ACRONIS True Image 6.0

Pros: The best imaging program on the market
Cons: Still not as flexible most backup programs

I recently decided to backup the hard drive on my portable and knew I didn't want to use Ghost again. After reviewing the available products, I purchased True Image 6.0 (build 350). As a Symantec Ghost owner (and user of Ghost for years), I was ...

Pros: Windows interface - no rebooting required to image drive
Cons: I haven't found any yet

I recently purchased this software over the Thanksgiving holiday when my laptop's networking decided to quit functioning. I knew it was a software issue so I decided to save some troubleshooting time and just install fresh with the recovery disk. In ...

Pros: Worked for me without problem
Cons: Reinstallation is not a single, seamless process.

This program saved my life (well, not quite, unless you consider losing all your hard drive data a life and death issue). I had intermittent problems, including system crashes, that I ascribed to some recently installed software. Decided to make a full disk image on an external iomega hard drive. Tried to use the Ghost software that came for free with the drive and had nothing but problems with it. Bought the Acronis and it appeared to work flawlessly. About one week later the drive would not boot and after booting from an emergency disk and running chkdsk encountered an unrecoverable error on the drive.

After buying a new drive, with dread I set about reinstalling the image on the drive. It worked without any trouble and I was back up and running within a few hours. My only complaint about the software is that the image is created as a series of files and the reinstall requires installing each one rather than running as a single reinstallation.