Best backup program?

RolandJS · 29 Jul 2016

Revo Uninstaller Pro costs a little bit, not much, considering the benefits one receives for removing 32 and 64 bit programs.

Steve C · 29 Jul 2016

OldMike65 said:

Well I agree with you, in my case I used my Revo Pro to uninstall Acronis , and it did the job very well. I would recommend anyone to give it a try. I bought mine 2 years ago. :)

I DID tell the OP to READ Your post on page #24 too. Is good info for him.

Do you think Revo Pro would have solved the problem instead of needing to use the manual removal referenced in my post? At least removing c**p Acronis software manually was a valuable learning experience.

OldMike65 · 29 Jul 2016

Steve C said:

Do you think Revo Pro would have solved the problem instead of needing to use the manual removal referenced in my post? At least removing c**p Acronis software manually was a valuable learning experience.

YES Steve as I had been running Acronis since like version 7 .....bought every NEW license to 2016. But like we have been discussing in here, Acronis has kept getting worse and worse with every new update. Heck it even slows down your boot up!!!
I used my Revo Pro and let it remove everything, including the registry entires. (Always do a complete image backup 1st) Then rebooted, had no problems booting back .....then used my other program called "Everything" to look for any trace of Acronis, there was 1 folder left in my programs, which I deleted. That was about a year ago now....maybe longer.

topgundcp · 29 Jul 2016

Steve C said:

Do you think Revo Pro would have solved the problem instead of needing to use the manual removal referenced in my post? At least removing c**p Acronis software manually was a valuable learning experience.

You are absolutely correct on this. Lots of people don't realize that Acronis modified the Master Boot Record and no software will be able to uninstall it unless going thru the manual procedure like you did. The 2 drivers (forgot the names) are loaded after POST and prior to Windows startup so if you delete the 2's .sys drivers in C:\windows\system32, Windows will crash. Software such as Revo Uninstaller removed everything related to Acronis but still could not remove the drivers.

Curious · 29 Jul 2016

FOLLOWUP:
Thank you all for the excellent advice and help. And especially thanks for continuing to help.

I took the easy way out. I had a computer chat with Acronis support and explained the situation. I usually have poor luck with tech support who often know less than I do. But this time, the tech (in India based on his name and accent), was a wiz! Surprise!

He connected via TeamViewer (which I already had installed because I use it to support some of my friends) and went through
- standard uninstall
- Acronis cleaner tool, which took out a bunch of registry entries.
- then opened regedit and deleted several more.
- did a few more checks
- rebooted the laptop, which rebooted normally! Yeah!
- and then made a few more checks and declared me free of Acronis.

It is unconscionable that a purchased program would take all this to uninstall - leave alone modify the customer's mbr! I too have purchased many succesive versions of ATI in the past but no more. Why they decided to destroy their reputation this way is unfathomable.

Anyway, I'm finally rid of them. I may purchase Reflect just to support the good guys.

I hope this helps someone else, and thank you all again

Funny thing, I have Revo on this laptop and just didn't think to use it. Dummy me!

OldMike65 · 29 Jul 2016

Curious said:

FOLLOWUP:
Thank you all for the excellent advice and help. And especially thanks for continuing to help.

I took the easy way out. I had a computer chat with Acronis support and explained the situation. I usually have poor luck with tech support who often know less than I do. But this time, the tech (in India based on his name and accent), was a wiz! Surprise!

He connected via TeamViewer (which I already had installed because I use it to support some of my friends) and went through
- standard uninstall
- Acronis cleaner tool, which took out a bunch of registry entries.
- then opened regedit and deleted several more.
- did a few more checks
- rebooted the laptop, which rebooted normally! Yeah!
- and then made a few more checks and declared me free of Acronis.

It is unconscionable that a purchased program would take all this to uninstall - leave alone modify the customer's mbr! I too have purchased many succesive versions of ATI in the past but no more. Why they decided to destroy their reputation this way is unfathomable.

Anyway, I'm finally rid of them. I may purchase Reflect just to support the good guys.

I hope this helps someone else, and thank you all again

Funny thing, I have Revo on this laptop and just didn't think to use it. Dummy me!

Don't matter now about Revo, Very glad that Acronis Support helped you solve your issue!!! Great Job Curious :)

Curious · 29 Jul 2016

No, thank you!
(This phone browser does not give me the option to click on a thank icon so I used up some bandwidth to do it).

Beaupeep · 29 Jul 2016

Curious said:

I may purchase Reflect just to support the good guys.

@Curious, I'd suggest you try the free version and check how it works for you before paying for a license.

Macrium Reflect Free

Backup software is coupled tightly with the OS and there can be incompatibilities with some installed applications. Just make sure you do not have any continuous backup or imaging software installed. They use VSS. If you do, temporarily disable any currently running or scheduled backup tasks before taking MR for a test drive.

Good luck! :)

Curious · 30 Jul 2016

Beaupeep said:

@Curious, I'd suggest you try the free version and check how it works for you before paying for a license.

Macrium Reflect Free

Backup software is coupled tightly with the OS and there can be incompatibilities with some installed applications. Just make sure you do not have any continuous backup or imaging software installed. They use VSS. If you do, temporarily disable any currently running or scheduled backup tasks before taking MR for a test drive.

Good luck! :)

You are right Beaupeep. I downloaded and installed the latest free version of Macrium Reflect (v6) and made a "system backup" to an external drive. It seemed to work correctly and I can see the backed up files on the ext drive, but at the end Reflect free froze and I was forced to close it manually. So, I restarted Reflect and the log was empty for this backup. I decided to try another system backup which is running right now and this is the error it put up at the start (see attached).
I frankly don't know what the error about VSS is because I am not sure how to turn VSS off or on. Could you help?

I also would like to contact Macrium to ask about why the program froze but I cannot access their support or register on their forum till I provide an order number (that is after purchase) since they apparently don't provide support for the free version.

fdegrove · 30 Jul 2016

Hi,

Macrium Reflect has a menu in the top taskbar just to the left of the Help menu that lets you view the VSS events and also, just underneath, Fix VSS problems.

This is why I wanted you to check with Windows Event Viewer to see if there are any related errors there such CAPI2 warnings etc.
Further to that please also check if Volume Shadow Copy service is running : Run : services.msc > Volume Shadow Copy when Macrium is launched. Per default it is set to manual. Try to start it.

Also from an elevated command prompt run the following command : VSSADMIN LIST WRITERS

For every output you should see : NO ERROR.

Cheers,