxed version of Acronis True Image Home and installed the appropriate add-
on. If you have other Acronis products installed on your computer, such as Acronis Disk
Director Suite, the bootable versions of these programs’ components will be offered on this
tab as well.

5.4.9 Error handling

1. Ignore bad sectors
The preset is disabled.
This option lets you run a backup even if there are bad sectors on the hard disk. Although
most disks do not have bad sectors, the possibility that they might occur increases during
the course of the hard disk’s lifetime. If your hard drive has started making strange noises
(for example, it starts making quite loud clicking or grinding noises during operation), such
noises may mean that the hard drive is failing. When the hard drive completely fails, you can
lose important data, so it is high time to back up the drive as soon as possible. There may be
a problem though – the failing hard drive might already have bad sectors. If the Ignore
bad sectors box is left unselected, a backup task is aborted in case of read and/or write
errors that could occur on the bad sectors. Selecting this box lets you run a backup even if
there are bad sectors on the hard disk ensuring that you save as much information from the
hard drive as possible.
2. Do not show messages and dialogs while processing (silent mode)
The preset is disabled.
You can enable this setting to ignore errors during backup operations. This feature was
mainly designed for unattended backups when you cannot control the backup process. In
this mode no notifications will be displayed to you if errors occur during backup. Instead you
can view the detailed log of all operations after the task finishes by selecting Tools ->
Show Log. You may use this option when configuring a backup task to be run during the
night.
3. When not enough space in ASZ delete the oldest archive
The preset is disabled.
When this setting is disabled and there is not enough space in the Acronis Secure Zone for
the backup file being created, the program will display a dialog warning you that the zone is
full and will require your action. The backup is suspended until you take a desired action and
this makes unattended backups impossible. The dialog opens even when the Do not show
messages and dialogs while processing (silent mode) setting is enabled. So it is

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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. When setting up a backup of critical data or a
disk/partition backup, we strongly recommend you to enable the option to ensure that the
backup can be used to recover lost data.
To check archive data integrity you must have all incremental and differential backups
belonging to the archive and the initial full backup. If any of the successive backups are
missing, validation is not possible.

2. Ask for first media while creating backup archives on removable media
The preset is enabled.
You can choose whether to display the Insert First Media prompt when backing up to
removable media. With the default setting, backing up to removable media may not be
possible if the user is away, because the program will wait for someone to press OK in the
prompt box. Therefore, you should disable the prompt when scheduling a backup to
removable media. Then, if the removable media is available (for example, CD-R/RW
inserted) the task can run unattended.

5.4.11 Backup reserve copy settings

The preset is disabled.
You may want Acronis True Image Home to make reserve copies of your backups in a
certain location each time when you choose the My Data backup type for backing up
selected files and folders. To enable creation of reserve copies, select the Reserve my
backups checkbox and then choose the method for making reserve copies. You have three
choices: duplicate the backups as tib files, make reserve copies as zip archives, or simply
copy the files and/or folders to a specified location "as is".
To specify the location for storing reserve copies of your backups, click the Location link.
Select a location – a local hard disk, USB stick, or a network share. You can create a folder
for reserve copies by clicking the Create new folder icon. Reserve copies created as tib
and zip files will be named automatically as follows:
backupfilename_reserved_copy_mm-dd-yyyy hh-mm-ss AM.tib; or
backupfilename_reserved_copy_mm-dd-yyyy hh-mm-ss PM.zip,
where mm-dd-yyyy hh-mm-ss is the date and time of reserve copy creation in the following
format: month (one or two digits), day (one or two digits), year (four digits), hour (one or
two digits), minute (two digits), and second (two digits). AM or PM is a 12-hour period.
For example: MyBackup_reserved_copy_8-15-2008 9-37-42 PM.zip
If you choose reserve copies to be made in the form of flat files, those files will be placed
into folders which will be automatically created and named as follows:
backupfilename_reserved_copy_mm-dd-yyyy hh-mm-ss AM (or PM).

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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.

5.4.12 Creating a custom data category for backups

To add a custom data category, click Create in the Choose files to back up screen of the
Backup Wizard, select the folder (data source) and provide a name for the category. You can
include in the category all files in the selected folder or apply filters to select the specific
types of files that you wish or do not wish to back up.
To set a filter, select its type: Back up files of the following types only or Back up files
of all types in the source except the following. Then click Add new and select the
desired file types in the window that appears.

You can select file types as follows:

1. By name. Enter the file name in the upper Name field. You can use the common
Windows wildcard characters. For example, My???.exe will select all .exe files with names
consisting of five symbols and starting with “my”.
2. By type. Select the desired file types in the list. You can also search desired registered file
types by entering their extension or description in the Search field.
3. By extension. Click the Edit custom file types… link and enter the extensions
(semicolon separated) in the File extensions field.
If you do not want to keep custom contents of the current backup, simply select the
files/folders from the tree. This set will be effective only for the current backup task.

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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. So now you
can perform a normal backup and copy the same files to a USB stick or any local hard drive.
You have a choice of making a reserve copy in the form of regular files, a zip compressed
file, or a tib file (optionally with password protection and encryption).
A reserve copy always contains all the files selected for backup, that is, when creating a
reserve copy the program always makes a full backup of the source data. You cannot make
a reserve copy in the form of an incremental or differential backup, even in tib format.

Also remember that you will pay for the enhanced convenience and increased security of
your data by the time required for performing the task, because normal backup and reserve
copying are performed one at a time and not simultaneously.
And now let us consider a case when you may need to make a reserve copy of your backup.
Suppose you have worked hard on an urgent project all day and the deadline is tomorrow
morning. You decide to back up the results of the day's work in the Acronis Secure Zone and
make a reserve copy of the project on a USB stick to finish the project at home. To make a
reserve copy:
1. When you come to the Backup options step while configuring a My Data backup task in
the Backup Wizard (or select that step after completing all the required steps), choose
Backup reserve copy and then select the Reserve my backups box (if it is not
selected in the default backup options).

2. Choose how to duplicate the project file(s) on the USB stick. If you need to save space,
choose duplicating as a zip file. Click on the Location link, select the drive letter of the
USB stick and create a folder for a reserve copy by clicking on the Create new folder
icon.

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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.

5.6 Archive to various places

You can save full, incremental and differential backups of the same data entity (for example,
a partition, disk, E-mail, Applications settings) to various places – almost anywhere you like.

5.6.1 Why you need this feature

The previous versions of Acronis True Image Home could save incremental or differential
backups only in the same place (a folder, disk, backup location, etc.) as the initial full
backup. Usually this is not a problem but sometimes this could be difficult or simply
impossible to achieve, for example, due to using up all the available disk space. Of course,
Acronis True Image Home provided means for alleviating this problem – it could manage
backups in the Acronis Secure Zone and in backup locations and was able to automatically
delete the oldest backups freeing the space it needed for new ones. This is still true for the
Acronis Secure Zone. Such an approach worked just fine in most cases, however, there could
be exceptions.
For example, you saved a full backup of your system disk to an external USB hard disk drive
and it occupied almost all the disk. If later you would like to make an incremental backup of
that disk while keeping the initial full one, this was simply impossible.
Also, you could assign a meaningful name only to a full backup. Incremental and differential
backups were named automatically by adding sequential numbers to the full backup name.
You could add a comment with a description of the backup while configuring a backup task
in the wizard, but in order to read this description you needed to launch Acronis True Image
Home and select the appropriate tib archive in the Restore wizard.
There was one more drawback. Suppose you were making a large backup to a hard disk and
after an hour you got a message warning you that the disk is full. You could try to free some

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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.

5.6.2 What makes it work

For this feature to operate, Acronis True Image Home maintains an internal database
containing all the metadata information on the operations performed with tib files (such as
creation, consolidation, verification, and so on), as well as on their names, sizes, time
stamps, physical paths, archive types (full, incremental, differential), slice and volume IDs,
and some "housekeeping" information required for program operation. The database is
updated after each operation with tib files. Acronis True Image Home also adds to tib files
metadata uniquely identifying the file. The last volume of a slice related to a certain backup
entity contains additional information on the IDs of all the preceding volumes and backups
(tib files).
In other words, thanks to this metadata information, Acronis True Image Home always
knows where, when, and how it backed up your data and where it can find the data you
want to restore.
By the way, the metadata information database gives you an additional benefit. Now you can
assign any name you wish to incremental and differential backups. This makes it easier to
find the required backup archive when you need to restore some data.

5.6.3 Using backup to various places

Now Acronis True Image Home offers much greater flexibility. You can save full, incremental
and differential backups to different places including a network share, CD/DVD, USB stick, as
well as any local internal or external hard drive.
You cannot use the Acronis Secure Zone as one of the places for storing a part of backups
belonging to the same backup "chain", because such backups may be automatically deleted
during automatic backups consolidation in the Acronis Secure Zone. As a result, the backup
chain will be corrupted. In addition, the Archive to various places feature does not work with
FTP servers.

One more useful aspect of this feature is its ability to split backups "on-the-fly". Suppose you
perform a backup to a hard disk and in the middle of the backup process Acronis True Image
Home finds out that the disk, to which you are backing up, does not have enough free space
for completing the backup. The program displays a message warning you that the disk is full.

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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. If the free
space is enough for completing the backup, assign a name for the file that will contain the
remaining data being backed up. You can either enter the name manually (for example,
"Tail_end.tib") or use the file name generator (a button to the right of the line). Then click
OK and Acronis True Image Home will complete the backup.
Acronis True Image Home permits to give any backup archive whatever name you wish.
Suppose you bought a new hard disk drive and transferred to it the contents of the old one
by cloning. You decided to perform a full backup of the new system disk and named it
"DiskCafterCloning".

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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. Before creating a partition for Linux you perform an incremental backup of the
system disk and name it "DiskCBeforePartitioning", and so on. As a result, if the need to
recover arises, you will be able to find at a glance a backup archive corresponding to the
system disk state you want to recover.

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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. If you have saved backups belonging to the same backup "chain" to various places,
Acronis True Image Home may prompt you for the locations of previous backups during data
recovery, in the case when the selected backup archive does not contain the files you want
to restore (or contains only a part of them).

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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.
The boot CD, from which you started the program, does not keep you from using other CDs
or DVDs with backup archives. Acronis True Image Home is loaded entirely into RAM so you
can remove the bootable CD to insert the archive disc.
Be careful! When you use the Acronis True Image Home rescue disc, the product creates
disk drive letters that might 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. This is not an error with the software.
If a backup image is located on bootable media, you might have the choice of using Acronis
One-Click Restore. This operation always restores the entire physical disk. Therefore, if your
disk consists of several partitions, all of them must be included in the image. Any partitions
missing from the image will be lost. Please make sure that the image contains all the disk
data you plan to restore. For more information on Acronis One-Click Restore, see 5.4.8
Media components.

6.1.1 Network settings in rescue mode

When booted from removable media or by Startup Recovery Manager, Acronis True Image
Home might not detect the network. That can happen if there is no DHCP server in your
network or your computer address was not identified automatically.
To enable network connection, specify network settings manually in the window, available at
Tools -> Options -> Network adapters.

6.2 Restoring files and folders from file archives

This section describes how to restore files and folders from a file backup archive. You can
restore the desired files and folders from a disk/partition image as well. To do so, mount the
image (see Chapter 12. Exploring archives and mounting images) or start the image
restoration and select Restore files or folders.
File backup archives are supported only for the FAT and NTFS file systems.

1. Start the Restore Wizard by selecting Operations -> Restore in the main program
menu.
2. Select the archive.

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 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 1.3.4 Supported storage media.
Please note that before restoring Microsoft Outlook mail messages, accounts, contacts,
settings, etc. from My E-mail backup on a new computer with a newly installed Microsoft
Outlook, you should launch Outlook at least once. If Microsoft Outlook is launched for the
first time after restoring the E-mail information, it may malfunction.
If you use Microsoft Outlook Express and restore its mail folders, accounts, etc. from My E-
mail backup on another PC or after performing a so called "clean install" of Microsoft
Windows, please, do not forget to switch to your identity after restoration by selecting File -
> Switch Identity in Outlook Express and then double-clicking on your identity in the list
of the dialog box.

3. If you are to restore files from an archive containing incremental backups, Acronis True
Image Home will enable selecting one of the successive incremental backups by its creation
date/time. Thus, you can roll back the files/folders state to a certain date.
To restore data from an incremental backup, you must have all the previous backup files and
the initial full backup. If any of the successive backups are missing, restoration is not
possible.
To restore data from a differential backup, you must have the initial full backup as well.

4. Select a folder on your computer where you want to restore selected folders/files (a target
folder). You can restore data to its original location or choose a new one, if necessary.
Choosing a new location results in the appearance of one more required step, namely,
Destination.
When you choose a new location, the selected items by default will be restored without
restoring the original, absolute path. You may also wish to restore the items with their entire
folder hierarchy. If this is the case, select Restore absolute path.

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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. By default, the program will not overwrite any files and folders,
thus giving the files on the hard disk unconditional priority over the archived files.

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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. Select the options for the restoration process (that is, restoration process priority, file-level
security settings, etc.). The options you set on this page will be applied only to the current
restore task. If you want to use the default restoration options, omit this step and click
Summary.

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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.

6.3 Restoring disks/partitions or files from images

To restore a partition (disk) from an image, Acronis True Image Home must obtain
exclusive access to the target partition (disk). This means no other applications can access
it at that time. If you receive a message stating that the partition (disk) cannot be locked,
close applications that use this partition (disk) and start recovery once more. If you cannot
determine which applications use the partition (disk), close them all.

6.3.1 Starting the Restore Wizard

Start the Restore Wizard by selecting Operations -> Restore in the main program
menu.

6.3.2 Archive selection

1. Select the archive. Acronis True Image Home will show the list of backup archives whose
locations it knows from the information stored in its database. If the program has not found
the backup you need (for example, when the backup was made some time ago by a
previous Acronis True Image Home version), you can find it manually by clicking Browse
and then selecting the backup location on the directory tree and choosing the backup in the
right pane.

If the archive is located on removable media, e.g. CD, first insert the last CD and then insert
disks in reverse order when the Restore Data Wizard prompts you.

Data recovery directly from an FTP server requires the archive to consist of files of no more
than 2GB each. 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 network share disk. See notes and

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 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. If you are going to restore data from an archive containing incremental backups, Acronis
True Image Home will enable selecting one of the successive incremental backups by its
creation date/time. Thus, you can roll back the disk/partition state to a certain date.
To restore data from an incremental backup, you must have all previous backup files and the
initial full backup. If any of the successive backups are missing, restoration is not possible.
To restore data from a differential backup, you must have the initial full backup as well.

6.3.3 Restoration method selection

Select what you want to restore:

Restore whole disks and partitions

Having chosen a disk and partition recovery type, you may need to select the following
option.
Sector-by-sector
The program will restore both used and unused sectors of disks or partitions. This option will
appear only when you choose to restore a sector-by-sector backup.
Restore chosen files or folders
If you are not going to recover the system, but only want to repair damaged files, select
Restore chosen files or folders. With this selection, you will be further asked to select
where to restore selected folders/files (original or new location), choose files/folders to be
restored, and so on. These steps look like those in file archive restore. However, watch your
selection: if you are going to restore files instead of a disk/partition, unselect the
unnecessary folders. Otherwise you will restore a lot of excess files. Then you will be able to
go directly to the Restoration Summary screen (6.3.10 Restoration summary and executing
restoration).

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 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.

Disk and partition images contain a copy of track 0 along with the MBR (master boot record).
It appears in this window in a separate line. You can choose whether to restore MBR and
track 0 by selecting the corresponding box. Restore the MBR if it is critical to your system
booting.
When MBR restoration is chosen, there will be the "Restore disk signature" box in the bottom
left corner at the next step. Restoring disk signature may be desirable due to the following
reasons:
1) Acronis True Image Home creates scheduled tasks using the signature of the source hard
disk. If you restore the same disk signature, you don't need to re-create or edit the tasks
created previously.
2) Some installed applications use disk signature for licensing and other purposes.
3) If you use Windows Restore Points, they will be lost when the disk signature is not
restored.
4) In addition, restoring disk signature allows to restore VSS snapshots used by Windows
Vista's "Previous Versions" feature.
If the box is unselected, Acronis True Image Home generates a new disk signature for the
restored drive. This may be needed when you use an image backup not for disaster recovery
but for cloning your Windows Vista hard drive to another one. Trying to boot Windows after

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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. Once this happens, the clone disk would not be able to boot up independently of
the original disk, because the MountedDevices fields in the clone's registry reference the disk
signature of the original disk, which will not be available if the original disk is disconnected.

6.3.5 Selecting a target disk/partition

1. Select a target disk or partition where you want to restore the selected image. You can
restore data to its initial location, to another disk/partition or to an unallocated space. The
target partition should be at least the same size as the uncompressed image data.
All the data stored on the target partition will be replaced by the image data, so be careful
and watch for non-backed-up data that you might need.

2. When restoring an entire disk, the program will analyze the target disk structure to see
whether the disk is free.

If there are partitions on the target disk, you will be prompted by the confirmation window
stating that the destination disk contains partitions, perhaps with useful data.
You will have to select between:
• OK – all existing partitions will be deleted and all their data will be lost.
• Cancel – no existing partition will be deleted, discontinuing the recovery operation. You
will then have to cancel the operation or select another disk.
Note that no real changes or data destruction will be performed at this time! For now, the
program will just map out the procedure. All changes will be implemented only when you
click Proceed in the wizard’s Summary window.

6.3.6 Changing the restored partition type

When restoring a partition, you can change its type, though it is not required in most cases.

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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).
If you restore a system partition to another hard disk with its own partitions and OS, most
likely you will need only the data. In this case, you can restore the partition as Logical to
access the data only.
By default, the original partition type is selected.
Selecting Active for a partition without an installed operating system could prevent your
computer from booting.

6.3.7 Changing the restored partition size and location

You can resize and relocate a partition by dragging it or its borders with a mouse on the
horizontal bar on the screen or by entering corresponding values into the appropriate fields.
Using this feature, you can redistribute the disk space among partitions being restored. In
this case, you will have to restore the partition to be reduced first.

These changes might be useful if you are going to copy your hard disk to a new high-
capacity one by creating its image and restoring it to a new disk with larger partitions.

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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.). The
settings will be applied only to the current restore task. Or, you can edit the default options.
See 6.4 Setting restore options for more information.

6.3.10 Restoration summary and executing restoration

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 editing its
settings. If you click Cancel, no changes will be made to disk(s). Clicking Proceed will
launch the task execution.
The task progress will be shown in a special window. You can stop the procedure by clicking
Cancel. However, it is critical to note that the target partition will be deleted and its space
unallocated – the same result you will get if the restoration is unsuccessful. To recover the
“lost” partition, you will have to restore it from the image again.

6.4 Setting restore options

6.4.1 Files to preserve during restoration
This option is not applicable to restoration of disks and partitions from images.
By default, the program will not overwrite any files and folders, thus giving the files on the
hard disk unconditional priority over the archived files.
Selecting the Overwrite existing files checkbox will give the archived files unconditional
priority over the files on the hard disk.
You can set default filters for the specific types of files you wish to preserve during archive
restoration. For example, you may want hidden and system files and folders, newer files and
folders, as well as files matching selected criteria not to be overwritten by the archive files.
While specifying the criteria, you can use the common Windows wildcard characters. For
example, to preserve all files with extension .exe, add *.exe. My???.exe will preserve all
.exe files with names consisting of five symbols and starting with “my”.

6.4.2 Pre/post commands

You can specify commands or batch files to be automatically executed before and after the
restore procedure. Click Edit to open the Edit Command window where you can easily
input the command, its arguments and working directory or browse folders to find a batch
file.
Please note that interactive commands, i.e. commands that require user input, are not
supported.

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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.
Please, keep in mind that when restoring the system partition to the original place your post
command will not be executed because recovery of the system partition requires a reboot,
resulting in loss of the command. Such a command will also be lost if the program requests
a reboot during any other restore operation.

6.4.3 Restoration 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 restoration priority will free more
resources for other CPU tasks. Raising restoration priority may speed up the restore process
as it takes resources from other currently running processes. The effect will depend on total
CPU usage and other factors.

6.4.4 File-level security settings

The preset is Restore files with their security settings.
If the file security settings were preserved during backup (see 5.4.7 File-level security
settings), you can choose whether to restore them or let the files inherit the security settings
of the folder where they will be restored.
This option is effective only when restoring files from file/folder archives.

6.4.5 Additional settings

1. You can choose whether to restore the file date and time from the archive or assign the
files the current date and time. By default the current date and time will be assigned.
2. Before data is restored from the archive, Acronis True Image Home can check its integrity.
If you suspect that the archive might have been corrupted, select Validate backup
archive before restoration.
You must have all incremental and differential backups belonging to the archive and the
initial full backup to check archive data integrity. If any backups are missing, the validation is
not possible.

3. Having restored a disk/partition from an image, Acronis True Image Home can check the
integrity of the file system. To do so, select Check file system after restoration.
Limitations on use of this option:
• Check of the file system is available only when restoring disk/partitions using FAT16/32
and NTFS file systems.
• The file system will not be checked if a reboot is required during restoration, for
example, when restoring the system partition to its original place.

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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.
Among the operations you may attempt with this feature is to open mail attachments from
unknown senders or visit websites that might contain potentially troublesome content.
For example, if you visit a website or open an email attachment that puts a virus on your
temporary duplicate, you can simply destroy the duplicate and no harm will be done – the
virus will not appear on your machine.
It is important to remember that if you download e-mail from a POP mail server, create new
files or edit existing documents while in the Try&Decide mode and then decide to discard
your changes, those files, document changes, and mail will no longer exist. If you use POP
email, make sure to change the settings in your e-mail to leave your mail on the server
before you activate the Try&Decide mode. This way, you can always retrieve your email
again. Similarly, save new files and/or edited documents to a drive not protected by
Try&Decide.

After starting Try&Decide mode you can safely install any system updates, drivers and
applications without worrying about what might happen to your system. If anything goes
wrong, you can simply discard the changes made in the Try&Decide mode.
One of the best features of Try&Decide is that it isolates your "real" operating system from
changes to the temporary operating system duplicate made by updates. Should you find any
kind of incompatibility, you can easily revert your system to the initial state, which was not
changed when the update was applied.
Because of this, you can safely install system updates when they appear. When Windows
Update informs you that updates for the system and Microsoft applications are ready for
installing, turn on the Try&Decide mode and then proceed to install the updates. If you
encounter any sort of problem, discard the changes and leave your real operating system
and applications untouched.

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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.

When your computer reboots for whatever reason while working in the Try&Decide mode,
before booting of the operating system starts, you will be shown a dialog offering you two
choices – stop the mode and discard changes or continue working in the mode. This will
allow discarding the changes that have resulted in a system crash. On the other hand, if you
reboot, for example, after installing an application, you can continue working in the
Try&Decide mode after starting Windows.

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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.
Please note that while working in the Try&Decide mode you will experience slowing down of
the system performance. Furthermore, the process of applying changes could take
considerable time.
Please be aware that the Try&Decide cannot track changes in disk partitions, so you will be
unable to use the Try&Decide mode for virtual operations with partitions such as resizing
partitions or changing their layout. In addition, you must not use the Try&Decide mode and
disk defragmentation or disk error checking utilities at the same time, because this can
irreparably corrupt the file system, as well as make the system disk unbootable.
Acronis True Image Home will track changes until the Acronis Secure Zone is almost full.
Then the program will alert you that the time has come to make a decision on whether to
apply or discard the changes made so far. If you choose to not heed the alert message, the
program will automatically restart the system when the zone is full, discarding the changes
in the process of rebooting. At that point, all changes will be lost.
When the Try&Decide mode is started, you won't be able to use the previously activated
Acronis Startup Recovery Manager.

If you have chosen Discard Changes and rebooted the computer with multiple operating
systems installed, you won’t be able to boot other operating systems, except the one used
for working in the Try&Decide mode. The second reboot will restore the original MBR and
make other operating systems bootable.

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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. By default, T&D protects Disk C,
though you may choose to protect any other partition in your system.
• Alert settings – specify whether Try&Decide should alert you when it uses up all the
space allotted for saving virtual changes and after a specified time period has passed. By
default all alerts are On.

7.2 Try&Decide usage examples

The Try&Decide feature can help you in a variety of ways; here are some examples:
There are cases when the installation of antivirus software cripples functionality of some
applications; in fact, some programs might even refuse to start after antivirus installation.
The Try&Decide feature can help you to avoid such a problem. Here’s how:
1. Select an antivirus program and download a trial version.
2. Turn on the Try&Decide mode.
3. Install the antivirus software.
4. Try to work with the applications installed on your computer performing your usual tasks.
5. If everything works without any snags, you can be reasonably sure that there will be no
incompatibility problems and can buy the antivirus software.
6. If you encounter any problems, discard the changes in your system and try antivirus
software from another vendor. The new attempt might turn out to be successful.
Here’s another example: You have accidentally deleted some files and then emptied the
Recycle Bin. Then you have remembered that the deleted files contained important data and
now you are going to try to undelete them using an undelete software program. However,
sometimes you may do something wrong while trying to recover deleted files, making things
worse than before trying to recover them. Here’s one way you could try to recover the lost
files:
1. Turn on the Try&Decide mode.
2. Launch the file undelete utility.
3. After the utility scans your disk in search of the deleted file or folder entries, it will present
you the deleted entries it has found (if any) and offer you the opportunity to save whatever
it is able to recover. There is always a chance that you might pick the wrong file and while
recovering it the utility may overwrite the very file you are trying to recover. If not for
Try&Decide, this error would be fatal and the file would be lost irretrievably.
4. But now you can simply discard the changes made in the Try&Decide mode and make one
more attempt to recover the files after turning on the Try&Decide mode again. Such
attempts can be repeated until you recover the files or until you are sure that you have done
your best to recover them.

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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. When your kid is through with gaming or Internet surfing
or when you think that it is time for the kid to go to bed, return the system to the state it
was in before your kid started using the computer. To do so, log on and discard the changes
made during the Try&Decide session.
It is well known that the "Add or Remove Programs" component of the Windows Control
Panel cannot give a complete guarantee of cleanly uninstalling applications. This is because
most applications do not provide enough information for it to be able to uninstall them
without a trace. So almost every time you install a trial program and then remove it, you
have some garbage left on your computer and after a while Windows may get slower. Even
use of special uninstaller utilities cannot guarantee complete uninstallation. The Try&Decide
feature, however, will ensure complete and perfect uninstallation of any software quickly and
easily. Here's how:
1. Turn on the Try&Decide mode.
2. Install the software application you want to evaluate.
3. Try using the application.
4. When you want to uninstall it, just discard all the changes made to your computer in the
Try&Decide mode.
This may come in handy not only for those who, for example, like to play a lot of games but
for professional software testers as well – to use on their testing machines.

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 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. For example, if
you’re backing up to a recordable DVD, you must be prepared to insert a blank disc
whenever the schedule runs. On the other hand, if you schedule backups to run when you’re
not around, you must always think ahead and make sure the drive has the necessary media
ready. If, on the other hand, you’re backing up to a hard disk or network device that can
stay connected all the time, this problem is less likely to occur.
If you are performing a scheduled backup task to a USB flash drive, the backup process will
begin automatically when the device is plugged in, but only when 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 in another flash drive, the backup process won’t start.

8.1 Creating scheduled tasks

You can schedule a new task in the Backup Wizard or Validate Wizard in the
Scheduling step. It is also possible to create a scheduled task by clicking Create Backup
Task or Create Validation Task on the toolbar of the Manage Tasks and Log screen.
If the backup archive you want to validate is protected with a password, Acronis True Image
Home will ask for it.

1. Perform task running scheduling. Select one of the following scheduling options:

• Once only – the task will be executed once at the specified time and day
• Upon event – the task will be executed on an event to be selected in the right pane:

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• 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.
• Daily – the task will be executed once a day or once every several days
• Weekly – the task will be executed once a week or once every several weeks on the
selected day
• Monthly – the task will be executed once a month on the selected day
To postpone a scheduled task until the next time the user is idle, select the Run when the
user is idle box. The task will automatically start when you are idle (not using the mouse
and the keyboard) for the number of minutes specified in the Wait setting of the screen
saver or when you log off. Once the task has started, it will be completed because task
execution cannot be interrupted by the user. However, you can work on the computer while
the task is running.
If the computer is off when the scheduled time comes, the task won’t be performed, but you
can force the missed task to run at the next system startup by selecting the If missed, run
the task at startup box.
If you schedule a task for performing backup to a USB flash drive, one more checkbox
appears on the scheduling screen – If missed, run the task when device is attached.
Selecting this box will let you perform a missed backup when the USB flash drive is attached
if it was disconnected at the scheduled time. If you want the missed task to be performed
only when the same device is attached, select the Run task only if the current device is
attached box. Otherwise the missed task will run when any USB flash drive is attached.
2. Specify the task start time and other schedule parameters, according to the selected
periodicity (see 8.1.1 - 8.1.5).
3. Next you will have to specify the name of the user who owns the task to be executed;
otherwise no scheduled execution will be available.
Enter the user name (or leave the name of the logged on user). Enter the password.

8.1.1 Setting up once only execution

If you choose once only execution, set the start time. Then set the date on which to execute
the task using the provided calendar:

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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.
If you want to run a task only at the first occurrence of the event on the current day, select
the Once a day only box.

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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.

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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 <specify a day> – on the specified day (e.g. on second Tuesday or fourth
Friday); select this from the drop-down lists.
• On every x day of the month – on the specified date

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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. To do so, select Tools -> Options -> Task options from the main program
menu. Then choose Filter and unselect the Show only tasks created by a current user
box.
You can change the task parameters by editing. This is performed in the same way as
creation, however, the earlier selected options will be set, so you only have to enter the
changes. To edit a task, select it and click Edit on the toolbar.
To delete a task with confirmation, select it and click Delete on the toolbar.
To rename a task, select it, click Rename on the toolbar and enter the new task name.
You can also start execution of a scheduled task at any moment by clicking Start on the
toolbar.
In addition, all the above actions can be chosen from a shortcut menu that you open by
right-clicking on a selected scheduled task.
The same operations are available for unscheduled tasks listed on the Unscheduled tasks
tab. If while editing an unscheduled task you set up any of the scheduling options, that task
moves from the Unscheduled tasks tab to the Scheduled tasks tab.

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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. If a zone is found, the wizard will offer to manage it
(resize or change the password) or delete it. If there is no zone, you’ll be prompted to create
it.
If the Acronis Secure Zone is password-protected, the correct password must be entered
before any operation can take place.

9.1 Creating Acronis Secure Zone

The Acronis Secure Zone can be located on any internal disk. It is created using unallocated
space, if available, or at the expense of free space on a partition. Partition resizing may
require a reboot.
We do not recommend creating the Acronis Secure Zone on external media (USB drives,
etc.), because this may lead to problems with computer booting if that external storage is
disconnected.

A computer can have only one secure zone. To create a zone on another disk, you must first
delete the existing zone.
1. Before creating the zone, you need to estimate its size. To do so, start a backup and
select all data you are going to copy into it. At the Backup Options step set the
compression level. You will see the estimated full backup size (for disk/partition backup) or
the approximate compression ratio (for file-level backup) with which you can calculate the
estimated full backup size. Multiply this by 1.5 to be able to create incremental or differential
backups. Remember that the average compression rate is 2:1, so you can use this as a guide
as well to create a zone. Let’s say you have a hard disk with 10GB of programs and data.
Under normal conditions, that will compress down to approximately 5GB. As a result, you
might want to make the total size 7.5GB.
2. If there are several disks installed, select one on which to create Acronis Secure Zone.
3. Select the partitions from whose space the zone will be created.

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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. Partition resizing may
require a reboot.
Reducing a system partition to the minimum size might prevent your operating system from
booting.

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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. After this, you will be prompted to activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager, which will
enable you to start Acronis True Image Home at boot time by pressing the F11 key. Or, you
can activate this feature later from the main program window.
7. Then you will see a list of operations to be performed on the partitions (disks).

After you click Proceed, Acronis True Image Home will start creating the zone. Progress will
be reflected in a special window. If necessary, you can stop zone creation by clicking
Cancel. However, the procedure will be canceled only after the current operation is finished.
Acronis Secure Zone creation might take several minutes or more. Please wait until the
whole procedure is finished.

9.2 Resizing Acronis Secure Zone

1. If you want to resize the Acronis Secure Zone, select Tools -> Manage Acronis Secure
Zone in the main menu.

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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. If
there is not enough unallocated space, the selected partitions will be decreased. Resizing of
the partitions may require a reboot.
When reducing the zone, any unallocated space, if the hard disk has any, will be allocated to
the selected partitions along with the space freed from the zone. Thus, no unallocated space
will remain on the disk.
5. Next you will see a list of briefly described operations to be performed on partitions
(disks).
After you click Proceed, Acronis True Image Home will start resizing the zone. Progress will
be reflected in a special window. If necessary, you can stop the procedure by clicking
Cancel. However, the procedure will be canceled only after the current operation is finished.
Zone resizing can take several minutes or longer. Please wait until the whole procedure is
finished.

9.3 Changing password for Acronis Secure Zone

1. If you want to change the password for the Acronis Secure Zone, select Tools ->
Manage Acronis Secure Zone in the main menu.
2. Select Change password.

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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. Select the partitions to which you want to add the space freed from the zone. If you select
several partitions, the space will be distributed proportionally to each partition.
3. Next, you will see a list of briefly described operations to be performed on partitions
(disks).
After you click Proceed, Acronis True Image Home will start deleting the zone. Progress will
be reflected in the opened window. If necessary, you can stop the procedure by clicking
Cancel. However, the procedure will be canceled only after the current operation is finished.
Zone deletion might take several minutes or more. Please wait until the whole procedure is
finished.
Acronis Secure Zone deletion will automatically destroy all backups stored in the zone and
disable the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager.

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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.
If you purchased the boxed product, you already have a bootable CD, because the
installation CD itself is bootable in addition to serving as the program installation disk.
If you purchased Acronis True Image Home on the Web or as a download from a retailer,
you can create bootable media using the Bootable Media Builder. For this, you will need a
blank CD-R/RW, a blank DVD+R/RW or any other media from which your computer can
boot, such as a Zip drive.
Acronis True Image Home also provides the ability to create an ISO image of a bootable disc
on the hard disk.
If you have other Acronis products, such as Acronis Disk Director Suite, installed on your
computer, you can include standalone versions of these programs on the same bootable disk
as well.
If you have chosen not to install the Bootable Media Builder during Acronis True Image
Home installation, you will not be able to use this feature.

When booting from the Rescue Media, you cannot perform backups to disks or partitions
with Ext2/Ext3, ReiserFS, and Linux SWAP file systems.

1. Choose Create Bootable Rescue Media in the Tools menu. You can also run the
Bootable Rescue Media Builder without loading Acronis True Image Home by choosing
Programs -> Acronis -> Acronis True Image Home -> Bootable Rescue Media
Builder from the Start menu.
2. Select which components of Acronis programs you want to place on the bootable media.

Acronis True Image Home offers the following component:

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• 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. These parameters are provided for advanced users. If
you encounter any hardware compatibility problems while testing boot from the rescue
media, it may be best to contact Acronis Technical Support.
If you purchased the boxed product, the installation CD contains an installation file for
installing Acronis True Image Home safe version and an Acronis True Image Home plug-
in for the well-known Bart PE utility. The safe version does not include USB, PC Card, or
SCSI drivers. Recommended for use on rare occasions where problems running the full
version occur. After installation Acronis True Image Home safe version will appear as
one of the components to be offered by Acronis Media Builder for placing on the bootable
media and you will be able to add Acronis True Image Home safe version when creating
your bootable rescue media.
Bart PE (Bart Preinstalled Environment) is a bootable Windows CD/DVD created from the
original Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 installation/setup CD. Applications are installed
into Bart PE in the form of plug-ins and Acronis True Image Home plug-in can be included
into the Bart PE plug-in tab. Booting from the Bart PE CD/DVD with the included Acronis
True Image Home plug-in, will allow you to work in a well-known Windows environment and
use practically all Acronis True Image Home functionality for recovering your system from a
disaster. For more information on the Bart PE visit the Bart PE homepage at
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
By the way, you can download that installation file from the Acronis website.
You may opt for automatic start of the bootable media creation. In this case select the Start
automatically after X seconds box and specify the number of seconds (maximum 100
seconds).
To find out more about components of other Acronis products, see their respective user
guides.
3. Select the type of bootable media (CD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW or 3.5” diskettes) to create. If
your BIOS has this feature, you can create other bootable media such as removable USB
flash drives. You can also choose to create a bootable disk ISO image.
When using 3.5” diskettes, you will only be able to write one component at a time (for
example, the full version of Acronis True Image Home) on a set of diskettes. To write
another component, start Bootable Media Builder again.

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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.
Please keep in mind that the backups created by the later program version may be
incompatible with the previous program versions. Due to this reason, we strongly
recommend that you create a new bootable media after each Acronis True Image Home
upgrade. One more thing you should remember – when booting from the rescue media and
using a standalone version of Acronis True Image Home, you cannot recover files and folders
encrypted with use of the encryption feature available in Windows XP and Windows Vista
operating systems. For more information see 5.4.7 File-level security settings. On the other
hand, backup archives encrypted using the Acronis True Image Home encryption feature can
be recovered.

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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. The
Next button will be disabled until you enter the correct password.

3. After entering the correct password you will be taken to the Scheduling step, where you
can schedule validation of the backup or leave the default setting Do not schedule.

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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.

To check archive data integrity you must have all incremental and differential backups
belonging to the archive and the initial full backup. If any of the successive backups are
missing, validation is not possible.

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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.

11.2.1 Email notification

To set up e-mail notification, select Tools -> Options -> Notifications -> E-mail:

Provide the email address to which notifications will be sent as well as the outgoing SMTP
server name and port. A user name and a password might also be needed if the SMTP server
requires user authentication.
To set up the additional e-mail parameters, click Additional e-mail parameters…

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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.
At the bottom of this window you can choose whether you want to get notifications:
• when the operation is completed successfully (check Add full log to the notification
to add the full operation log to the message)
• if the operation failed (check Add full log to the notification to add the full operation
log to the message)
• during the operation when user interaction is required
After setting up e-mail notifications, you can send a test mail message by clicking the
appropriate button.

11.2.2 WinPopup notification

To set up WinPopup notification, select Tools -> Options -> Notifications -> Windows
Messenger (WinPopup):

Provide the name of the computer to which notifications will be sent.

At the bottom of this window you can choose whether you want to get notifications:
• when the operation is completed successfully
• when the operation failed
• during the operation when user interaction is required

11.3 Viewing Tasks and Logs

Acronis True Image Home has a Tasks and Log screen that allows you to view its working
logs and scheduled tasks. The logs can provide information about scheduled backup or
validation task results, including reasons for failure, if any.
To open the Tasks and Log screen, click Tasks and Log on the sidebar. By default, the
screen opens with the Scheduled Tasks tab selected. The tab shows all scheduled tasks (if
any). Selecting the Unscheduled Tasks tab will show all tasks that have been configured

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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.
The buttons with the left and right arrows at the sides of the calendar allow you to browse
the months being shown in the calendar. If you have gone several months back or forward,
clicking the Today button will quickly return you to the current month and date.
Clicking any day in the past takes you to the Log tab and shows logs for the selected date.
If there are no logs for that date, an appropriate message appears.
To view logs, you can just click on the Log tab.
When the Log tab is selected, the upper pane shows the calendar, while the lower one
shows logs’ contents.

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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 double-
clicking 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. In addition, you can enter the desired period start and end
dates directly in the fields. If you would like to see all the logs, click the Show all button.
To delete a log entry, select it and click the Delete button on the toolbar. To delete all log
entries, click the Delete all button. You can also save a log entry to file by clicking the Save
button. To save all logs to file, click Save all.
If any step shown in logs was terminated by an error, the corresponding log will be marked
with a red circle with a white cross inside.
The three buttons to the right control message filters: the white cross in the red circle filters
error messages, the exclamation mark in a yellow triangle filters warnings, and the “i” in the
blue circle filters information messages.
To view the details of the current step better, you can hide the calendar by clicking the Up
arrow at the top right of the calendar pane. This will enlarge the logs area. To view the
calendar again, click the Down arrow at the top right of the calendar pane.
Clicking a day marked with a scheduled task takes you to the Scheduled tasks tab with the
task details shown. Clicking any day in the future also takes you to the Scheduled tasks
tab.

11.4 Managing backup archives

After a while you may wish (or be forced) to manage your backup archives, for example, in
order to free some space for new backups by removing the oldest backups or those you no
longer need. Since now Acronis True Image Home stores information about the backup

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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.

The toolbar on the screen provides for the following operations with backups (these
operations can also be selected through a shortcut menu opened by right-clicking on a
desired backup):
• Restore - see Chapter 6. Restoring backup data;
• Mount (only for the images) - see 12.3 Mounting an image;
• Validate - see 11.1 Validating backup archives;
• Remove - see 11.6 Removing backup archives;
• Consolidate - see 11.5 Consolidating backups;
• Update backup - adding an incremental or differential backup to an existing backup
archive without creating a new backup task;
• Explore backup - see Chapter 12. Exploring archives and mounting images.
Selecting the All backups tab allows you to manage backup archives stored on all local
storage media and network resources except the Acronis Secure Zone, which has its own
tab.
You cannot explore backups stored in the Acronis Secure Zone.

There is one more tab - Unidentified backups, which is usually empty. If you are
upgrading an earlier version of Acronis True Image Home, this tab may show a list of
password-protected backups created by that earlier version. During the first start the current
version of the program scans all your local hard disks and if it finds any previous Acronis
True Image Home backups, they are added to the database storing the metadata
information about backups and to the list on the All backups tab. You will be able to

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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.

After you enter the correct password and click OK the program will move the backup archive
to the All backups tab. If you do not remember the password for a backup, click Remove
from the List on the toolbar and this backup will be removed. To remove all password-
protected backups from this tab, click Clear list.
If you uninstall and then re-install Acronis True Image Home, your password-protected
backup archives will appear on the Unidentified backups tab, because the metadata
information database will be deleted. Updating Acronis True Image Home without
uninstallation will not affect the metadata information database, so after updating this tab
will remain empty.

11.5 Consolidating backups

There are two kinds of backup consolidation procedures in Acronis True Image Home:
automatic consolidation and file name-based consolidation. In the case of automatic
consolidation, the program uses the rules set for backup archives. After creating a backup,
the program checks the backup archive for quota violations, such as exceeding a preset
maximum number of gigabytes set aside for backups and, if any limitation is exceeded,
consolidates the oldest backups. It will combine the first full backup with the next
incremental one into one full backup which will be dated the latter backup date. Then, if
necessary, this backup will be combined with the next, until the occupied storage space (or
number of backups) decreases to the preset limit. Thus, the archive integrity will not be
affected, despite the fact that the oldest backups will be deleted.
The actual number of backups created can exceed the Maximum number of backups by
one. This enables the program to detect the fact of exceeding the number quota and start
consolidation. Backup will be prohibited until the consolidation finishes.

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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. File name-based
consolidation keeps whichever backups you choose and deletes any backups that are not
selected.
The current Acronis True Image Home version does not support consolidation of backup
archives created in the zip format.

To consolidate backups in an archive:

1. Launch the Backup Consolidation Wizard by choosing Operations -> Consolidate
Archive in the main program menu or select Backup and Restore -> Manage and
Restore on the sidebar and then click Consolidate.
2. Select the archive for consolidation.

3. The program displays a list of backups belonging to the selected archive with their
creation date and time. The upper backup is the full backup; the rest are incremental
backups. Select the backups you want to keep.

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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.
You cannot choose another location when consolidating backups in an archive located in the
Acronis Secure Zone.

5. The program displays the summary window. Click Proceed to start consolidation.
In our example, when consolidation is complete, disk G will contain two new archives
MyBackup and MyBackup2.
MyBackup is a full backup containing data as of November 25, 2008, 9:40:23 AM.
MyBackup2 is an incremental backup containing data as of November 25, 2008, 10:21:12

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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. Because Acronis
True Image Home stores information on the backup archives in a metadata information
database, deleting unneeded archive files using Windows Explorer will not delete information
about these archives from the database and Acronis True Image Home will consider that
they still exist. This will result in errors when the program tries to perform operations on the
backups that no longer exist. So you must only remove obsolete backups and backup
archives using the tool provided by Acronis True Image Home. To remove the entire backup
archive, select it and click Remove on the toolbar or right-click on the full backup of the
backup archive and choose Remove in the shortcut menu. To remove an incremental or a
differential backup, select it and click Remove on the toolbar or right-click on the selected
backup and choose Remove in the shortcut menu. In this case all other successive
incremental and differential backups created later than the selected incremental or
differential backup will be also deleted. The following screen appears:

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If you click Delete, the program will remove the backup archive from its metadata
information database as well as from the hard disk.

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Chapter 12. Exploring archives and
mounting images
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.
Mounting images as virtual drives lets you access them as though they were physical
drives. Such an ability means that:
• a new disk with its own letter will appear in the drives list
• using Windows Explorer and other file managers, you can view the image contents as if
they were located on a physical disk or partition
• you will be able to use the virtual disk in the same way as the real one: open, save,
copy, move, create, delete files or folders. If necessary, the image can be mounted in
read-only mode.
The operations described in this chapter are supported only for the FAT and NTFS file
systems.

Please keep in mind that, though both file archives and disk/partition images have a default
“.tib” extension, only images can be mounted. If you want to view file archive contents, use
the Explore operation. The following is a brief summary of the Explore vs Mount operation:
Explore Mount
Archive type File-level, disk or partition image Partition image
Assigning a letter No Yes
Archive modification No Yes (in R/W mode)
Files extraction Yes Yes

12.1 Searching
In addition to the ability to explore backup archives, Acronis True Image Home now provides
search for tib and zip archives themselves, for files in tib archives only, as well as offering
full-text search in help topics and in the comments to archives made during the archive's
creation. This facilitates searching of the information you need for using Acronis True Image
Home and for restoring files from your backup archives. Here's how you can search the data
you need.
1. Enter a search string into the Search field at the top right of the Acronis True Image
Home window and then click the magnifying glass icon. You will be taken to the Search
Results window. The search results are output in the corresponding tabs of the window and
all search results are shown on the All results tab.

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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. You can validate or restore the
archive by right-clicking on its filename and choosing the appropriate item in the shortcut
menu. In addition, you can use the Restore, Mount (for image backups), Validate,
Remove, and Consolidate buttons for tib archives, and Restore, Validate, and
Remove buttons for zip archives, that appear on the toolbar after selecting an archive
on the Backups tab.
• The Backup content tab shows results of searches for files and folders in tib archives.
Double-clicking on a filename opens the file. You can restore the file by right-clicking on
its filename and choosing Restore in the shortcut menu. This shortcut menu also enables
you to open the file or the parent folder that contains that file.
To help you better understand the search results, here is some information on the
algorithms used by the Search feature.
1. When searching files in tib archives you can type all or part of the filename and use the
common Windows wildcard characters. For example, to find all batch files in the archives,
type "*.bat". Typing my???.exe will allow you to find all .exe files with names consisting of
five symbols and starting with "my". By the way, search is case-insensitive, i.e. "Backup" and
"backup" is the same search string. Furthermore, the search stops after the program finds
100 files corresponding to a search criterion you have typed. If the search results do not
contain the file you need, you will have to refine the search criterion.
Please note that Acronis True Image Home does not search files in encrypted and password-
protected tib archives as well as in the password protected Acronis Secure Zone. In addition,
the program does not search files in zip backup archives created by Acronis True Image
Home.
When a file is included in several backups and it has not been modified, the search results
will show it only once in the oldest backup file. If such a file has been changed, the search
results will show all backup files containing differing versions of the file.

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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).
• Only one logical operator is allowed (the first one that occurs in a search string),
otherwise they are ignored and interpreted as search words.
• All space-separated words must be in a topic for successful match.
The Backups tab (as well as the All results tab) shows the archive files whose comments
satisfy the search criterion. Double-clicking on an archive opens it for exploring.
Search in the Help topics is performed after opening the Help by pressing the F1 key or
clicking the help icon in any Acronis True Image Home window and entering a search string
in the Search field. Clicking on a found help topic title opens the corresponding Help topic.

12.2 Google Desktop and Windows Search integration

Acronis True Image Home has plug-ins for Google Desktop and Windows Search (WDS). If
you use any of these search engines on your computer, then during the first start after
installation Acronis True Image Home will detect the search engine you use and will install
an appropriate plug-in for indexing your tib backup archives. Indexing of backups will speed
up searches in the backup archives. After such indexing you will be able to search archives
content by entering a file name into the Google Desktop or Windows Search deskbar query
field without opening Acronis True Image Home. The search results will be shown in a
browser window. Using the search results you can:
• Select any file and open it for viewing and/or save that file back to the file system
anywhere (not in the archive) or where it was before
• See in which archive a given file is stored and restore that archive
Google Desktop has a "Quick Find" window. This window is filled with the most relevant
results from your computer. The results change as you type, so you can quickly get to what
you want on your computer. Windows Search provides similar functionality.

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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. They recognize text files, Microsoft Office files, all
Microsoft Office Outlook, and Microsoft Outlook Express items, and more.
The contents of password-protected tib backup archives or archives protected by a password
and encryption, as well as the System State and My E-mail backup archives will not be
indexed, though Google Desktop and Windows Search provide search for the tib files
themselves and in the comments to such archives. Furthermore, Google Desktop and
Windows Search have no access to the Acronis Secure Zone, so these search engines will be
unable to search and index archives in the zone.

Suppose you have Google Desktop installed and want to use it for searching files in tib
archives. To get such an ability:
1. During the first start of Acronis True Image Home, Google Desktop will display a
confirmation window. Click OK to install the plug-in.

2. Verify that the plug-in is installed. Right-click on the Google Desktop icon in your system
tray and select Options in the context menu. Google Desktop opens the Preferences
window in your browser. Make sure that Acronis Indexer (Acronis Backups) is
selected in the Indexing Plug-ins area.

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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.
After, for example an hour, check whether Google Desktop has indexed the tib archives by
entering in its query field the name of a file which you know for sure that you backed up. If
Google Desktop has completed indexing, it will show you the tib archives where it has found
the file.

If you want to see all the search results, click the "See all N results in a browser" and you
will see something like the screen shot below.

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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.
Google Desktop also provides for searching files in zip backup archives, created by Acronis
True Image Home, though you cannot open or restore files from zip archives by clicking on a
line with a filename in the browser window. To restore files found in zip backup archives by
Google Desktop, use Acronis True Image Home's Restore feature.
The following information may be of interest to you if you use any edition of Windows Vista
that has built-in Desktop Search functionality or Windows Desktop Search 3.0 or later and
wish to enable Windows Search support for tib files.
Windows Search does not support indexing of zip files content.

To use Windows Search support:

1. Verify that the tib support is enabled. Right-click on the Windows Search icon in your
system tray and select Windows Search Options… in the context menu. The following
window appears. Make sure that the "tib:///" item is present in the Included Locations
list.
To open the Indexing Options window in Windows Vista, open the Control Panel and then
double-click the Indexing Options icon. The Windows Vista indexing options have some
differences in content and appearance, though most of the following information is
applicable to Windows Vista as well.

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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. To include the disks, click
Modify and select them in the window that appears.

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 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. After completing the indexing,
the Desktop Search will be able to search files in tib backup archives. The search engines in
WDS and Windows Vista have similar functionalities, though search results are presented
somewhat differently:

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 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.

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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.

To mount a differential image, you must have the initial full image as well.
3. Select a partition to mount as a virtual disk. (Note that you cannot mount an image of the
entire disk except in the case when the disk consists of one partition.)

If you added a comment to the archive, it will be displayed in the Description column. If the
archive was protected with a password, Acronis True Image Home will ask for the password
in a dialog box. Neither the partitions layout will be shown, nor will the Next button be
enabled until you enter the correct password.

You can also select a letter to be assigned to the virtual disk from the Mount letter drop-
down list. If you do not want to mount the virtual drive, select Do not mount in the list.

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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. Click Proceed to connect
the selected partition image as a virtual disk.

6. After the image is connected, the program will run Windows Explorer, showing its
contents. Now you can work with files or folders as if they were located on a real disk.
You can connect multiple partition images. If you want to connect another partition image,
repeat the procedure.

12.4 Unmounting an image

We recommend that you unmount the virtual disk after all necessary operations are finished,
as maintaining virtual disks takes considerable system resources. If you do not unmount the
disk, it will disappear after your computer is turned off.
To disconnect the virtual disk, choose Operations -> Unmount Image, select the disk to
unmount and click OK.

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You can also do this in Windows Explorer by right-clicking on the disk icon and choosing
Unmount.

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Chapter 13. Transferring the system to a
new disk
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. In this case, you have to transfer the system to a higher-capacity hard
disk.
To transfer the system, you must first install the disk in the computer (see details in the
Appendix B. Hard disks and BIOS setup). If your computer doesn’t have a bay for another
hard disk, you can temporarily install it in place of your CD drive or use a USB 2.0 connection
to the external target disk. If that is not possible, you can clone a hard disk by creating a
disk image and restoring it to a new hard disk with larger partitions.
There are two transfer modes available: automatic and manual.
In the automatic mode, you will only have to take a few simple actions to transfer all the
data, including partitions, folders and files, to a new disk, making it bootable if the original
disk was bootable.
There will be only one difference between these disks – partitions on the newer disk will be
larger. Everything else, including the installed operating systems, data, disk labels, settings,
software and everything else on the disk, will remain the same.
This is the only result available in the automatic mode. The program can only duplicate the
original disk layout to the new one. To obtain a different result, you will have to answer
additional questions about cloning parameters.

The manual mode will provide more data transfer flexibility.

1. You will be able to select the method of partition and data transfer:
• as is
• new disk space is proportionally distributed between the old disk partitions
• new disk space is distributed manually
2. You will also be able to select operations to perform on the old disk:
• leave partitions (and data!) on the old disk
• remove all information from the old disk
• create new partitions on the old disk (and remove all the old information)
On program screens, damaged partitions are marked with a red circle and a white cross
inside in the upper left corner. Before you start cloning, you should check such disks for
errors using the appropriate operating system tools.

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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).
Nevertheless, we do not recommend that you delete data from the old disk until you are
sure it is correctly transferred to the new disk, the computer boots up from it and all
applications work.

13.3 Executing transfers

13.3.1 Selecting Clone mode
You will see the Clone Mode window just after the welcome window.

We recommend using automatic mode in most cases. The manual mode can be useful if you
need to change the disk partition layout.
If the program finds two disks, one partitioned and another unpartitioned, it will
automatically recognize the partitioned disk as the source disk and the unpartitioned disk as
the destination disk. In such a case, the next steps will be bypassed and you will be taken to
the cloning Summary screen.

13.3.2 Selecting source disk

If the program finds several partitioned disks, it will ask you which one is the source (i.e. the
older data disk).

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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.

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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 selected the automatic mode, the program will not ask you anything else and will take
you to the cloning summary window.

13.3.5 Selecting partition transfer method

When you select the manual cloning mode, Acronis True Image Home will offer you the
following data move methods:
• As is
• Proportional – the new disk space will be proportionally distributed among cloned
partitions
• Manual – you will specify the new size and other parameters yourself

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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. Using the "as is" method, Acronis True Image Home transfers unsupported
and damaged file systems.
If you transfer data proportionally, each partition will be enlarged, according to the
proportion of the old and new disk capacities.
FAT16 partitions are enlarged less than others, as they have a 4GB size limit.
Depending on the selected combination, you will proceed to either the cloning summary
window, or the Change disk layout step (see below).

13.3.6 Cloning with manual partitioning

The manual transfer method enables you to resize partitions on the new disk. By default, the
program resizes them proportionally. In the next window, you will see the new disk layout.
Along with the hard disk number, you will see disk capacity, label, partition, and file system
information. Different partition types, including primary, logical, and unallocated space are
marked with different colors.

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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. If the cursor
turns into four arrows, it is pointed at the partition, so you can move it to the left or right (if
there's unallocated space near it).
Having provided the new location and size, click Accept. You will be taken back to the
Change disk layout window. You might have to perform some more resizing and relocation
before you get the layout you need.

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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. In that
case, after clicking Proceed you will be asked to confirm the reboot. Canceling the reboot
will cancel the entire procedure. After the clone process finishes you will be offered an option
to shut down the computer by pressing any key. This enables you to change the position of
master/slave jumpers and remove one of the hard drives.
Cloning a non-system disk or a disk containing an operating system, but one that is not
currently active, will proceed without the need to reboot. After you click Proceed, Acronis
True Image Home will start cloning the old disk to the new disk, indicating the progress in a
special window. You can stop this procedure by clicking Cancel. In that case, you will have
to repartition and format the new disk or repeat the cloning procedure. After the cloning
operation is complete, you will see the results message.

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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.

14.1 Selecting a hard disk

Select the disk that you've added to the computer.

If there are any partitions on the new disk, you will be shown a warning window. For you to
be able to add the disk, they must be deleted first, so click OK to continue.

14.2 Creating new partitions

Next you will see the current partition layout. Initially, all disk space will be unallocated. This
will change after you add new partitions.
To create a partition, click Create new partition and set the new partition location and
size. You can do this both by entering values in the Free space before, Partition size,
Free space after fields, and 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 size. If the cursor
turns into four arrows, it is pointed at the partition, so you can move it to the left or right (if
there is unallocated space near it).
Select a file system for the new partition. You may select a partition letter of your choice (or
leave the default one) and input a label for the new partition in the corresponding field.
Finally, select a partition type.

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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.

14.3 Disk add summary

Clicking Next after creating a desired partition layout takes you to the disk add summary.
The disk add summary contains a list of operations to be performed on disks.

After you click Proceed, Acronis True Image Home will start creating new partition(s),
indicating the progress in a special window. You can stop this procedure by clicking Cancel.
You will then have to repartition and format the new disk or repeat the disk add procedure.

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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. This could include user
names and passwords.
If you need to:
• securely destroy files or folders you select, run File Shredder.
• securely destroy data on selected partitions and/or disks so it can't be recovered, run
Acronis DriveCleanser.
• clean up Windows components (folders, files, registry sections, etc.) related to general
system tasks which are capable of retaining user PC activity evidence, run System
Clean-up.

15.1 Using File Shredder

The File Shredder enables quick selection of files and folders to destroy them permanently.
To run the folders/files shredder, select Tools -> File Shredder in the main program menu. This
starts File Shredder Data Destruction Wizard, which will guide you through the steps required for
permanently destroying the selected files and folders.
1. First select the files and/or folders you wish to destroy.

2. On the next wizard's step select the desired data destruction method. By default the
program will use the Fast method (see Appendix C. Hard Disk Wiping methods of this
manual). You can also choose one of the other preset data destruction methods from the
drop-down list.

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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. It allows you to select from a number of data
destruction methods depending on the importance of your confidential information.
To start Acronis DriveCleanser, select Tools -> Acronis DriveCleanser in the main
program menu. Acronis DriveCleanser allows you to do the following:
• clean up selected hard disks or partitions using preset methods;
• create and execute custom user methods of hard disk clean-up.
Acronis DriveCleanser is based on a wizard that scripts all hard disk operations, so no data
destruction is performed until you click Proceed in the wizard’s Summary window. At any
moment, you can return to the previous steps to select other disks, partitions or data
destruction methods.
First, you must select the hard disk partitions where you want to destroy data.

To select a partition, click the corresponding rectangle. You will see a red mark in the upper
right corner indicating that the partition is selected.
You can select an entire hard disk or several disks for data destruction. To do this, click the
rectangle corresponding to the hard disk (with a device icon, disk number and capacity).
You can select at one time several partitions located on different hard disks or on several
disks.
Click Next to continue.
If the disks and/or partitions you have selected include the system disk or partition, you will
see a warning window.

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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 the Post-wiping Actions window you can select actions to be performed on the partitions
selected for data destruction. Acronis DriveCleanser offers you three choices:
• Leave partition(s) as is — just destroy data using the method selected below
• Delete partition(s) — destroy data and delete partition
• Format — destroy data and format partition (default)

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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. Acronis DriveCleanser will perform all
actions necessary for destroying the contents of the selected partition or disk. After this is
done, you will see a message indicating the successful data destruction.
Acronis DriveCleanser offers you another useful capability — to estimate the results of
executing a data destruction method on a hard disk or partition. To view the state of your
cleaned disks or partitions, choose Utilities in the lower part of the sidebar and then Disk
clean-up in the upper part. The Acronis DriveCleanser area in the right pane contains the
View disks link. Click on the link and then choose the partition whose cleaning results you
wish to view. This opens an integrated DiskViewer hard disk browsing tool (a module of Acronis
Disk Editor).
The aforementioned algorithms offer various levels of confidential data destruction. Thus the
picture you might see on a disk or partition depends on the data destruction method. But
what you actually see are disk sectors filled with either zeros or random symbols.

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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.
Creating a custom method of hard disk wiping is possible after choosing "Custom…" from the
drop-down list in the Algorithm Selection window. In this case some new required steps
appear in the DriveCleanser wizard and you will be able to create a data destruction
algorithm matching your security requirements.

Having completed the creation, you can save the algorithm you created. This will be handy if
you are going to use it again.

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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.

If you created and saved your algorithm for data destruction while working with Acronis
DriveCleanser, you can use it later in the following way:
In the Algorithm Selection window, choose Load from file… from the drop-down list and
select the file with custom data destruction algorithm parameters. By default, such files have
a *.alg extension.

15.4 System Clean-up

The System Clean-up Wizard enables you to securely remove all traces of your PC actions
stored by Windows.
It can do the following operations:
• Securely destroy data in the Windows Recycle Bin
• Remove temporary files from appropriate Windows folders
• Clean up hard disk free space of any traces of information previously stored on it
• Remove traces of file and computer searches on connected disks and computers in
the local area network
• Clean the recently used documents list
• Clean the Windows Run list
• Clean the opened/saved files history
• Clean the list of network places to which the user has connected using network
credentials
• Clean the Windows prefetch directory, where Windows stores information about
programs you have executed and run recently
Windows Vista does not store information on file and computer searches. Furthermore,
information on opened/saved files is stored differently in the registry, so the Wizard shows
this information in a different way.
Please, be aware that Windows stores passwords until the session ends, so cleaning the list
of network user credentials will not take effect until you end the current Windows session
by logging out or by rebooting the computer.
After you run the wizard by selecting Tools -> System Clean-up in the main program
menu, it will search for any traces of user actions stored by Windows. When the search is
finished, its results will be available at the top of the wizard window.

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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. Some of these parameters apply to all components.
You can restore the default system clean-up settings by clicking the Restore Defaults
button in the Properties window.

15.5.1 "Data Destruction Method" setting

This setting defines the method of guaranteed data destruction to use for cleaning up a
given component.
By default, all components that have this setting have it set to Use common method. You
can change the common method by clicking the Click to change this setting… link and
selecting a desired method from the drop-down list (see Appendix C. Hard Disk Wiping
methods).
If you need to set a custom method of data destruction for a component, choose Use
custom method for this component and then select the one you prefer from the drop-
down list.

15.5.2 "Files" setting

The "Files" setting defines the names of files to clean with System Clean-up Wizard and can
be used with a search string.

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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*.* – to clean all files with any extensions, and names beginning with "read"
You can enter several different search strings separated by semicolons; for example:
*.bak;*.tmp;*.~~~ (without spaces between the search strings)
All files with names corresponding to at least one of the search strings will be cleaned.
Upon entering the "Files" setting value, you can browse the files matching the search strings.
To do this, click Show Files. You will see a window with the names of found files. These
files will be cleaned.

15.5.3 "Computers" setting

The "Computers" setting is used for cleaning up the registry search strings you have used for
finding computers in the local network. These strings keep information on what has
interested you in the network. These items should also be deleted to maintain confidentiality.
The "Computers" setting is similar to the "Files" setting. It is a string that can contain any
number of full or partial computer names separated by semicolons. The deletion of computer
search strings is based on a comparison with the "Computers" setting value according to
Windows rules.
If you simply need to delete all local network computer search strings (suitable in most
cases), just leave the default value of this setting.
As a result, all computer search strings will be deleted from the registry.
After entering the "Computers" setting value, you can browse the search strings found by
the System Clean-up Wizard in the registry. To do so, click Show Computers. You will see
the window with full and partial computer names searched for in the network. These items
will be deleted.

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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.

15.5.5 "Commands" setting

Here you can select the commands to remove during Windows Run List clean-up.
This template can contain any command names or their parts separated by semicolons, e.g.:
*help; cmd; reg*
This will result in removing commands with names corresponding to or containing any of the
names or parts of names you entered.

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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.

15.6 Cleaning up separate system components

If you don't want to clean up all system components, you can clean components of your
choice or an individual component separately.
In this case all global settings of the System Clean-up Wizard will be valid for individual
components as well.
To clean up individual components, select them in the System Components section in the
System Clean-up window and run the System Clean-up Wizard.

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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.
Partitioning programs perform the following:
• create a primary partition
• create an extended partition that can be split into several logical disks
• set an active partition (applied to a single primary partition only)
Information about partitions on a hard disk is stored in a special disk area – in the 1st sector
of cylinder 0, head 0, which is called the partition table. This sector is called the master
boot record, or MBR.
A physical hard disk might contain up to four partitions. This limit is forced by the partition
table that is suitable for four strings only. However, this does not mean you can have only
four operating systems on your PC! Applications called disk managers support far more
operating systems on disks. For example, Acronis OS Selector, a component of Acronis Disk
Director Suite, enables you to install up to 100 operating systems!

A.2 File systems

An operating system gives the user the ability to work with data by supporting a
certain type of file system on a partition.
All file systems are made of structures that are necessary to store and manage
data. These structures are usually composed of operating system boot sectors,
folders and files. File systems perform the following basic functions:
• track occupied and free disk space (and bad sectors, if any)
• support folders and file names
• track physical location of files on disks
Different operating systems use different file systems. Some operating systems are
able to work with only one file system, while others can use several of them. Here
are some of the most widely used file systems:
A.2.1 FAT16
The FAT16 file system is widely used by DOS (DR-DOS, MS-DOS, PC-DOS,
PTS-DOS, etc.), Windows 98/Me, and Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista operating systems
and is supported by most other systems.
The main features of FAT16 are the file allocation table (FAT) and clusters. FAT is
the core of the file system. To increase data safety, it is possible to have several
copies of the FAT (there are usually two of them) on a single disk. A cluster is a
minimum data storage unit in the FAT16 file system. One cluster contains a fixed
number of sectors. FAT stores information about what clusters are free, what
clusters are bad, and also defines in which clusters files are stored.

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 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.

Like many other file systems, the FAT16 file system has a root folder. Unlike others,
however, its root folder is stored in a special place and is limited in size (standard
formatting produces a 512-item root folder).
Initially, FAT16 had limitations on file names. They could only be eight characters
long, plus a dot, plus three characters of the name extension. However, long-name
support in Windows 95 and Windows NT bypassed this limitation. The OS/2
operating system also supports long names, but does so in a different way.
A.2.2 FAT32
The FAT32 file system was introduced in Windows 95 OSR2. It is also supported by
Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/Vista. FAT32 is an evolved version of FAT16. Its main
differences from FAT16 are 28-bit cluster numbers and a more flexible root, whose
size is unlimited. The reasons FAT32 appeared are the support of large hard disks
(over 8GB in capacity) and the impossibility of implementing any more complex file
system into MS-DOS, which is still the basis for Windows 98/Me.
The maximum FAT32 disk size is 2 terabytes (1 terabyte, or TB, is equal to 1024
gigabytes, or GB).
A.2.3 NTFS
NTFS is the main file system for Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista. Its structure is closed,
so no other operating system is fully supported. The main structure of NTFS is the
MFT (master file table). NTFS stores a copy of the critical part of the MFT to reduce
the possibility of data damage and loss. All other NTFS data structures are special
files. NTFS stands for NT File System.
Like FAT, NTFS uses clusters to store files, but cluster size does not depend on
partition size. NTFS is a 64-bit file system. It uses unicode to store file names. It is
also a journaling (failure-protected) file system, and supports compression and
encryption.
Files in folders are indexed to speed up file search.
A.2.4 Linux Ext2
Ext2 is one of the main file systems for the Linux operating system. Ext2 is a 32-bit
system. Its maximum size is 16TB. The main data structure that describes a file is
an i–node. A place to store the table of all i-nodes has to be allocated in advance
(during formatting).
A.2.5 Linux Ext3
Officially introduced with its version 7.2 of the Linux operating system, Ext3 is the
Red Hat Linux journaling file system. It is forward and backward compatible with
Linux ext2. It has multiple journaling modes and broad cross-platform compatibility
in both 32- and 64-bit architectures.

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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.

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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 Installing hard disks in computers

B.1.1 Installing a hard disk, general scheme
To install a new IDE hard disk, you should do the following (we will assume you
have powered OFF your PC before you start!):
1. Configure the new hard disk as slave by properly installing jumpers on its
controller board. Disk drives generally have a picture on the drive that shows the
correct jumper settings.
2. Open your computer and insert the new hard disk into a 3.5’’ or 5.25’’ slot
with special holders. Fasten down the disk with screws.
3. Plug the power cable into the hard disk (four-threaded: two black, yellow and
red; there is only one way you can plug in this cable).
4. Plug the 40- or 80-thread flat data cable into sockets on the hard disk and on
the motherboard (plugging rules are described below). The disk drive will have a
designation on the connector or next to it that identifies Pin 1. The cable will have
one red wire on the end that is designated for Pin 1. Make sure that you place the
cable in the connector correctly. Many cables also are “keyed” so that they can only
go in one way.
5. Turn your computer on and enter BIOS setup by pressing the keys that are
displayed on the screen while the computer is booting.
6. Configure the installed hard disk by setting the parameters type, cylinder,
heads, sectors and mode (or translation mode; these parameters are written on the
hard disk case) or by using the IDE autodetection BIOS utility to configure the disk
automatically.
7. Set the boot sequence to A:, C:, CD-ROM or some other, depending on where
your copy of Acronis True Image Home is located. If you have a boot diskette, set
the diskette to be the first; if it is on a CD, make the boot sequence start with CD-
ROM.
8. Quit BIOS setup and save changes. Acronis True Image Home will
automatically start after reboot.
9. Use Acronis True Image Home to configure hard disks by answering the
wizard’s questions.
10. After finishing the work, turn off the computer, set the jumper on the disk to
the master position if you want to make the disk bootable (or leave it in slave
position if the disk is installed as additional data storage).
B.1.2 Motherboard sockets, IDE cable, power cable
There are two slots on the motherboard to which the hard disks can be connected:
primary IDE and secondary IDE.

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 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.)
As noted, IDE cable plugs are usually designed so that there is only one way to
connect them to the sockets. Usually, one of the pinholes is filled on the cable plug,
and one of the pins facing the filled hole is removed from the motherboard socket,
so it becomes impossible to plug the cable in the wrong way.
In other cases, there is a jut on the plug on the cable, and an indentation in the
socket of the hard disk and of the motherboard. This also ensures that there is only
one way to connect the hard disk and the motherboard.
In the past, this design of plug did not exist, so there was an empirical rule: the
IDE cable is connected to the hard disk socket so that the marked thread
is the closest to the power cable, i.e. the marked thread connected to pin #1 of
the socket. A similar rule was used for connecting cables with the motherboard.
Incorrect connection of the cable with either the hard disk or the motherboard does
not necessarily damage the electronics of the disk or the motherboard. The hard
disk is simply not detected or initialized by BIOS.
There are some models of hard disks, especially the older ones, for which incorrect
connection damaged the electronics of the drive.

We will not describe all the types of hard disks. Currently the most widespread are those
with IDE or SCSI interfaces. Unlike IDE hard disks, there can be from six to 14 SCSI hard
disks installed in your PC. However, you need a special SCSI controller (called a host
adapter) to connect them. SCSI hard disks are not usually used in personal computers
(workstations), but are found mostly in servers.

Aside from an IDE cable, a four-thread power cable must be connected to the hard
disks. There is only one way to plug in this cable.
B.1.3 Configuring hard disk drives, jumpers
A hard disk drive can be configured in a computer as master or as slave. The
configuring is done using special connectors (called jumpers) on the hard disk drive.
The jumpers are either located on the electronic board of the hard disk or a special
socket that provides for the connection of the hard disk and the motherboard.
There is usually a sticker on the drive that explains the markings. Typical markings
are DS, SP, CS and PK.
Each jumper position corresponds to one hard disk(s) installation mode:
• DS – master/factory default
• SP – slave (or no jumper required)
• CS – cable select for master/slave: the purpose of the hard disk is determined by
its physical position with respect to the motherboard
• PK – jumper parking position: the position where one can put the jumper if it is
not necessary in the existing configuration

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 127

 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. You might well find that
markings on your hard disk differ from the ones described above. Moreover, for the old
types of hard disks, their purpose could be defined by two jumpers instead of one. You
should study the markings carefully before installing your hard disk in the computer.

It is not enough to physically connect the hard disk to the motherboard and set the
jumpers properly for the hard disk to function — hard disks have to be properly
configured with the motherboard BIOS.

B.2 BIOS
When you turn on your computer, you often see a number of short text messages
before you see the splash screen of your operating system. These messages are
from the POST (power-on self test) program that belongs to BIOS and is executed
by the processor.
BIOS, or the basic input/output system, is a program that resides in the permanent
memory chip (ROM or flash BIOS) on the motherboard of your computer and is its
key element. The version of BIOS that you use "knows" all the peculiarities of all the
components of the motherboard: processor, memory, integrated devices. BIOS
versions are provided by the manufacturers of motherboards.
Main BIOS functions are:
• POST checking of processor, memory and I/O devices
• initial configuring of all software-manageable parts of the motherboard
• initialization of the operating system (OS) booting process
Among numerous components of the computer, initial configuration is necessary for
the external memory subsystem that controls hard disk drives, floppy disk drives,
CD-ROM drives, DVDs, and other devices.
B.2.1 Setup utility
BIOS has a built-in setup utility for initial computer configuration. To enter it, you
have to press a certain key combination (Del, F1, Ctrl+Alt+Esc, Ctrl+Esc, or
some other, depending on your BIOS) during the POST sequence that starts
immediately after you turn your computer on. Usually the message with the
required key combination is displayed during the startup testing. Pressing this
combination takes you to the menu of the setup utility that is included in your BIOS.
The menu can differ in appearance, sets of items and their names, depending on
the BIOS manufacturer. The most widely known BIOS makers for PC motherboards
are Award/Phoenix and AMI. Moreover, while items in the standard setup menu are
mostly the same for various BIOSes, items of the extended setup heavily depend on
the computer and BIOS version.
Below we describe the general principles of initial hard disk configuration.

128 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009

 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. The following parameters (and values) are available for each hard disk
installed in your PC:
Parameter Value Purpose

Type 1-47, Not Type 0 or Not Installed is used when there is no

Installed, hard disk installed (to uninstall it). Type 47 is
Auto reserved for user-defined parameters or for
parameters detected by the IDE Auto detection
utility.
Auto value allows for automatic detection of IDE
disk parameters during the boot sequence.

Cylinder (Cyl) 1-65535 The number of cylinders on a hard disk. For IDE
disks, a logical number of cylinders are specified.

Heads (Hd) 1-16 The number of heads on a hard disk. For IDE
disks, a logical number of heads are specified.

Sectors (Sec) 1-63 The number of sectors per track of a hard disk. For
IDE disks, a logical number of sectors are
specified.

Size (Capacity) MBytes The capacity of the disk in megabytes. It is

calculated according to the following formula:
Size=(Cyl x Hds x Sec x 512) / 1024 / 1024.

Mode Normal/ Method of translation of sector addresses.

(Translation LBA/
Method) Large/Auto

For example, to demonstrate the main features of Acronis True Image Home, we
used a QuantumTM FireballTM TM1700A hard disk as one of the disks in our
examples. Its parameters have the following values:
Parameter Value

Type Auto

Cylinder (Cyl) 827

Heads (Hd) 64

Sectors (Sec) 63

Mode Auto

CHS 1707 MB

Maximum LBA Capacity 1707 MB

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 129

 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). There are two ways to
bypass this limitation: (1) switch from physical to logical sector addresses (LBA), (2) use
mathematics to reduce the number of addressed sectors (cylinders) and increase the
number of heads; this method is called Large Disk (Large). The simplest decision is to set
the value of this parameter to Auto.

If there are several hard disks connected to your motherboard, but you do not want
to use some of them at the moment, you have to set the Type of these disks to Not
Installed.
Parameters of hard disks can be set manually with the help of information provided
by the hard disk manufacturer on its case, but it is easier to use the IDE
autodetection utility that is usually included in modern BIOS versions.
The utility is sometimes a separate BIOS menu item and is sometimes included in
the standard CMOS setup menu.
Please note that in "Appendix B. Hard disks and BIOS setup", we have described the
general details of the physical hard disk structure. Built-in IDE hard disk controls mask the
physical disk structure. As a result, the BIOS of the motherboard "sees" logical cylinders,
heads and sectors. We are not going to elaborate on this issue here, but knowing about this
can sometimes be useful.

B.2.3 Arranging boot sequence, advanced CMOS setup menu

Aside from standard CMOS setup, the BIOS menu usually has an advanced CMOS
setup item. Here you can adjust the boot sequence: C:; A:; CD-ROM:.
Please note that boot sequence management differs for various BIOS versions, e.g. for
AMI BIOS, AWARDBIOS, and brand-name hardware manufacturers.

Several years ago, the operating system boot sequence was hard-coded into the
BIOS. An operating system could be booted either from a diskette (drive A:), or
from the hard disk C:. That was the sequence in which the BIOS queried external
drives: if drive A: was ready, BIOS attempted to boot an operating system from a
diskette. If the drive was not ready or there was no system area on the diskette,
BIOS tried to boot an operating system from hard disk C:.
At present, BIOS allows booting operating systems not only from diskettes or hard
disks, but also from CD-ROMs, DVDs, and other devices. If there are several hard
disks installed in your computer labeled as C:, D:, E:, and F:, you can adjust the
boot sequence so that an operating system is booted from, for example, disk E:. In
this case, you have to set the boot sequence to look like E:, CD-ROM:, A:, C:, D:.
This does not mean that booting is done from the first disk in this list; it only means that
the first attempt to boot an operating system is to boot it from this disk. There may be no
operating system on disk E:, or it may be inactive. In this case, BIOS queries the next drive
in the list. Errors can happen during booting, see B.2.4 "Hard disk initialization errors".

130 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009

 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).
After you have installed the hard disk in your computer and have configured it in
BIOS, one can say that the PC (or the motherboard) "knows" about its existence
and its main parameters. However, it is still not enough for an operating system to
work with the hard disk. In addition, you have to create partitions on the new disk
and format the partitions using Acronis True Image Home. See Chapter 14. Adding
a new hard disk.
B.2.4 Hard disk initialization errors
Devices are usually initialized successfully, but sometimes errors can happen.
Typical errors related to hard disks are reported by the following messages:
PRESS A KEY TO REBOOT
This error message is not directly related to errors during hard disk initialization.
However, it appears, for example, when the boot program finds no operating
system on the hard disk, or when the primary partition of the hard disk is not set as
active.
DISK BOOT FAILURE,
INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND
PRESS ENTER
This message appears when the boot program finds no available boot device, be it a
floppy or a hard disk, or a CD-ROM.
C: DRIVE ERROR
C: DRIVE FAILURE
ERROR ENCOUNTERED INITIALIZING HARD DRIVE
This message appears when it is not possible to access the C: disk. If the disk is
known to be functional, the reason for this error message is probably incorrect
settings/connections of:
• hard disk parameters in BIOS setup
• jumpers on the controller (master/slave)
• interface cables
It is also possible that the device is out of order, or the hard disk is not formatted.

B.3 Installing a SATA hard drive

Most recently manufactured PCs use the SATA interface for hard drives. In general,
installing a SATA hard drive is easier than an IDE drive, as it is not necessary to
configure master-slave jumpers. SATA drives use a thin interface cable with seven-
pin keyed connectors. This improves airflow through the PC case. Power is supplied
to SATA drives through 15-pin connectors. Some SATA drives also support legacy
four-pin power connectors (Molex) — you can use a Molex or SATA connector but
do not use both at the same time, because this could damage the hard drive. You'll

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 131

 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. If you
are going to connect your new SATA drive to a SATA controller card, install the
card. If you are going to connect the SATA drive to the motherboard, enable
applicable motherboard jumpers, if any. Most hard drive kits include a SATA
interface cable and mounting screws. Attach one end of the SATA interface cable to
a SATA port on the motherboard or interface card, and the other to the drive.
2. Then plug the power-supply lead or use a Molex-to-SATA adapter.
3. Prepare your drive. If you're installing a SATA 300 hard drive, check your PC's (or
SATA host adapter's) documentation to make sure it supports SATA 300 drives. If it
doesn't, you might need to change a jumper setting on the drive (see the drive's
manual for instructions). If you have a SATA 150 hard drive, you don’t need to
change any settings.
4. Turn on the PC and look for the new drive in the boot-up messages. If you don't
see it, enter the PC's CMOS setup program and search the BIOS configuration menu
for an option that will let you enable SATA for the ports you are using (or maybe
you will just need to enable SATA). See your motherboard documentation for
instructions specific to your BIOS.
5. If the operating system does not recognize the SATA drive, you need the
appropriate drivers for your SATA controller. If the drive is recognized, go to step 8.
• Usually, it is best to obtain the latest driver version from the motherboard or
SATA controller manufacturer's website.
• If you download a copy of the SATA controller drivers, place the driver files to a
known location on your hard drive.
6. Boot from the old hard drive.
• The operating system should detect the SATA controller and install the
appropriate software. You might need to provide the path to the driver files.
7. Ensure that the SATA controller and the connected SATA hard drive are correctly
detected by the operating system. To do this, go to the Device Manager.
• SATA controllers usually appear under the SCSI and RAID controllers section of
Device Manager, while hard drives are listed under the Disk drives section.
• The SATA controller and SATA hard drive must not be displayed in the Device
Manager with a yellow exclamation mark or any other error indication.
8. After you have installed the hard disk in your computer and have configured it in
BIOS, one can say that the PC "knows" about its existence and its main parameters.
However, it is still not enough for the operating system to work with the hard disk.
In addition, you have to create partitions on the new disk and format the partitions
using Acronis True Image Home. See Chapter 14. Adding a new hard disk. Then
configure your BIOS to boot from the SATA controller and boot from the SATA hard
drive to ensure it works.

132 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009

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. a hard disk drive)
means it is impossible to recover data by even a qualified specialist with the help of
all known tools and recovery methods.
This problem can be explained in the following way: Data is stored on a hard disk as
a binary sequence of 1 and 0 (ones and zeros), represented by differently
magnetized parts of a disk.
Generally speaking, a 1 written to a hard disk is read as 1 by its controller, and 0 is
read as 0. However, if you write 1 over 0, the result is conditionally 0.95 and vice
versa – if 1 is written over 1 the result is 1.05. These differences are irrelevant for
the controller. However, using special equipment, one can easily read the
«underlying» sequence of 1's and 0's.
It only requires specialized software and inexpensive hardware to read data
"deleted" this way by analyzing magnetization of hard disk sectors, residual
magnetization of track sides and/or by using current magnetic microscopes.
Writing to magnetic media leads to subtle effects summarized as follows: every
track of a disk stores an image of every record ever written to it, but the effect of
such records (magnetic layer) becomes more subtle as time passes.

C.1 Information wiping methods’ functioning principles

Physically, the complete wiping of information from a hard disk involves the
switching of every elementary magnetic area of the recording material as many
times as possible by writing specially selected sequences of logical 1's and 0's (also
known as samples).
Using logical data encoding methods in current hard disks, you can select samples
of symbol (or elementary data bit) sequences to be written to sectors in order to
repeatedly and effectively wipe confidential information.
Methods offered by national standards provide (single or triple) recording of random
symbols to disk sectors that are straightforward and arbitrary decisions, in general,
but still acceptable in simple situations. The most effective information-wiping
method is based on deep analysis of subtle features of recording data to all types of
hard disks. This knowledge speaks of the necessity of complex multipass methods
to guarantee information wiping.
The detailed theory of guaranteed information wiping is described in an article by
Peter Gutmann. Please see:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html.

C.2 Information wiping methods used by Acronis

The table below briefly describes information wiping methods used by Acronis. Each
description features the number of hard disk sector passes along with the
number(s) written to each sector byte.

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 133

 The description of built-in information wiping methods
No. Algorithm (writing Passes Record
method)
1. United States 4 1st pass – randomly selected symbols to
Department of each byte of each sector, 2 –
Defense 5220.22- complementary to written during the 1st
M pass; 3 – random symbols again; 4 –
writing verification.
2. United States: 4 1st pass – 0x01 to all sectors, 2 –
NAVSO P-5239-26 0x27FFFFFF, 3 – random symbol
(RLL) sequences, 4 – verification.
3. United States: 4 1st pass – 0x01 to all sectors, 2 –
NAVSO P-5239-26 0x7FFFFFFF, 3 – random symbol
(MFM) sequences, 4 – verification.
4. German: VSITR 7 1st – 6th – alternate sequences of: 0x00
and 0xFF; 7th – 0xAA; i.e. 0x00, 0xFF,
0x00, 0xFF, 0x00, 0xFF, 0xAA.
5. Russian: GOST 1 Logical zeros (0x00 numbers) to each
P50739-95 byte of each sector for 6th to 4th security
level systems.
Randomly selected symbols (numbers)
to each byte of each sector for 3rd to 1st
security level systems.
6. Peter Gutmann’s 35 Peter Gutmann’s method is very
method sophisticated. It’s based on his theory of
hard disk information wiping (see
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001
/pubs/secure_del.html).
7. Bruce Schneier’s 7 Bruce Schneier offers a seven-pass
method overwriting method in his Applied
Cryptography book. 1st pass – 0xFF, 2nd
pass – 0x00, and then five times with a
cryptographically secure pseudo-random
sequence.
8. Fast 1 Logical zeros (0x00 numbers) to all
sectors to wipe.

134 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009

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 1.1 devices still work with this option. This option
allows using some USB drives in USB 1.1 mode, if they do not work in USB 2.0 mode.

• quiet
This parameter is enabled by default and the startup messages are not displayed.
Deleting it will result in the startup messages being displayed as the Linux kernel is
loaded and the command shell being offered prior to running the Acronis program.

• nodma
Disables DMA for all IDE disk drives. Prevents kernel from freezing on some
hardware.

• nofw
Disables FireWire (IEEE1394) support.

• nopcmcia
Disables PCMCIA hardware detection.

• nomouse
Disables mouse support.

• [module name]=off
Disables the module (e.g. sata_sis=off).

• pci=bios
Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009 135
 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. These calls are known to be
buggy on several machines and they hang the machine when used, but on other
computers it is the only way to get the interrupt routing table. Try this option, if the
kernel is unable to allocate IRQs or discover secondary PCI buses on your
motherboard.

136 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009