free Acronis

I read that if you have W.D. ext drive you can get Acronis slimmed down for free. Has anyone had any experience with htis. Does it download to the pc and the drive or just the pc? Thank you

Hi Peter1.

Yes, you are correct.
Western Digital does provide a copy of Acronis, tailored for use with their WD Hard Drive.
Yes. It is somewhat "slimmed down" but does allow to create a bootable rescue CD and can be used for whole drive .iso image backup.
Pretty good deal.
I've used it and am happy with the results.

The version for your WD Hard drive can be downloaded from Western Digital website, under support and then browse to identify your HD:
http://www.wdc.com/en/

Is it ver 7 + 8 b/c I have Win 7 and I thought they were not compatible?

I don't know. WD seems to only specify their offering of WD as "Acronis Western Digital version". In WD "support" there are several "walk-through" how-to posts. The steps and appearance are "similar" to my other recent licensed copies of Acronis. WD acknowledges that Acronis WD version may not always be compatible with some of the older WD Legacy hard drive products. WD Acronis "only" backs up "MY COMPUTER" from C:\ If you have a more complicated system you will probably have to purchase a full license. Seems to me, you will need to give a test drive to see how it works with your system. Maybe create an .iso, and then fit another blank HD to perform a Restore. I like to do this periodically anyway, to assure that my backups are valid.

At my level of expertise, I only know how to create an image with Acronis. I recently recovered an image due to a problem. This was with my desktop. I was considering Acronis for my laptop as I alternate between the free Macrium and Win 7 backup and recover. I do not know about iso which I think is another way of saying an image. I back up or image the entire first disc so I don't know if this means C: or if sytem is more than C: which I think it is. If It only does C: I would not use it. So,I don't want to wander too far from what I know. I am probably better off leaving things as they are due to the lack of clarity by the companies. Stay cool

I just installed the Acronis we have been talkng about. At first I thought there was something wrong as it balked. Then I plugged my WD HDD in and the istallation was smooth. Hope this helps.

This a.m. 8-08-11, EthanAscol appeared in my inbox regarding this topic but when I clicked the link I did not see anything since I posted on July 20th. I wonder why? There is no page 2 or any other place I can look at.. Not a major issue, just curious.

This a.m. 8-08-11, EthanAscol appeared in my inbox regarding this topic but when I clicked the link I did not see anything since I posted on July 20th.
I wonder why? There is no page 2 or any other place I can look at.. Not a major issue, just curious.

I removed the post of EthanAscol, a spammer who posted a few .biz links along with meaningless and pitiful pictures.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Removing the links was a safety and policy decision.

That explains Alan's message. Now I understand and thank you for you keeping this a site with integrity. Peter