Customer Reviews

Acronis True Image Home 2009 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(47)

 

 

(I've adapted this review from an earlier discussion post because those posts don't affect the product's star ratings.)

I've been looking for a drive imaging program for protection in case my HD fails at some point. I'd tried ShadowProtect, but it wouldn't run, and the publisher's tech service people were unable to find the cause. So now I've done a complete image backup with True Image 2009 to an external hard drive, and I've restored individual files from the backup without any problems. I'll also mention that this program was very easy to use, and the user manual is clear.

Installed easily, and asked permission to set up a partition that a system image is written to. After the install, re-insert the install disk, and choose Update Software from the menu choices. There is already an update out that fixes a couple minor things, like Restore not Restoring; and USBs not USBing.

Anyway, after the update was installed the software did what it needed to do. The Backup Tasks can be simple, but if you want there are numerous options available that are well explained in the help page. You can back up your whole disk every day, or backup as little a single file once a month. The scheduling center gives nice overviews of all the tasks and logs of activities. The filters for source and destination are thorough and intuitive, and the menu structures are easy to follow. I backed up my entire c:\ drive to a network hard disk RAID quickly and without any problems, and test restores worked as easily as the backup. Searching the backup is done quickly - files are displayed in their native/original file structure. You can restore a single file up to a whole drive.

Two helpful utilities are also included: A "Clone Disk" utility makes a bootable hard drive clone of the source drive - the drives do not have to be the same size as partitions are either arranged as you specify or proportionally. A "Clean-Up" utility does a nice job of wiping your Internet history and other historical traces of your computer use. Note that one of the options in this utility is a "wipe free space" option that takes a long time, and while easily unselected from the planned tasks, is not retained as a default and must be unselected each time.

Powerful yet intuitive backup software - just don't forget the updates.

Dear Acronis Customers,
As Chief Customer Officer for Acronis, I would like to apologize to those of you who received poor service from us in the past. Late last year and early this year, we had an issue which prevented us from responding to some customers in a timely fashion. This is unacceptable. Our service mission is to "Create Customer Success". Clearly we did not do that for some customers.

I wanted to share what we have done to improve our service and support.
* We have revamped all our training as well as our Service Quality Assurance system.
* We have focused on customer commitment, accountability, and resolution.
* We have re-staffed to ensure we consistently hit our Service Levels.
* The goals for all Support Professionals, Managers and myself are now tied to Customer Satisfaction.
* We have added significant content to our Knowledge Base/FAQs.
* Additionally, we have overhauled our contact page on the web site to ensure it is easy to contact us at all times.

Our goal is to provide a service experience that transcends great service you have received anywhere else. We won't stop trying until we do that for every customer.

Some customers mentioned having difficulties with the product. Although many customers have shared positive feedback about Acronis True Image Home 2009, we realize that there can be issues depending on the computer system. We have updated the product to address the most common issues. We recommend customers keep current with the latest versions which can be found at http://www.acronis.com/my

We do make mistakes. When we do, you have my commitment that we will make it right as quickly as possible.

If you have any current or future questions or issues, you can always go to http://www.acronis.com/support.

Should you not receive the level of service you expect or have comments, suggestions or feedback, please don't hesitate to contact me at Ed.Benack@Acronis.com.

Again, I apologize if you had a poor experience. We are committed to delivering the best products and service you have ever seen. While we are not there yet, we are measurably progressing towards that, each and every day.

Thank you for being an Acronis Customer.
Ed Benack
Chief Customer Officer.
(Note: Choosing a rating is required to post this. I feel very strongly about the product. There is no intent to skew customer ratings.)

When this program fails, you may lose your entire system. (See the review at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2336019,00.asp where he had a similar problem.) It could all be solved if tech support would respond AT ALL to you, and they don't. If it works, its a wonderful program. When it doesn't, it can eat your data and ruin ALL of your system. The benefits are NOT worth the risks.

I had been using Norton's Ghost for years on my old system. When I got a new computer I found out that Ghost was redone with new code and had bad reviews for being unable to restore the system partition. I tried Paragon's Disk Management Suite 9.0, only to have my hard drive wiped clean when a restore of the system partition locked up right in the middle of the restore.

That's when I tried Acronis True Image Home 2009. Right after I installed Acronis, I let it find and install the newest version online. I then made a bootable restore disk which is simple to do. You just select this option in the menu, select your CD or DVD writable drive and it makes the disk for you.

I then selected the option to restore the system disk with the boot sector. It took 35 minutes to create an image of my system partition which was drive C:\ (I had 35 GB of data on the drive) It was easy to use. I was using an external 500GB USB drive for the backup. The software automatically found this drive and selected it for the backup image.

After removing some programs from my system partition, I put in the bootable restore disk and re-imaged my system drive and boot sector from the back up image. There was one place where the software asks you to select the destination disk but the choices took a couple minutes to appear. Once it appeared I selected my original drive and started the backup. This took the same amount of time as making the image. (35 minutes)

I took out the bootable disk and restarted my computer and everything was restored. If this software didn't do anything else I'd still be happy. Because with out a quick system restore like this, re-installing all the software, updates, drivers and settings on a hosed system can take all day instead of 35 minutes. The one thing that I was sure to do is uncheck the feature that would automatically make a new image every week. I was not sure if it overwrites the original or makes a new file name.

As far as just backing up files without the OS. I don't really care because Vista Home Premium already has a decent backup system built into the OS.

I've been using True Image since version 8. I have dealt with their support during this "pre True Image 2009" era and received very quick and good responses. With True Image 2009 things have gone very wrong. Backup jobs that took 4 hours now take over 16 hours and it eats up all 4 of my CPU cores. Perfmon used to show data moving at 40 MB/s with 2009 it moves around 1-3 MB/s. Backup jobs crash frequently. I have verified the defectiveness of this product on 4 separate machines. The updated January 2009 version does nothing to fix this. If this was a car you wouldn't be able to drive it off the lot.

On customer support: I have been trying to get a refund since December 11th. I did not receive a response to my email until February 9th - almost 2 months. They have still continued to weasel and word their way out of giving me a refund. My last attempt was on Feb 20 - no reply since then. I wouldn't be surprised if Acronis goes out of business / gets a slapped with a class action lawsuit for this product. Caveat emptor. There are better products out there.

I'm totally mystified as to why people are having problems with this software. I used Acronis 9.0, was satisfied with it, and am now equally happy with this version. Because of all the negative reviews, I almost didn't buy it.

I've spent too much money and time trying out all kinds of backup software that fails in one way or another. I have both Windows 2000 & XP installed on my computer. Since Windows 2000 does not have System Restore, a functioning backup program is critical to me.

One failing of other restore programs is that they attempt to overwrite the backed-up files on top of the existing files, creating a bad mix of the files you want with the files you don't want. Acronis solves this problem by totally wiping your hard drive during a full restore, and then reinstalling all of your backed-up files on a clean drive. No fuss, no muss. As a result, ALL of the restores I've done so far--without exception--have been flawless.

I installed the main program (which I don't use, and ultimately deleted) just to make the rescue/recovery disk (which I only use). This new version works with SATA drives, which 9.0 does not. Full-image backups that were made with version 9.0 work perfectly with this 2009 version. Though this new version cannot be installed on a drive formatted with Windows 2000, the rescue/recovery disk in pre-boot can still create a backup file of such a drive, or totally re-install it from an existing backup. July 2009 update: The rescue/recovery disk in pre-boot can do a backup or a restore of Windows 7.

The fun thing about Acronis True Image Home 2009 is that I can fearlessly install new or questionable software. I no longer have to worry about someone's nasty program horribly messing up my computer. Now, if the worst happens, so what? All I have to do is boot my computer using the Acronis Rescue Disk, and then instruct it to reinstall the backup located on a second external storage drive. In less than 10 minutes, my computer is back and happy the way it was before anything happened.

Since I had previously worked with Acronis 9.0, I had no problem transitioning to version 2009, which has a few more bells and whistles. However, it's possible that others who have not used their previous version may have problems understanding this one. Nevertheless, without apology, I think that this program is the best on the market and is very user-friendly. But obviously, I'm among the minority opinion.

Read the other reviews and then you decide. Let me point out, however, that their complaints may be now outdated, and fixed in the latest update from Acronis.

I downloaded this to try out, and found a program bug made it impossible to back up to DVDs. The bug was so basic that it definitely should have been caught in testing, which makes me suspicious of the testing they do before releasing a new build. I reported this to Tech Support 4 weeks ago, and still haven't had a response. Their support forums indicate this is common.

I purchased Acronis True Image Home 2009. I read the reviews that complain about the bad customer service and thought that is just them and that it would never happen to me. I was wrong! When the program works properly it's probably a good program but if you regularly need Technial Assistance or are at all unlucky then I say there must be a better choice for you. I chose this because it is their newest version from Acronis and there were some very good reviews on the Internet. I did expect some small issues but got more than I anticipated. When I loaded the software my 19 in 1 Card Reader disappeared and I didn't realize that the program was involved. It is a new computer so I spent a lot of time on the phone with Dell and searching their knowledge base. It turns out that Acronis was aware of this problem but didn't bother to inform people who purchased the program from them even though they have our email addresses. It turns out there were a slew of problems that were repaired by a 87 MB download. I made 3 attempts to back up my hard drive and 2 failed because half way through the program couldn't see the CD Burner anymore. During the month or so that I have had this software I have sent 3 emails to the Tech Team using the forms on their website and none of them have been answered. To be fair, I didn't mark them as urgent but I think they still should have been answered in a week. I used their Chat Line for Tech support. One time the person was very polite reassuring and interested in helping me. He helped me after I tried to download the repair update 3 times. He gave me a new location to download the file and it worked. The second time I used the Chat Line (while I was attempting to back up my system and the Acronis Software was unable to complete the back up because it said the disk was full but in reality it couldn't see the CD Burner even though we were on the 9th disk) the person I chatted with seemed very distracted and informed me about the number of disks that it would take to back up my system and that it didn't sound very safe. I have no idea what that meant because that is exactly what the Acronis True Image Home Software is meant to do. After an hour, he said the software doesn't see the CD Burner and his great solution was reboot the computer and then it SHOULD be able to see the burner again. Remember, I was half way through the back up with a pile of CD's that were about to become garbage. I should consider myself lucky because the last time the program stopped being able to write to the disk I was on Disk 13 and he could have wasted 1 hour and 5 minutes of my time.
GOOD LUCK!!

I purchased this product based upon positive reviews I had read. It appeared to work fine at first, but once the hard drive I use for backup became full, it failed even though I have it set to delete old backups. It also reports random errors in the log but then reports 'Success' in the end. This product does not appear to be reliable and I have no idea if my drive is actually backed up. Norton Ghost was far easier to use. This product is not recommended.