I use Acronis, and recommend it to my clients (I do part-time PC support).  The ones using it have no problems. 

I do full (all partitions) hard drive backups.  If a drive were to fail or be corrupted I can rebuild the drive in about an hour.   Full all partition backups are needed as most new PC's do not come with reinstallation discs, just the "recovery partition" on the hard drive to reinstall and if the hard drive were to fail (out of warranty) the user is SOL.

All of the "Techies" that I know use Acronis.

From Acronis website > requirements > supported O/S:

Windows 7 all Editions

Windows Vista all Editions SP2

Windows XP Home Edition (X32, SP3)

Windows XP Professional (X32/X64, SP2) 



    QUOTE:  considering MY specific setup (XP SP2)

Has anyone using XP Home 32, SP2 had any success with the current version of Acronis?

If I were to purchase TIH 2011, Acronis probably wouldn't support me as I wouldn't be using an approved OS.  I might be stuck with a piece of useless software.  How can I 'confirm' for sure that a successful backup and recovery will absolutely work by trying out the demo?    If I knew what particular update(s) was in SP3 that is required for TIH 2011 to work successfully then I might give it a go.


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Songcraft,
 
If you can try the Acronis demo (and are comfortable editing the registry), here's a way to "trick" an XP-SP2 system into thinking it's SP3:
 
 http://www.tricksnhacking.com/converting-windows-xp-sp2-to-sp3-with-no-installation-simple-trick/
 
Just to be safe, though, make a backup (export) of the registry before you do anything.
 
Good luck.
 

JonD


Songcraft,
 
If you can try the Acronis demo (and are comfortable editing the registry), here's a way to "trick" an XP-SP2 system into thinking it's SP3:
 
 http://www.tricksnhacking.com/converting-windows-xp-sp2-to-sp3-with-no-installation-simple-trick/
 
Just to be safe, though, make a backup (export) of the registry before you do anything.
 
Good luck.
 

Thanks Jon,

I'll look into that reg hack (Bookmarked), and yeah I will most definitely backup the registry before I attempt that reg tweak, but I'm not sure if that will be OK with my older software's which requires specifically SP2 or works best with SP2.

Anyway at the very least, worse case scenario I have backups of my audio and midi projects.

Eventually (by late 2011 or early 2012) I'm going to have to bite the bullet and upgrade my O/S (Windows 7, Professional) along with upgrades to various programs (Sonar, Sony Vegas, Photoshop, DreamWeaver and others)!! Costly, but worth it, but oh boy I'm going need to start save, save, saving money.

Just to add to my earlier post...

I recently built a Win7-64 machine, and unfortunately my copy of True Image isn't compatible... so, today I went surfing for a replacement, and long story short, downloaded Paragon Backup & Recovery.  This is the free, home-use-only version.

Well, let me just say, it puts Windows 7's built in backup/imaging utility to shame!  In fact, Paragon includes wizards and advanced options, as well as lets you create and use bootable media.  Basically, I'd put it on par with True Image - and that costs $40!

I just did a test backup and restore -- and it performed without a hitch.  If you've never used a backup imaging app before, it might seem a bit confusing at first, but the Help section is, well... helpful -- and you can always go back a screen or two to correct a setting if you make a mistake.

Bottom line, I just saved $40, and found a reliable imaging app that I'll be recommending to all my friends.

Free version of Paragon

Wow Jon, great find :)

Funny, I did go to that site last week and did not see it. Now I just downloaded it and noticed it has quite a lot of neat features which is excellent for a freebie.

I'm unfamiliar with how to run the backup and recovery, I guess it's not difficult!?! Anyway, I also downloaded the manual.

There I am raving about the program, and didn't even provide a link.  Thanks for that, Songcraft!

To answer your question - no, it's not hard, but I've been using imaging programs for about a decade, so even if something isn't clearcut I can usually figure it out.

I didn't even check to see if there was a manual -LOL.  The only general advice I can give is to pay close attention to your source and target partitions/drives.  IOW, you want to keep them straight because that's probably the only setting that might cause problems - and it'll be catastrophic if you get them backwards (you'd be overwriting your system drive with the target drive).

Also, make sure you create a bootable media (CD/DVD or flash drive).  CD is the easiest, and it'll prompt you to do this at the end, so it's hard to miss. 

Feel free to post or PM me if you have any questions.

I use & like Acronis. The one problem I had with it (and it was a major one) was when I used "Try & Decide", which is supposed to let you try out software and return to the previous state or accept the changes it makes to your system. I ended up having to modify my MBR to get my system back -- I couldn't even boot up with the Acronis recovery CD. An Acronis tech talked me through the procedure, and he was clearly reading from a script -- that told me I wasn't the first to experience this.

Other than that, it's great. I think I'm still on v.10, so maybe they've fixed it.

-Susan

Thanks again Jon, greatly appreciate your help.

At the mo I've been resting after a scare at the hospital. I'll be OK, I'll get back to work soon.

Update: So i went with Acronis and i could not be happier... Set up was a breeze and everything worked as expectedon my Win7X64 machine....

Only thing that bothered me was that in 2011 true image you cant leave coments about the backup until after the backup is complete... Not a big deal at...

So thanx for all your input guys...