So for years I have used a copy of Acronis True Image – yep, a bootlegged copy – to occassioanlly back a hard drive. Key to using that software is having a bootable restore medium in the form of a CD or a USB stick. I used version 14 for years and recently thought I might try a newer version simply to see if anything had changed, if there were new features, etc. Interestingly no bootable rescue medium after version 14 would load on my computer – and I tried version 16, 18, 20, etc. I downloaded a bunch of different .iso files. Virtually none worked.
Acronis still works well
At the end of the day my trusty old version 14 still works fine. It’s worth noting, too, that in 2019 Acronis switched from their proprietary .tib format to something called a .tbx format. Supposedly backup file sizes are dramatically reduced with the .tibx format. Forget about updating as the boot disks simply do not work.
EaseUS TODO Backup
I’ll describe this later – crazy slow, huge file size, and it did not work at all….a real mess.
Macrium Reflect
This creates a virtual drive, for some reason. It was fairly intuitive and worked well. The resulting image file was a bit bigger than an Acronis file for the same drive. But, this is a good program and unlike Easeus Todo backup it worked.
Download verson 7.2