Easeus Todo Backup Free WARNING!

Should not complain about a free product, but this is unethical at very least. Might have been warned somewhere in the fine print but didn't see any catches.
 
Beware Easeus Todo Free backup and recovery software. The new improved version has some not so good surprises you don’t want to find out when you need it.
 
I’ve used Todo for years and have been saved from several disc failures and crashes thru ver 4 and 5.
Now have ver 6 installed and have my drives cloned in case of disaster.
 
Beside the new annoying popups to buy the better stuff and the cloning going forward sometimes without a restart (was a flag), everything worked well.
 
Last night, my win 8.1 went down and I went for Todo. It started in the same manner and then a popup that cloning from an external disc is now only supported with the paid version. You can do a flawed job of cloning TO a disc, but can’t use the free version to recover from the disc any more. They give you the website hyperlink to start paying, now that they screwed you and you are in a vulnerable position.
 
I was able to use an Acronis boot disc which got me running, but could not recover maybe 10% of what it saw as corrupted files cloned by Todo. Don’t know if they’ve crippled the new improved Todo boot disc.
 
Have not tried the Win 8 cloning tool, which is supposed to work. Antbody tried this?
 
Will probably get Acronis paid up for an upgrade. I know the cloning softwares are continually improving.
 
What are folks using that seems to work rock solid for a complete disc clone.  Thanks.
 
John

+1 for Acronis TrueImage 2014 Premium. Go for the "Premium" version. It has a feature called universal restore, which can restore a disk image to a different computer. A great feature if you have to replace the motherboard, or upgrade to a newer processor. Images to almost any media, NAS, FTP, cloud.
 
Just my $.02

I use Macrium Reflect (free edition). Whilst I haven't had to restore a Win8 image, it has certainly done the job on previous versions and I have no doubt it'd do the job well (having secured a Macrium backup first of course). It can do selective restores and you can burn either Linux or WinPE boot disk.
 
Yes, the free edition is likely only full restore back to same configuration (e.g, same PC, new drive), but I fully expect you'd be able to mount the backup set to another computer for retrieval of selected files.
 
They have paid options too for e.g, incrementals, passwords, encryption and no doubt similar to Acronis.
 
[Update]: Edition feature comparison clear from the link.
[Update]: Pro Edition includes 'Restore to dissimilar hardware' - $58.99 minus 20% (=$48) coupon via RetailMeNot (valid til 8/2/2014)

When they say "one computer" they mean only one.  You can't transfer it when you get a new computer.  I quit Acronis and started using Paragon Free.
 
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/download.html
 

Nine hours into a disc clone which includes 500 GB discographies. Almost complete. Macrium doing a hell of a good job so far. Boot disc grinds away way longer than Acronis, but ultimately delivers.
 
Really appreciate and respect the advice given here.
 
John

Update on this (Todo backup)
 
I tried an experiment with an old XP computer and Todo 6.5 allows a clone from the external HD. Maybe only crippled for Win 8.  Don't know about Win 7 and not wanting to risk messing anything up trying.
 
John

JohnKenn
Should not complain about a free product, but this is unethical at very least. Might have been warned somewhere in the fine print but didn't see any catches.
 
Beware Easeus Todo Free backup and recovery software. The new improved version has some not so good surprises you don’t want to find out when you need it.
 
I’ve used Todo for years and have been saved from several disc failures and crashes thru ver 4 and 5.
Now have ver 6 installed and have my drives cloned in case of disaster.
 
Beside the new annoying popups to buy the better stuff and the cloning going forward sometimes without a restart (was a flag), everything worked well.
 
Last night, my win 8.1 went down and I went for Todo. It started in the same manner and then a popup that cloning from an external disc is now only supported with the paid version. You can do a flawed job of cloning TO a disc, but can’t use the free version to recover from the disc any more. They give you the website hyperlink to start paying, now that they screwed you and you are in a vulnerable position.
 
I was able to use an Acronis boot disc which got me running, but could not recover maybe 10% of what it saw as corrupted files cloned by Todo. Don’t know if they’ve crippled the new improved Todo boot disc.
 
Have not tried the Win 8 cloning tool, which is supposed to work. Antbody tried this?
 
Will probably get Acronis paid up for an upgrade. I know the cloning softwares are continually improving.
 
What are folks using that seems to work rock solid for a complete disc clone.  Thanks.
 
John

 
Sorry to hear you are having problems John. I just got a new computer with Windows 8.1 on it, I tried TODO Backup pro and honestly I wasn't that impressed by it.  
 
I found a promotional giveaway if you or anyone are interested where you can get AOMEI Backerupper Pro right now for free until August 5th from the link below. It's what I have started using and so far so good. I like the fact that it lets you create recovery methods using either a USB stick or Disc. I've been using it for a week or so now and so far so good, I did use it to do a full backup and recovery just to test it out when I first tried it and had no problems. I backup to an external hard drive.   
 
Just thought I would mention this in case it might be helpful. This is the promotional giveaway link :
 
http://www.backup-utility.com/giveaway/cnet.html
 
 
Here's a link with information about what the program does : 
 
http://www.backup-utility.com/professional.html

JohnKenn
Hey Serious,
 
Was looking for the AOMEI program and all the links were dead. Other products from the guys available but not the backup. Now they got the pro version free for a short window of time.
 
Many thanks for the link, and to others who have helped me wade through this mess. Good to get your feedback on the Todo pro version as well.
 
John

Something I should have mentioned John, they had a TODO PRO backup promotional giveaway a week or so ago and that's what I tried, but it didn't seem to have no incremental backup feature. To me that is important because I like to make ONE COMPLETE BACKUP and then from time to time if something is important do an Incremental backup saving only the changes instead of having to do a completely new full backup. The AOMEI seems to have it all. Just remember, this promotional giveaway, if you update it then you might lose your freebie license. So check your settings and make sure auto update isn't turned on unless you want it to be.
 
Just thought I would mention that. One good thing about this AOMEI Backupper Pro is it allows you to make either a Windows or Linux Recovery software USB or DISC setup, so depending on what type of PC you are using you don't have to bother with that new PC Windows Boot security feature.
 

Gentlemen,
 
Could I pick some good brains amonst us.
 
I've been a bottom feeder on the backup front, and have just cloned discs. Has saved me several times.
 
Now looking at incremental and differential backups from images.
 
Reading thru the tutorials from Todo and AEOMI. Both come to opposite conclusions. AEOMI says the most stable and reliable backup is incremental. Todo says differential is the safest way to go.
 
Virgin paranoia turning over my hard core bit per bit clone to an image.
 
Was seeking advice about the reliability of an image versus clone in event of a meltdown needing BIOS boot, and what is happening with incremental versus differential backups.
 
Thanks in advance. Seems like even the experts can't agree.
 
John
 
Noted that Todo and Macrium do not allow differential/incremental backups in the free versions. AEOMI does, for what it is worth.

Thanks Nigel,
 
This does help and looking back, amplifies what Serious recommended. Had downloaded the AEOMI Pro and it does incremental backups as well. Keeping Acronis on the one computer I have the old 2012 license for. Acronis is a great program. Like you said, cheap is great until something goes down and you find it doesn't work.
 
Cape Town... Must be a blessing to be near tropical waters.
 
John

Guys - to explain a little further - it goes something like this ...
 
Fulls, Incrementals and Differentials are part of your backup strategy.
 
Full - Backs up everything, takes longest, takes more space ... are the basis of any full restore.
(lets say you take a Full every Saturday).
 
Incremental - Only backs up files changed since the last backup (be it Full, Incremental or Differential), fastest, takes least space.
(let's say you take an Incremental every day from Sunday to Friday (instead of Differentials): S-I, M-I, T-I, W-I, T-I, F-I, S-F)
- quickest to restore in a partial restore (to recover files to a particular day of that week)
- slowest to restore in a full restore (as you have to restore the last Full and every Incremtental on top)
 
Differential - Seeks a middle ground as cumulative back ups of files changed since the last Full backup, mid-fast speed, low-mid space (getting larger as the week goes on).
(let's say you take a Differential every day from Sunday to Friday (instead of Incrementals): S-D, M-D, T-D, W-D, T-D, F-D, S-F)
- slightly slower to restore in a partial restore (to recover files to a particular day of that week)
- faster to restore in a full restore (because you only ever need 2 backups - the Full and the last differential (of the day you want to restore to)).
 
Or you could do a Full Saturday, Differential mid-week and Incrementals every other day: S-I, M-I, T-I, W-D, T-I, F-I, S-F
 

I'll complain, although this is an old issue, I paid for the pro version, and tried to do a backup. They disabled functionality saying it's installed on another computer. Emailed Friday and no word back. I installed some trial versions on another machine. I'm not buying their software anymore. I also have Acronis Premium, so Ease TODO is on my list of software companies I was honest enough to pay, but rip me off. Stay away from these guys

Just ran into something to pass on. May be system specific, so who knows...
 
Tried to rename some partitions on an external hard drive with Acronis Disc Director.
Acronis did not recognize the drive. Todo did.
 
Observation before was that Acronis was getting into the game of disc and partition management, and the new product was a clone of Todo Partition Master. Trying to catch up (?)
 
Would never buy anything from Todo with their policies, but have leached the freeware Partition Master for years. Unfortunately, still seems to be the best. Beat out the Acronis contender.
 
http://www.easeus.com/partition-manager/epm-free.html
 
John
 

I'm still using Acronis 2010. Still rock solid.