Frightening!

[dvt]

I image to an external USB2 drive. My WinXP installation got screwed, couldn't log in as admin and locked out of my main stuff, so ran the boot CD. Went to my 4 images on the external drive...all useless - Acronis says corrupted. Even though I always verify them after writing.
My HD is partioned c:win and progs/ d:my data/ and e:storage. So I copied the latest image file to my e: partition and booted from the Acronis rescue disk...and the 'corrupted' image restored without problem.
Basically, restore from my external drive is useless. I'm using Acronis 8 build 786, not updated because on my dial-up connection, 24Mb is looooonng!
I can image to my e: partition but if the disk goes down, I'm dead.
Any ideas what's happening anyone?

[jmk94903]

-{ Quote: "I image to an external USB2 drive. My WinXP installation got screwed, couldn't log in as admin and locked out of my main stuff, so ran the boot CD. Went to my 4 images on the external drive...all useless - Acronis says corrupted. Even though I always verify them after writing.
My HD is partioned c:win and progs/ d:my data/ and e:storage. So I copied the latest image file to my e: partition and booted from the Acronis rescue disk...and the 'corrupted' image restored without problem." }-OK, under Windows, which is how I assume you made the images, you can write and read to the USB drive without errors. The fact that you could copy an image back to E: and then restore it confirms this.

Since you get errors when you boot from the TI Recovery CD when there are in fact no errors must be due to the USB drivers in the Linux environment not working properly with your motherboard USB chips or your external hard drive USB chips. That's not too surprising since Windows drivers are often newer and specifically designed for the hardware.

Download Build 889 and create a new Recovery CD. Boot from it and check the images on the USB drive. If they check good with 889, then the drivers have been updated and you are in business.

Let us know what happens.

[Acronis Support]

Hello dvt,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/).

We also recommend you to update your copy of Acronis True Image 8.0 (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/updates/) to the 889 build. In order to get access to updates you should register account (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/registration/) on our site (or just log in if you have already created it) and then register your copy of the product (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/products/registration/).

Could you please let us know the following?
- Please create the image to USB external drive in rescue mode and verify it.
- Also please try saving an image archive both in Windows and in rescue mode onto an internal hard drive and see whether the problem remains.

We will certainly help you with this problem.

Thank you.
--
Irina Shirokova

[dvt]

Thanks for your speeedy repsonses! I will do these things and get back to you.

[dvt]

I have an answer now. The problem was not in any of the image files themselves but the boot disk. In order to eliminate all variables, I burned a new boot disk. This worked happily with all images, on USB external and HD petition.
The boot disk CD had worked fine in the past, so I don't see that it could have been corrupted.
I can only think that I made it from a previous build. Could this be the reason?

[kocka]

That's it. If you use older version of boot disk CD, it sees files/images made with later versions as being corrupt. I found out about this hard way but fortunatelly I managed to create new CD on my second computer.

[Acronis Support]

Hello dvt,

Since we do not guarantee that you will be able to restore images created with the newer build with the CD created with the older build old Acronis Bootable CD could be the reason for the problem you got. If the algorythm of imaging changed slightly checksums would not match and the image will be reported as corrupted.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

[Menorcaman]

-{ Quote: "Since we do not guarantee that you will be able to restore images created with the newer build with the CD created with the older build old Acronis Bootable CD could be the reason for the problem you got. If the algorythm of imaging changed slightly checksums would not match and the image will be reported as corrupted." }-Hello Ilya,

In the interest of completeness, and so there can be no misunderstanding, could you please confirm or otherwise the following statements:

- Newer builds of TI or boot rescue CDs are backward compatible with images created by an earlier build of TI.

- Images created by a newer build of TI may not be compatible with earlier builds of TI or boot rescue CDs.

- Newer versions of TI or boot rescue CDs are backward compatible with images created by earlier versions of TI.

- Images created with newer versions of TI may not be compatible with earlier versions of TI or boot rescue CDs.

Kind regards
Tom

[Acronis Support]

Hello Tom,

All the statements are quite correct. Briefly, new build of Acronis True Image and Acronis Bootable CD created with it will be able to restore any images you have. The difference between versions and builds in these statements is only that the probability of incompatibility is much less when we deal with builds rather than with versions.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

[Menorcaman]

Hi Ilya,

Many thanks for the confirmation. Hopefully it clears up any doubts users may have had.

Best regards
Tom

[dvt]

I think that from now on, as a matter of course, I'll make a new boot CD each build change anyway. It takes seconds, costs zilch...and for critical software like this I want no risks.
Thanks for your advice and help everyone.