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Computer Buyer

July 6, 2006

Computer Buyer web site

Acronis True Image 9.0

A versatile and easy-to-use hard disk imaging program, allowing for computer ghosting. A versatile and useful disk imaging program that's packed with features.

A few years ago one could name only one popular disaster recovery program, capable of hard disk ghosting. The software meant is surely Norton Ghost. Now the utility has met its match — True Image from Acronis. Acronis True Image is a hard disk imaging program and the only commercial competitor to Norton Ghost. Both programs take an exact copy of your hard disk's contents, which you can use to restore your PC. The process is frequently dubbed disk ghosting.

Unusually, the program allows you to back up and restore more than one partition at once. We backed up our 80GB primary partition and a 3GB secondary partition to a USB hard disk in only 15 minutes. Recovering individual files is equally simple and you can "plug in" an image — the program's jargon for making that image available in My Computer as a virtual hard disk.

As with Ghost, the install CD is also bootable — so you can start the PC from it and use the program directly from the CD to find the image you want to restore your PC from. As well as standard IDE hard disks, the bootable CD was able to recognise and recover images from SATA hard disks — we've had problems with rescue discs and SATA in the past, but Acronis True Image didn't have any difficulty.

The boot disc itself is excellent in most respects. It contains a version of Acronis True Image that appears to be identical to that which you install under Windows. As well as reading an image you've already made the rescue disc can actually make a brand new image — handy if you want to copy a data partition on a PC that's no longer bootable.

As well as backing up and restoring your hard disk, Acronis True Image can clone one disk to another, so you can upgrade to a new hard disk without the hassle of reinstalling Windows and manually moving all your data to the new disk. You can also create something called a Secure Zone^® — an area on your hard disk that's from the operating system and all programs except Acronis True Image. This provides you with a place to safely store backup images if you only have one hard disk.

Even if you accidentally format your disk the Secure Zone^®, and your backup disk image, remain safe (though if your hard disk suffers a mechanical failure, you've had it).