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Like most people you never think that a disaster is going to strike your computer.  Nobody, or so you would think, would bother to infect your computer with a file-destroying virus.  Your hard disk still returns all your data as you want it and that slight humming you hear when booting up your system is hardly worth mentioning.  After all if something does happen you always have your latest back-up safety stored away.  You do have a back-up, don't you?  If not then you should definitely continue reading while others could discover an alternative to the backup offering supplied with their operating system.

Acronis True Image, now up to version 9, not only allows you to create an exact backup image of your system but provides a range of features allowing you to target specific files, folders and even hard disks.  As is usual with an Acronis product, you will need to enter a 25-character serial number as part of the standard installation procedure.  You will then be presented with a Windows XP Control Panel style interface that divides its area into three panes positioned beneath menu and tool bars.  The pane on the left provides access to various tools and help features while the panes on the right contain wizard-led procedures and details of any active tasks.

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This product covers all aspects of back-up with its Wizard-led approach.  For a first-time user, taking a disk image is the initial preferred option to provide a safety net in case a full restore is required at some point in the future.  Support is provided for a wide range of storage devices including floppy drives (hardly a realistic option with today's multi-megabyte files), hard disks (both local and network), optical media and zip drives.  Whatever your choice, full information regarding the progress of the operation will be displayed on screen.

Backups can be split into chunks appropriate to the size of the destination media.  Various levels of compressions are available while a protective password can be added.  An option is available to assign a priority level which will have an affect of the speed of operation.  You can also specific a command to be executed before or after a backup procedure.

While a full disk image is an extremely useful fall-back option, not every situation requires this facility.  True Image takes this into consideration with its range of other backup options.  You can select either an incremental or differential backup.  In both cases just files that have changed since the last backup will be targeted.  The incremental option creates a linked chain of files reflecting the changes while the differential backup appends new information to the existing backup file.

Acronis True Image provides a Secure Zone area.  This is a hidden partition on your hard disk that can store any backup images where they will be safe from attacks on your system.  It is meant to be used with the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager that is activated by pressing F11 during the bootup sequence.  Startup Recovery Manager loads a Linux-based environment so that you can restore a system from any local or network drive. 

For other types of recovery operations, True Image has a Restore Wizard.  This feature lets you select appropriate files and folders for restoration.  It also lets you load a backup image as a virtual drive complete with drive letter.  This can then be used to restore data to your system.

You can make backup copies of CD and DVD disks although you will require 3^rd party DVD recording software as this is not supplied.  Tools are available to check your archives, schedule tasks and view a log of all activity carried out by this product.

Acronis True Image 9 is an excellent product with a range of features that could come to your rescue in the case of a system failure.  The software requires a Pentium 133MHz processor with 45MB of RAM and 45MB hard disk space.  It will run on any version of Windows from 98 onwards and supports FAT16/32 and NTFS drives.  Expect to pay in the region of £35 for this product.

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