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

Wow - that is pitiful! Sorry!

+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

John,
 
Appreciate the reference to Acronis premium.
 
Acronis has always been good, and installation to dissimilar hardware is a plus. Will look at the premium edition. I had let them go once they started online activation and one license, one computer.
 
I found a PC mag review on the best backups. ShadowProtect Desktop at $89 came in as “the absolute gold standard” Don't know anything about it.
 
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2278661,00.asp
 
Among the freebies, there was this link. AOMEI Backupper looks interesting.
 
http://www.techradar.com/us/news/software/applications/best-free-backup-software-11-programs-we-recommend-1137924
 
Not going to absolutely dump Easeus because their Partition Master is awesome. Haven't found any problems in the new and improved version yet, except for the damn popups.
 
John

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)

I just saw this ...
 
Acronis True Image 2014 with free updates (40% discount)
$29.99 (instead of $49.99)
http://sharewareonsale.com/s/acronis-true-image-sale
 
- This is a 1-computer lifetime license, for home + business use. (Not Premium Edition - comparison here).
- Includes free 5GB of online storage for Acronis Cloud for one year, if you want the use the optional cloud storage option of Acronis True Image 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
 

Guys,
 
Thanks for the leads and feedback. Downloaded Macrium and it seems to be solid. Paragon also.
 
Have had emails from Acronis for months about a $29 upgrade for my 2012 version. Now that they're offering the full version for $29 and free minor upgrades, must mean that 2015 is around the corner. Ouch...didn't know you couldn't migrate an Acronis license. The boot disc at least works well.

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

Nice one. Dunno how much compression has to do with restore times(?). I do know that compression (size) vs time (speed) is configurable on backup.