[SOLVED] Acronis Backups

[Astralv]

Hey there

I got hard drive failure on one of my computers which brought me to look on my drives in search for backup for that drive.

I am trying to understand restore process. I have "Whole system backup" file- it is a single file. In theory, if my computer to fail, this backup should help restore the data. In theory. In practice- I have only one drive failed- not all 6 of them. There also could be changes in software installed on this computer. So if I have "whole system" backup- this means- I have no way to restore only one drive? I do not want it to attempt to match current system to what was saved to that drive. How is restore implemented? Is it going to compare the backup file to what I have now? What if I have multiple changes on many drives? What will it do? How do I get to that one E drive? Thank you.

 

[USAFRet]

How old is this backup?
What specific selections did you make with Acronis?

Not 100% familar with Acronis, but if you told it to make a 'whole system backup', and it encapsulated that in a single Image, and that Image is 'old'....well, that's what you have.
An old image that can only be used to return the whole system back to the state it was when you made it.

 

[Astralv]

Yeah, that's what I am afraid- it is- the image file. I also called 2 computers by the same name, so I even not sure it is right computer. lol. I should panic because now that that E drive fails, I only have one copy left of 20 years of my music production. I think- I built Kaby Lake in 2017 and clean installed all software that was on my old computer, so they are similar computers. have same software but installed differently- not a copy of drives. My problem is that I do not remember what I do with time. If I built new computer, and I bought new 8TB backup drive- why would I do full system backup for old computer on new drive? See- image files absolutely useless! It does not show the drive structure, so there is no way to tell what that is! It makes sense that I would want to back up new computer, right? Or maybe not- it took me a year to install all software I needed to install (takes forever to authorize each software), and this backup is January 2017- I built Kaby in February 2017- it must be old computer, but useless. It takes 4TB on 8TB drive and it is useless! What was I thinking?

So if I say- from now on I want to do meaningful backups- how do I back up so that it shows me separate drives and allows to restore only one drive that failed? Thank you.

 

[onespeedbiker]

delete

 

[USAFRet]

So if I say- from now on I want to do meaningful backups- how do I back up so that it shows me separate drives and allows to restore only one drive that failed? Thank you.

I use Macrium Reflect for exactly this.

My main system has 7 drives in it. Each drive gets its own Image every night. A full Image, then a series of Incrementals.

Each drive to its own folder.
The other systems in the house similar, depending on level of pain if something goes bad.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

I had to recover from a completely dead drive last December.
960GB SSD, dead. 605GB data on it.
Put in a new drive, click click in Macrium...the entire 605GB recovered, exactly as it was at 4AM that morning when it ran its nightly Incremental.

 

[USAFRet]

How to recover from your single drive fail with 2 decades of your music on it?
No idea.

 

[gardenman]

It might depend on which version of Acronis that you have, but it looks like you can "Mount" the backup image file as a drive, and simply copy files from it to a drive.

How to restore individual files from backup software that uses disk images:

How To Restore Individual Files And Folders – Acronis

We generally think of full-image backup software in terms of restoring an entire disk, but sometimes users just need to restore individual files.

www.acronis.com

I don't use Acronis so you might have to look up more info.

 

[USAFRet]

It might depend on which version of Acronis that you have, but it looks like you can "Mount" the backup image file as a drive, and simply copy files from it to a drive.

Right.
I know current versions of Macrium do that. Mont, and retrieve individual files as needed.
No idea about Acronis.

 

[Astralv]

Thank you for your replies. I had one healthy copy of my E drive with music left, so I copied it last night from new computer to old, which is good.

I dont see how making image of each drive daily is possible. My old computer with 6 drives had 4TB image of whole system stored on 8TB drive. If it was making image every day, it would last 1 day and then run out of drive. Those drives are expansive. What is the biggest external drive you have seen?

What is Mount? I am afraid to click on Image file because I dont know if it may start restoring without control.

 

[USAFRet]

You don't make a whole Image every day.
A Full Image, then a series of Incrementals.

The Incrementals only copy what has changed since the last Incremental.

This is my drive for photo work.
1TB SSD, Full and a series of Incrementals.

To recover, I'd select the most recent Incremental. Macrium gathers all the Incrementals and the most recent Full Image, and writes that out to a new drive.

 

[gardenman]

A "mount" allows Windows to see the backup as a drive. As I stated before, I don't have Acronis so I'm not sure how it's done. Here is what I would try:

1. Right click on the backup file and choose "Mount" if you see it.
2. Open "This PC" (My Computer) to see if there are new drives listed.

If so, this is your backup files. You should be able to browse them, and copy them, as if it's a real drive.

When done, you can usually right click on the drive and choose Unmount. Or a reboot automatically unmounts the drive.

All of this is just a guess. I don't have Acronis. If it doesn't work, now you know the basics of how it should work and you might want to look up how to mount Acronis backups.

You also didn't state which version of Acronis that you have. I think I seen a 2019 version and a 2020 version when I searched the other day. More info about which version you have would be useful.

 

[USAFRet]

In Macrium, that Mount function:

It gets a drive letter, and appears in File Explorer just like any other drive.

 

[howtobeironic]

Used Acronis before, though would still recommend Macrium instead. You should be able to mount the drive just like you'd do to a external drive. The connected drive is read-only and you should be able to copy off. Or, you can just select whole drives from the "Restore" menu, so you should be able to restore just the E drive with no hassle.