Can someone give me the rundown on Imaging with Acronis and it's importance?

[RD99]

I've been searching through a lot of threads here and reading about a lot of people using recovery software such as Acronis with PT. I just did a clean Windows re-install and I want to take every precaution possible to ensure that everything can run smoothly and I can focus on making music and not worry about tedious problems.

I guess I'm kind of looking for a "how to" when it comes to doing this with PT. I'm still a noob when it comes to all this technical stuff to be honest, my focus has always been on composing... but I'm trying to pick this up as best as I can.

- Do I need to purchase a new external/install another internal drive?

- If I'm taking precautionary steps and I install something that doesn't play nice with PT, wouldn't simply uninstalling the plug-in/or w/e else it is I installed do the same thing as reverting back to the previous image if I was using Acronis?

- Other methods of back up?

- Anything else I must know?

[Benoni]

I like to keep a current image in at least 2 places. I also keep a clone, however it wont be nearly as up to date as my image will be.

If something doesnt play well with Pro Tools, then of course the first step would be to uninstall the program, dont just reach for an Acronis image first. If for instance you accidentally delete the wrong registry keys (and i have done this) then thats when you would reach for your Image first.

I keep a clone just in case my OS drive completely fails, that way I can simply plug the clone in, and be relatively up to date, and read to go. I only update my clone when I have made several changes or important changes, such as going from PT8 LE to PT9 or Windows 7 to Windows 7 SP1, I dont update my clone when going from PT9 to 9.0.2, because thats an easy update should I have to use my clone. But I will have an Image that is more up to date than the clone.


You dont have to keep you Image on a different hard drive, but you should or you are not really protected.

[The Weed]

I have three internal hard drives, one for the OS, one for Pro Tools sessions and one for Acronis back-ups, although the back-up drive could just as easily be an external drive. In some cases this could be better as you could store it elsewhere.

I take an image of my OS drive and an image of my sessions drive nightly and store them on the third drive. I keep those images for a night, meaning I currently have last night's and the night before's images now. Tonight I will delete the image from two nights ago and make a new image. I also store important "milestone" images such as a fresh OS install or a working 7x before going to 8x.

As well, before any update, upgrade or install I make an image. If the update, upgrade or install goes south, I just recover the image and it's like the update, upgrade or install never happened. No worries about uninstalling and/or if there was an issue with the registry or anything else that may get left behind when uninstalling.

As always YMMV.

Cheers,

[RD99]

How much free space am I likely going to be needing for this process? Would picking up a 320gb external d do?

[The Weed]

You need as much space as the drive you are imaging contains - not the entire size, just the contents - or less if you use compression, which I don't use. So for example, if one drive is 20 gb and another drive is 45 gb and you wanted to keep two images of each, you would need a drive that's bigger than 130 gb. Unless you've got a lot of stuff on your drives, 320 gb should be fine.

Cheers,

[albee1952]

My story is similar. I bought a sale priced 2TB drive($79) and put it in a cheapo USB2 case. I have saved images of 6 different machines on that drive, including several for my newest build(done at different stages, like an image with just Windows7, another with PT added, a third with some plugins added and a fourth with everything installed). Then I also have cloned the system drive in my 2 Pro Tools machines. This can be done on any drive large enough to handle whatever the system/source drive has on it. For instance, say you have a 500GB system drive, but it only has 120GB of data(or used space). You could clone that to a 160GB drive(but you could not clone from a full 500GB drive to a 320GB drive). Does that make sense?(sometimes I may not get the message explained right). Speaking of drive size, given the prices these days, you can get a good 500GB drive for $40-50 on sale, so I don't buy anything smaller any more(except for laptop drives). I also keep all my internal drives mounted in SATA drive cages, which makes swaps simple and fast. This is handy for a system drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...m-_-17-990-001 and they make triple and quad versions too.

[RD99]

Alright thanks for the help so far guys. I'm gonna be picking up Acronis today and hopefully get everything up and running soon. When you guys keep your images in multiple places, do you usually have it kept on your internal drive as well?

I'm reading another thread where jgrooms suggests this order of operations for installing PT on a rig from a fresh format and OS install:

* Install the OS
* Patch the OS
* Install any required drivers (iLok, video cards, etc)
* Implement Digidesign's recommended OS optimizations (do not personalize Windows here, only Digidesign and trusted configuration changes)
* Install backup/recovery software (e.g., Acronis)
* Take prestine Windows image (start all future Pro Tools installs from this image)
* Install Pro Tools
* Install Pro Tools Add Ons (MPTK, DVTK, etc)
* Install Pro Tools updates
* Configure Pro Tools preferences (optional)
* Take prestine Pro Tools Image
* Install 3rd party plug ins
* Install plug in patches
* Take final Pro Tools image
* Install any additional applications
* Final system/application configuration/preferences (personalize Windows/applications in this step)
* Defrag hard drive (optional)
* Take final system image

So I ideally I'd have these images stored on my OS drive as well as (at least) 1 back up drive? What is the difference between a "prestine image" and a normal one? And I'm kind of confused about the 1st bolded part which suggests to start all future pro tools installs from that image. So as I go down the check list (Install PT, Install Add-ons, Install updates, plug-ins etc...) I should be starting the all the installations from the prestine Windows image? How exactly is this done? This is all cluttering up and hurting my head...hah. I apologize again for the level of ignorance in these questions, but my whole life I've just been playing music (only recently transitioning to this) and it's hard for me to grasp all of this, but I'm trying my best!

Only after I complete all those steps, it would then be optimal to finally clone the drive right?

[77pro]

Make sure you keep some images off your main rig. Last year I had a power supply fail and fry all 4 of my internal drives.

[The Weed]

IIRC you can't image a drive to the same drive, that's why I have a third drive, for images of my OS and Recording drives.

Cheers,

[misterdmz]

Originally Posted by Benoni

If something doesnt play well with Pro Tools, then of course the first step would be to uninstall the program, dont just reach for an Acronis image first. If for instance you accidentally delete the wrong registry keys (and i have doneI this) then thats when you would reach for your Image first.

Just curious as to why you wouldnt go to the image first. Ive found it easier and sometimes faster to revert to an image than to uninstall and remove traces from the registry