xara and disc imaging software

Hi,
I bought Xara (Version 4) and one thing I was always missing is the ability to use Xara when having restored a disc image. It always asked for activating. When I had no internet or the server didn't work, I could not use Xara for a day or so.

Do the new Xara versions still have a copy protection mechanism that detects disc images? I mean "compressed" Images, being not 1-by-1 identical when restored.

Thanks

Thomas

Hi Thomas,

Others here will know better than I, but in the meantime perhaps this is related to the old 'run as administrator' problem. You can read more about it in this thread:

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...-back-on-track

could be

going to depend on your operating system and how you make your images

AFAIK there is no copy protection in xara to detect images - I image with third party programs [acronis/easeus] and have never had a problem, compressed or otherwise - but I am still on windows XP

Hi,

yes, there is no mechanism to detect disc images. But there's "activation data" stored on the hard disc, isn't there? I mean the data telling Xara that it's activated.

I have Windows 7 and Xara Xtreme 4, I use True Image too, and when I have restored a disc image, Xara asks to reactivate.

True Image can compress the image in two ways imho, by applying a usual compression algo and by not using "FAT-unused" disc contents. I guess, the latter wipes some Xara activation data stored to the hard disc, somewhere outside the normal file system.

I could solve it by creating verbatim disc images, but they get really large.

How do you create your disc images in order to not make Xara lose the activation data?

Do Xara versions 5 and 6 access the hard disc sectors too? And the boxed Xara version?

Thanks a lot,

Thomas

I just use 'normal compression' - but none of my userdata is on system disk, so this means the system image is a lot smaller than it would be otherwise - currently it is 5.05GB

Hi handrawn, when you use True Image, can I ask
- do you select "Sector-By-Sector" when creating the system image?
- do you select "Restore Disk Signature" when restoring it?
- which Xara version do you use?
Thanks!

PS: Is there a Xara developer who could tell on which data on the hard disc Xara depends?

Hi

first off both machines are XP not win7

I have used Acronis from ver 7 to version 10 and in that time on Xara X through Xara Designer Pro 6

I do not do sector to sector backups
I do not restore disc signature if restoring partions in the same physical place as they were created from

hope that helps :)

in actual fact I prefer Easeus ToDo to Acronis, True Image appears to have suffered 'bloat' of late..