Floppyhead – Digital Media and Streaming

I have used Acronis True Image back-up software a lot of the last couple of years, both at work and at home. True Image basically takes a snapshot of your computer which can be re-installed in the event of data loss. From Acronis’ website:

Acronis True Image includes our patented disk imaging backup technology. You can copy your entire PC, including the operating system, applications, user settings, and all data. In the event of a system or disk crash, virus attack or other fatal failures you can restore the entire disk contents in minutes — no reinstallations required!

Here are 4 ways I use True Image to back-up my computer and my jukebox.

1. Use a second computer to store your disk images. Boot from the True Image CD and save the image of one computer on a shared drive of a second computer.
2. The best thing about True Image is that you can boot directly to the program from the CD so you do not need a functional operating system. In the event of an operating system error, boot from the True Image CD, make a new image, and then “browse” that image to recover any important files.
3. If you are migrating to a new computer, “save” you old computer as a drive image that can be browsed on the new system.
4. Once a media center computer is set-up exactly as you want it, make an image using True Image. If you ever accidentally kill the media center, you can be up and running in under a half-hour. This is great if you have a wife and using a media center on your main pc. Keep your digital media files on a separate drive. This is especially useful for computers with Digital Cable Tuners.

Acronis True Image can be purchased for $49.99 from Acronis. A trial version is available if you want to take it for a test drive.