Acronis True Image 2017 for PC Starter Guideugr7.com/files/TrueImage2017StarterGuide.pdfAcronis True...

Acronis True Image 2017 Starter Guide

Acronis True Image 2017 for PC Starter Guide

By Gene Barlow

User Group Relations

Copyrighted September 2016

This paper is a step by step guide to installing and using Acronis True Image 2017 for PC on your computer. It

is available at www.ugr7.com/files/TrueImage2017StarterGuide.pdf and is also on the CD you received from us

with True Image. I recommend that you print this paper and follow it carefully as you use True Image for the

first few times. Once you have more experience in using True Image, you will no longer need to follow this

paper. It is intended to help you get started quickly and effectively in using True Image.

This paper is divided into three main parts to make it easier to work with. These parts are as follows:

• Installation deals with installing Acronis True Image 2017 for PC on your computer and maintaining it

with the latest builds.

• Backup deals with setting your backup options and then backing up your computer’s main hard drive

with True Image. It shows you the best way to do your backups using this powerful backup utility.

• Restore deals with restoring a few individual files and folders or restoring your entire hard drive from

your backup image. True Image lets you do either of these restoring steps quickly and easily.

If you want to learn more about True Image, you can read the Acronis True Image 2017 for PC User’s Guide

(169 pages). This document is available at http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ and it is also

on the CD you get from us. Just be aware that the User’s Guide is intended to describe all of the function of the

product, but not to tell you how to best use the product. I hope to cover that side of True Image in this paper, so

that you will not only know how to do things, but what are the best ways to do them.

Installation of True Image 2017

If you have a prior copy of True Image installed on your computer, you may want to uninstall it using the

Windows Control Panel Programs & Features uninstall option. This will provide a clean slate to install a new

version on your computer. If you forget to uninstall the old version first, don’t worry. True Image will detect the

old version and uninstall it for you automatically.

Installing True Image from a Download: Acronis True Image is normally available as a downloaded software

product. This is my preference when installing new software on my computer. You end up with the latest build

of the software you are installing. The best way to download the True Image installation module consists of the

following three steps:

1. Login to your Account on the Acronis web site. To do this, go to the Acronis web site at

www.acronis.com and click on the My Account link in the upper right corner of the screen. This will

take you to a page where you can login to your account by entering your email address and password. If

you have not set up an Acronis account, click on the option to setup an account. Then follow the

instructions to enter in the basic information needed, such as your first and last name, your email

address, your country, and a password you will use to access your Acronis account. You need to confirm

your password and then click on the Continue button to complete the setup of your account. Next, you

need to download your email messages and open the message from Acronis. In this message, you need

to click on the confirmation link to verify that the email address is valid. This takes you to the first page


of your new account.

2. Register True Image 2017 in your Account. To do this, click on the Add Keys button on the upper right

side of your account screen. This link opens a box for you to enter in your new serial number. You need

to copy (Ctrl-C) the entire number from the email I sent you and then click once inside the box to anchor

the cursor. Then paste (Ctrl-V) this number in the box. Make sure you do not copy an extra blank at

either the beginning or end of the serial number. That will make the number invalid. If all you have is a

printed serial number, then carefully enter in the serial number of your Acronis product exactly as you

received it, dashes and all. Do not press the Enter key to continue entry on the next line, but let the entry

automatically flow to the next line. When you have entered it exactly, click on the Add button at the

bottom left of the box to complete the registration. If you have already registered this product’s serial

number, then you can skip this step.

3. Download the Registered Product from your Account. Find the True Image 2017 product entry in the list

of your registered products. Then click on the Downloads link in the box for True Image 2017. This will

start to download the installation module for you. Click on Run to download and immediately start to

install the product on your computer.

Installing True Image from our CD: Some of our user group customers prefer to have their software delivered

on a CD. So, as a convenience to them, we have downloaded the software and have burned it onto a CD. This is

not an official Acronis CD, but simply a download convenience we offer our customers. If you received one of

these download alternative CDs from us, all you need to do to install the product is to load the CD in your CD

reader. Make sure the Autorun option is selected for this CD. On the box that comes up, click on the Install

True Image button. This starts the install process. This start-up process tends to be a little slow on some

computers, so let it run for a couple of minutes before deciding that things are not working.

Installation Process: The install process is quick and simple to complete. As the process begins, you see the

blue install screen for the Acronis install wizard. Click on the Install button to start the install. If you are

connected to the internet, this module may check to make sure you have the latest version. If not, follow the

instructions to download the latest version before continuing. On the next screen, you can read the license

agreement and click on the “I accept this agreement” box and then OK to continue. You need an Acronis

account to update your product and obtain technical support. The next screen lets you Create an Acronis

account by filling in the few boxes. If you already have an account, click on the small notice at the bottom of

this box to Sign in to your account.

The next screen requires you to enter in your serial number exactly as you received it from us, dashes and all.

Click on the Enter Serial Number button at the bottom right corner of this screen. Since this is a long and

complex set of characters, I would suggest that you copy (Ctrl-C) the serial number you received from us and

then paste (Ctrl-V) it into the box provided. You can also find your serial number in your Acronis account under

the product name. Click on the Number under Workstations to open up the lists of your registered serial

numbers. Copy and paste the serial number you have assigned to this computer into the box in the install

program. If you received a serial number printed on a sheet of paper, then enter the number carefully to avoid

typos. The dashes must be entered too. Do not enter any spaces in the number as these would make the number

invalid. Also, do not press the Enter key to continue entry on the next line. Just keep entering the number and it

will automatically flow to the next line. If you have problems doing this, please email me at [email protected]

the first 8 characters and I will email you back the entire serial number so that you can copy/paste it into the

box. Make sure that you click on the Activate button to continue.


Shortly, True Image 2017 for PC will be installed on your computer and you can start to setup your backup

system to meet your needs. Before we begin your first backup, there are a couple of housekeeping things to do

to get ready for that first backup.

Updating True Image: Acronis does an excellent job of correcting problems with their products and publishing

new builds of the software about once every month or two. We only send out the latest build on our CDs, but if

you don’t install that CD right away, you may have an older build on the CD than the current build. I normally

check about once a month to make sure I still have the latest build of the products installed on my computer.

True Image will automatically check for a new build. Make sure the “Automatically Check for Update” box

in the Settings icon (a gear at the bottom of the first column) is checked. That will help you keep your Acronis

software up to date with all of the latest product fixes and changes.

The way to tell if you are current is to run Acronis True Image and when the main window appears click on the

Account (Small head and shoulders icon) in the first Acronis dark blue column. To the right of this Account

button will be the latest information on your account and if it is current or not. If it is not current, then you need

to update your product to the current build.

To download and install a new build of True Image on your computer, you need to do the following steps. Go to

the Acronis web site and login to your account. Then click on the Downloads link under the True Image 2017

heading. Follow the same instructions above as you did to install this product on your computer. Each build is

an entire replacement of True Image 2017, so you do not need to have True Image installed when you update to

a new build.

Create Bootable Rescue Media: An important step that you need to take before you are ready to create your

backup images is to create a bootable rescue media to use in case your main hard drive should fail and you need

to restore an image without an operating system to run on. Acronis True Image makes a bootable CD or a flash

memory thumb drive, depending on what hardware your computer supports. To do this, click on Tools (4 boxes

icon) in the first dark blue Acronis column of True Image 2017. Then click on the Rescue Media Builder

button in the list of tools to the right. In the box that appears, click on Acronis Bootable Rescue Media. Next,

click on the DVD device on your computer. I would place a CD-R disk in your drive, but do not close the tray

drawer. Click on Proceed to burn a bootable CD with a standalone version of True Image on it. When your

system asks for a blank CD, close the tray door and then quickly click on Next to start the creation of the

bootable CD. This approach seems to work best. Your computer may automatically close the DVD tray and

start to burn the CD. You can also choose to place the Acronis Rescue Media on a thumb drive if you prefer by

selecting the USB drive that has your thumb drive plugged into.

Setting up your Backup Hard Drive: You need a dedicated external hard drive to save your backup images

on. This drive should be about the same size as the main hard drive inside your computer, but can be larger.

Most external hard drives come already formatted and ready to use. If your external hard drive is formatted with

FAT32, you may want to format it as NTFS before you start to use it. True Image will backup to the drive either

way, but NTFS tends to be a bit easier to use. Formatting the drive will delete all of the files on the drive, so

save these to another location before you format the drive. To start using the drive, just plug it into a USB port

on your computer and you are ready to go. I would use File Explorer to create an empty folder on the external

hard drive to save all of your backup files in. You can name this folder – Backups, or whatever name is

appropriate to your computer.

Before you run True Image to do a backup, make sure you plug your external backup hard drive into a USB

port. If you plug it into your computer after you start True Image, it might not be found by the True Image

software.


Backing Up Your Hard Drive

Defining your Backup Process

This section on Backing Up Your Hard Drive will show you how easy it is to use Acronis True Image 2017

for PC to back up your computer’s main hard drive and save this backup on an external hard drive. To get

started, click on Backup icon at the top of the first dark blue column. This will display a new light blue column

with “My Computer” at the top. In this light blue column, you will see all of the backup tasks that you will

define on True Image 2017. To begin with, an Entire PC backup task is predefined for your use. We will make

a couple of simple modifications to this predefined task to let us get started quickly.

On the right side of your True Image screen, you see two large boxes and a small circle in between them. The

left large box defines what you want to back up. You need to back up your entire PC and not just a portion of

your PC, like the c: partition. Then if your main hard drive crashes, you can restore the entire PC and not just

your c: partition. Restoring just the c: partition will not give you a hard drive that will boot and work properly.

True Image has already been setup to backup your entire PC, so you do not need to make any changes to the

first box.


Next, we need to select the destination of your backup image files. The default is the Acronis Cloud, but

backing up your entire hard drive to the Acronis Cloud is a very slow process and could take you many hours to

complete. Instead, you should store your entire hard drive backup image on a locally attached external hard

drive. To change this destination, click on the second large box.

When you click on the second large box, the backup destination area will appear with 3 large buttons. Click on

the browse button to choose your external hard drive and backup folder. This lets you organize your backup

image files before you save too many of them.


When you select browse, you will see a new screen with a directory tree of your computer system. Find your

external hard drive and the empty folder that you created to contain the backup image files of your main hard

drive. Select the folder that will contain your backup image files and click on it and then click on OK.

We have now defined for True Image exactly where the backup image files will be saved. We only have a

couple of changes to make to the backup options and then we will be ready to make our first backup. To make

these changes, just click on the options button for this backup task.


Notice that there are five option screens with tabs at the top to indicate which changes you are making. The first

set of options has to do with the schedule of your backup. I recommend doing a weekly scheduled backup. It is

the default, so it should already be selected. Then select which day of the week you want to do your scheduled

backups. I usually pick late Saturday evening as my backup day. Then select the backup start time. I leave my

computer on all night, so I pick a time in the middle of the night when my computer is likely idle. If you only

want to do manual backups, you can select Do Not Schedule instead. Finally click on the backup scheme tab to

make your next changes.

There are several different types of backup schemes you can select from. I recommend the incremental backup

scheme which is the default scheme. The first time you make a backup, a full backup of all of the files is made.

Then the next several backups only those files that have changed since the last backup are backed up. This uses

a lot less space on your backup hard drive and runs much faster. Make sure the Create a Full Version… is

checked. I would change the number that follows this from 5 to something larger. Pick 8 to 10 incremental

versions instead.


There are three ways to cleanup older backup images from your external backup hard drive. I prefer the third

option, which is the size of your backups on the hard drive. You want to keep as many backup files on the

backup hard drive as possible, but you do not want to exceed about 80% of the total space on the drive. I have a

1TB backup hard drive so 80% of 1TB would be 800GB. I check the size option and then change the amount to

800GB. Finally, select the Advanced tab to complete the backup options.

On the Advanced option page click on the Validation entry about half way down the page to open it up. Then

check the Validate Backup When it is Created box. This will cause your backup image to be validated

immediately after it is created. So, if your backup is made inaccurately, you can repeat the backup immediately

and not have to wait till your hard drive fails and it is too late to make a valid backup. At this point, we are

through making changes to our backup options and you should click on the OK button at the bottom of the

screen.


Doing Manual Backups

You are now done defining the backup of your main hard drive to your external hard drive. Click on the Back

up now button’s down arrow and select the Later option. Since the first backup you do may take some time to

complete, it is best to select Later and then at the end of the day, when you are done using the computer, you

can manually start your backup.

Your main backup screen will now look like this. Notice, the Entire PC button will have some additional

information added to the button. If you later define other backups for this same computer, they will appear as

additional buttons in the light blue column on this screen. Each button will be used to control that backup

operation that it was defined for. To start a manual backup of your Entire PC process, just click on the Entire

PC button and then click on the Back up now button in the lower right corner of this screen. True Image will

know whether to do a full image backup or an incremental image backup for you depending on how many

backups have already been done. It will also name each backup file differently, so that duplicates don’t erase

earlier backup image files. It couldn’t be much easier to back up your hard drive.


When the backup begins, True Image will show you a blue progress bar, the stage and size of the backup done,

and estimate the time left to complete the backup. It will take a few minutes for this information to appear, so be

patient and you will see it soon. I would suggest that you do your backups at the end of the day when you will

not need the computer. You can run your backups while you are still using your computer, but things may slow

down if you do this. I prefer to run my backups when I don’t need to use my computer. If you check the box to

shut down the computer after completion, your computer will not run all night.

When the full backup of your computer is complete, you will see some information about the backup added to

the Entire PC button. A green circle check will appear to tell you the backup was successful. The down arrow

on the button can be used to see the actual backup file listing on your external hard drive as well as give you

some other nice options to try. Along the top of the right part of the screen you will see when your backup last

completed, when the next backup is scheduled and how big was the total backup image file. You can now exit

True Image by clicking on the X icon in the upper right corner of the screen.

Take a minute after you do your backups to look at the backup files that were created in the folder on your

external hard drive. Look at the size of the backup files. Notice that the larger files are your full backup files

and the smaller ones in between are your incremental backup files. You should have the exact number of


incremental images between full back up images that you specified when you set up your Backup Scheme.

Notice how True Image names full and incremental backup image files.

Doing Automatic Backups

One of the biggest problems with doing backups is that you get busy and forget to do them on a regular basis.

That is why it is important to set up your backups so that they run automatically, without your needing to start

them. That is why we setup this backup task to do automatic backups each week. That is also why you see a

scheduled backup date and time listed at the top of this completion screen. To do this backup, all you need to do

is to remember to leave your computer on a few hours before the backup begins. If you forget, and turn the

computer off, the backup will start when you turn the computer on the next morning. It really couldn’t be much

easier to do backups than True Image 2017 for PC can do for you.

That completes the backup process to do regular weekly backups of your entire main hard drive to a folder on

your external hard drive. If you follow this example exactly, you will do a full backup image about once every

other month with weekly incremental backup images in between. That will give you the most economical space

usage on the external hard drive while not taking significant risks with your backup images. This is the most

important way you should be doing backups using True Image. Once you are doing these full disk backups on a

weekly basis, you may want to add additional backups of just your most important files on a more frequent

basis. With True Image, you can have many different types of backups working for your protection and they

won’t interfere with each other.

Restoring Your Hard Drive

There are two types of restores that you can do with True Image:

• Restoring individual files from your backup image

• Restoring your entire hard drive after a hard drive crash

We will describe both of these types of restores in the following pages.

Restoring Individual Files

This function is one of the more powerful functions of Acronis True Image and one that you will use frequently.

It gives you the ability to go back to any backup image in the past, open up that image and look at files in that

image or copy them back to your main hard drive. True Image can do this without having to restore your entire

hard drive. Here’s how it works.

When you install True Image on your Windows system, True Image will modify Windows Explorer (File

Explorer on Win8/8.1 and Win10 computers) so that it has additional capability not found in the standard

Windows system. After the install of True Image, Windows Explorer will be able to see inside condensed image

files and retrieve individual files out of the backup image. So, retrieving individual files from a backup image is

nothing more than using Windows Explorer to access the contents of the image file.

The following example shows how to use Windows Explorer to find and copy a file inside your backup image

on the external hard drive and copying it to your main hard drive. First, click on the backup image folder

containing the image file you want to look into. Then double click on the image file till you can see all of the

individual files and folders inside the image file.


In this case, find and select the name of the folder in the left column of Windows Explorer on your backup

external hard drive where you have stored your backup images. Now, in the right column of Windows Explorer,

you will see the image files stored in that folder. I have sorted this list in descending order by the date the file

was created. So, you will see the most recent backup image at the top of the list. The missing file I am looking

for is in this backup I made a few days ago. To find the missing file, I double click on the image file name at the

top of this list.

By not picking the most recent image in this list, you can be very selective in looking for missing files from any

backup you have taken in the past. This is a powerful way to pick a file that has been missing for some time or

to pick a certain revision level of a file from past backups. This is a major reason that I recommend using

incremental images and not differential images. Had you used differential images, the missing file may no

longer be retrievable after it was accidently deleted.

When you see the next screen in Windows Explorer, you again double click on the image that contains the most

recent backup, which has the missing file.


You need to continue to double click on folders that contain your missing file. This process is called “drilling

down” in Windows Explorer to find your missing file. When you finally see the missing file name, you can

double click on the file name to display it to verify it is the file you are looking for. Then close the displayed file

and right click on the file name. Then select copy to copy that file to the Windows clipboard. Then you can find

in Windows Explorer where that missing file should be placed on your main hard drive and paste (Ctrl-V) the

file at that location. You can also use Windows Explorer to drag and drop one or many files from your backup

image file to your main hard drive. If you are comfortable using Windows Explorer, you will be an expert in

retrieving files from a backup image. This function in True Image is very powerful, yet extremely easy to use.

Restoring Your Entire Hard Drive

Before we describe how to restore your entire hard drive, there are a couple of considerations that we need to

discuss.

If you followed my recommendations in backing up your entire hard drive, then you can easily restore your

entire hard drive in a few minutes and have your system up and running again quickly. If, for some reason, you

only backed up a portion of your hard drive, for example just your c: partition, then you can restore only that

partition, but that will not give you a full working system. Your restored hard drive would be missing important

parts that you did not backup.

While True Image permits you to restore on top of the main hard drive that is not working, I recommend against

doing this for two important reasons:

1- When you start the restore, the first thing that True Image must do is to delete the entire contents of your

main hard drive. If, for some reason, the restore does not complete, you will be left with your main hard

drive deleted. In other words, you are burning your bridges behind you before you accomplish a

successful restore.

2- Even if your restore is successful, the crashed main hard drive may contain files that are more current

than your backup. Even though you cannot boot from the crashed drive, you can probably access the

files on it and retrieve these more current files after the restore is completed.

To protect yourself, I recommend that you remove the damaged hard drive from your computer and save it to

retrieve recent files from it after the restore. Then mount a clean empty hard drive in its place inside your

computer and do your restore to this empty hard drive. After you install this empty hard drive inside the


computer, do not format it or load Windows on it. Leave it totally empty. The True Image restore will cover all

of those steps in the restore process.

You are now ready to do a full hard drive restore to an empty hard drive that you have mounted inside your

computer where the crashed main hard drive use to be. Attach your external hard drive that contains the most

recent full hard drive backup to your computer. Then place the True Image Rescue CD that you created when

you first installed True Image and turn on your computer and boot from that CD. That will bring up a small

standalone version of True Image that you will use to restore the most recent backup image to the empty hard

drive you have inside your computer. The following are the steps you need to do to accomplish this restore.

Follow these steps carefully to make sure you restore your main drive correctly.

• Select the Acronis True Image 2017 button on the first screen.

• Under the heading, “What would you like to do?” click on “Recover My Disks”.

• This brings up the “Select a backup from which to recover” screen. Select your most recent (full or

incremental) backup image and Next to continue.

• This brings up the “Choose recovery method” screen. Select Recover whole disks and partitions and

Next to continue.

• This brings up the “Select the items to recover” screen. Place a check in Disk 1 to recover the entire hard

drive. Then click on Next to continue.

• Now, you see “Select destination of Disk 1” screen. Select your main hard drive (Disk 2) and click on

Next.

• The final screen you see is the Summary screen. Read what steps will be done and click on the Proceed

button.

That will start the full restore of your new hard drive. Let the computer run uninterrupted till it completes. Then

you can remove the Rescue CD and the external backup hard drive and boot up your computer from the newly

restored main hard drive.

Other Functions of True Image

Acronis True Image has many other functions in the product that are available for your use. See the full User’s

Guide for a detailed explanation of these other functions. Just remember, that you should make sure you do the

backup approach described in this document first. Then you can add any additional backup approaches you are

interested in as additional backups. None of these other approaches should replace the full backup image

approach described in this document.

Enjoy using Acronis True Image 2017. It's an outstanding product!

That completes this paper on Acronis True Image 2017. If you have questions on this document or other

questions about True Image, send a note to [email protected] and I will try to assist you. While I try to help

my customers as time permits, I am not Acronis official technical support for this product. To reach Acronis, go

to www.acronis.com/support and fill in the information requested.

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