Testing that your backups can be used for recovery
Here are some recommendations:
1) Even if you start recovery of the active partition in Windows, the program will reboot into the Linux environment after the recovery process starts. This is because Windows cannot be left running during the recovery of its own partition. So you will recover your active partition under the recovery environment in all cases.
If you have a spare hard drive, we strongly recommend you to try a test recovery to this hard drive. It should be done after booting from the rescue media which uses Linux.
If you do not have a spare drive, please, at least validate the image in the recovery environment. A backup that can be read during validation in Windows, may not always be readable under Linux environment.
When you use the Acronis True Image Home 2011 rescue media, the product creates disk drive letters that might differ from the way Windows identifies drives. For example, the D: disk identified in the standalone Acronis True Image Home 2011 might correspond to the E: disk in Windows. It is advisable to assign unique names (labels) to all partitions on your hard drives. This will make finding the disk containing your backups easier.
2) When booted from the rescue media, it may also be useful to complete all the steps in the Recovery Wizard right up to the Summary screen, but not click the Proceed button. This will allow you to simulate the recovery process.
You will also make sure that Acronis True Image Home 2011 recognizes both the drive containing your backups and the target drive.
After completing all the Recovery Wizard’s steps click Cancel on the Summary screen. You may repeat this until you feel sure of your settings and choices.
3) Users of the Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows 7 can now test whether they will be able to boot from the recovered system partition. Acronis True Image Home 2011 allows booting from a tib file containing a system partition image. So if you are able to boot from such backup, you almost certainly will be able to boot after an actual system recovery from that backup.
When you choose a tib file to boot from, Acronis True Image Home 2011 temporarily converts it to a vhd file. Your hard disk must have enough free space for storing it. The program will then add a new item to the Windows boot loader list. When you select the tib file in the boot loader list, your computer will actually boot from that temporary vhd file. After ensuring that the tib file will boot, you can remove the file from the boot loader list and delete the temporary vhd file.