Free Acronis TrueImage for Seagate/Maxtor HDD owners

[oBFusC8r]

According to The Inquirer Seagate and Maxtor (acquired by Seagate some years ago) ship a free version of one of the tools recommended by donationcoder.com with their HDDs: Acronis TrueImage

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39779

I am not sure if you need any special HDD, such as an external one, to get this software for free, but it might be worth checking this out if you either own one of those drives, plan to buy one...or even plan to buy Acronis TrueImage. Buy a HDD instead and get the software with the drive...

[Darwin]

Thanks oBFusC8r - I just took delivery of a Seagate notebook drive, but it didn't come with Acronis TrueImage  I'll investigate further...

[Darwin]

Just to clarify - my Seagate drive didn't come with any software at all! They've rebranded Acronis TrueImage as Seagate DiskWizard and as Maxtor MaxBlast.

It's not clear from the piece what the author is trying to say here:

We wonder is there some agreement over keeping this cooperation silent, but Seagate missed out the fact that this hack uses Seagate drives.

but I take it to mean that the software either won't run at all or the licence is null and void in the absence of at least one Seagate/Maxtor drive in your setup.

[Carol Haynes]

The external Seagate drive I bought came with some other rubbish called Bounceback. Initially it looked quite useful and I upgraded to the 'professional' version but then I had all sorts of issues with the recovery system and I dumped it.

The idea was a 'one touch' backup system (ie. press the button on the drive once) - but what is the point when the recovery system doesn't work properly?

[justice]

I think I read some months back you can download the driver then extract the .exe with winrar and inside you'll find trueimage, but I'm sure that was for Intel drivers. hmm I'll have a look.

Can't find the intel one, and also checked their ftp site for large downloads (aren't any).
Anyway, Seagate DiscWizard installs fine on my Maxtor HD. When you walk through the Image Backup Wizard one screen lists a link to get 40% off Acronis True Image! Now I'm confused what the difference is, but I thought I should mention it.

As an alternative I am currently trying DriveImage Xml, I've made images but I haven't restored from them yet.

[tomos]

As an alternative I am currently trying DriveImage Xml, I've made images but I haven't restored from them yet.

justice
Is that difficult to use ?

or maybe I should ask do you think would it be user friendly for non-experts 

[justice]

Well I think it's about as hard to use as partition magic, you need to realise what you are doing because it is a powerful program, but when you do (read through the help file) you can get things done easy enough. I have never used similar tools (although I am a software junkie) I was able to use DriveImage without any problems.

[lanux128]

i think the software comes with Seagate's "smart storage" solution (aka external hard-disk with casing) that has this one-touch backup function.. i read this in a magazine sometime ago.. i'll see if i can get an online version of the article..

[Lashiec]

So they updated their software line. DiscWizard is a fine program, but it was getting old, with no support for SATA drives. They also changed the developing company, Acronis is a good choice.

I have three Seagate HDDs (two brand new) so I'm not doing something illegal

OMG! 100 MB!

[mikiem]

Paragon Software makes some really excellent backup programs which work at a lower level, similar to Norton Ghost & Maxtor/Seagate software, copying the actual disk structure. The difference is you work painlessly inside Windows, & if you create discs, restoring the backup is self-contained on the discs & fast.

Besides trials, you might find free versions available for download -- I 1st heard of Paragon taking advantage of a free download at some EU magazine site.

[Darwin]

Agreed. I've been using the free versions of Paragon apps for a while. Most recently my $80 copy of Partition Magic refused to partition my harddrive - I kept getting errors. I installed Paragon Partition Manager 2005 and it did the job flawlessly. Paragon appears to make very simple apps that work as advertised.