TIH 2009 rescue CD cannot restore from multi-DVD validated backup

There seem to be many people who "cannot restore", but in various complex or unusual situtations. Has anybody been clearly successful or been clearly prevented from restoring from multiple DVDs that were validated or very likely validatable?
(Validation of a multi-DVD backup from an Acronis rescue CD is also a problem, but Support provided me with a work-around: The rescue CD can validate single volume DVD backups, in other words has a debugged program for that, but "gets confused" with multiple volumes and asks for inserting volumes in an implausible sequence, especially looping forever asking for a Volume 1 that is already inserted. The work-around is to copy the DVDs with their .tib extensions into a common folder on a hard disk. The rescue CD can validate the multi-file backup there without a problem. And if the harddisk copies are ok, it is obvious enough that the DVDs will be too.)
Unfortunately the same kind of workaround is not available for restores from multivolume DVDs, if one has only one drive on one's laptop, and the restore covers all partitions on that drive (especially as Acronis recommends to back up the whole drive rather than single partitions, for reasons I find somewhat plausible in a scenario where people re-size their disk partitions frequently).

I had no problem doing the backup of my Vista system from the standalone rescue CD - I do not keep Acronis installed on the hard disk, was planning to work just with the rescue disc on the few occasions when I need it, but installed full TIH Build 9709 and later Build 9796 temporarily because that seemed to be the only way to get an authentic rescue disc burnt rather than paying and waiting for one to be mailed from Acronis.

Am I confused, or does anybody have exactly matching observations?

 

Backing up or restoring from optical media is not recommended (unless you have already lost all your hair, ). A backup that spans 3 DVDs is tolerable during a restore but there are still those frequent swaps in a random manner. External hard drives are worth the extra expense to use for your Backups.

 

While that may have been true in the past, maybe things are changing.

Any TI 2009 registered user can download an iso file from their registration page. This file will enable the user to burn the iso file to CD and use as a valid Rescue CD. The CD is not the same as one created from the Create Bootable Rescue media but it has the same functions and is an isolinux cd with various manual bootup options. The option to add safe mode is not included in this iso file. If you want or need safe mode installed, then the Rescue CD will have to be created via the normal Create Bootable Rescue Media which requires a TI installation.

You can register your serial number and download TI files without TI being installed.

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Thanks. I can't believe this.
How long will your valued customers have to answer random volume requests to get 3 DVDs worth of backup including thousands of files restored?
And what will customers think of your program, when they are asked for the same volume again and again, even if it is still in the drive from the last request?
There are several 100 MB of program space available on the rescue CD, to batch the requests, in a 2-pass approach if necessary.

 

Try copying the contents of the optical media to a hard drive or flash drive and see if you can restore from there.

 

GroverH: I actually believe that that would work - as it did for validation in my case. But I am not running a hardware store, I bought the product specifically to be able to manage with one disk (in the midst of the World Financial Crisis), and had lengthy discussions about the actual capabilities of the rescue disc, before buying. And I am not the type to try restoring the single partition hard drive on which I am sitting now!
The issue that is emerging is whether the rescue disc has some minor programming error that can be excused and quickly fixed, or if there is some industry-wide resistance against actually supporting external media, instead of just talking about them in the user guide and advertising. One other vendor I left aside, when they discouraged me from using their product for backing up onto multiple DVDs. I had just innocently asked if their compression is as good as that of Acronis.

 

GroverH: After more study, I found a way to follow your suggestion, and it didn't cost me a cent of extra investment. I searched the Internet for re-partitioning ideas and found and installed Partition Master, which is freeware, even with graphics interface, and it worked well enough to at least approximately recreate the partition structure, from which I have a single-partition system backup on 3 DVDs created by Acronis rescue CD Build 9709. Hard disk copies of the 3 DVDs put into a folder by themselves just fitted into one of the partitions I now had.
(The sizing of the new partitions was accurate only to a fraction of a megabyte, besides the discomfort that for one of my old partitions which was hidden it would have been difficult for me to determine what the original size was, down to a byte, from only an Acronis backup that didn't restore. The Explore or the Mount Disk Image command from a full hard disk installation of Acronis might have helped with that. But my reliance on the partition structure being recreated, whatever it was, with a full disk rather than a single-partition backup, was sadly misplaced.)
After about two days' work, for a tired and scatter-brained old man, I had Vista Business and MS Office restored successfully to my "new" C: drive, and NLITEd Win XP Pro installed on the E: drive (of my Toshiba Tecra with SATA drive), and apparently the restored Win Vista working properly, though not yet the XP which worked fine before restoring the Vista.
Ironically, this “solution” which cost me several months in all was possible only because in experimenting with rescue discs about which I had many doubts, I had made several backups, one of them against the advice of the User Guide from a single partition – the recommended full disk backups are useless on multiple DVDs until, as I understand it, the product is fully de-bugged.
(The restore that was successful now when done from a hard disk copy, was accomplished with a True Image Home 2009 rescue CD based on Build 9796. But I think that both the builds that I dealt with are defective in not allowing validation and restore from the external media directly, as any customer would expect. My only problem left now, apart from several months of professional time lost in experimenting, is to get Win XP Pro working with Win Vista in a dual boot configuration. But as with Vista working for me again, I am starting with the more powerful of the two operating systems from the same vendor, I expect to find a way, with command line utilities if necessary, to make the OS selection screen appear on boot-up.)
So, many thanks for your patient advice!

 

I'm very glad you were successful. Congratulations on your perserverence. As the ol' saying "Where there's a will, there is a way." You hung in there and did your research and found some solutions. Most of the regular forum members discourage the use of DVD's as the only form of backups. There are just too many examples of it inducing problems into the backup/restore process. I would strongly urge that you purchase an external drive or an enclosure which will hold an existing drive. Yes, they do cost a few dollars but had you had one, your time invested would be hours--not weeks or months. Prices are really competitive.

I would encourage you to post your current and intended method of booting for your dual setup. Others with similar questions or problems of dual booting has gotten help and I believe you could also. Several of forum contributors are highly knowledgeable on that topic.

The links below are few of the items available via forum search. Invest some time again before you jump into making changes on your system.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=193265

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=171245

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=1201966

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=207391

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=240221

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=222648

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=228593

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=215527

 

Although with hook and crook, I got my pre-installed and crashed software reinstated from a 3-DVD single partition Acronis backup, it turns out now that to get at Bootrec.exe to run the /fixMBR, /fixBoot, and possibly /RebuildBCD commands, which I need for setting up a dual-boot configuration with Vista/XP, I need the Toshiba System Partition, which I have only on a full-disk backup as recommended by Acronis; but with the present state of the Acronis art, it is not restorable as a full disk from external media.
Can anybody think of a way to get the one partition culled out of the 3-DVD,
4-partition backup? It is a tricky invisible, proprietary partition, that probably cannot be handled in terms of just copying files from a mounted image. (Although all I need at this time is the Bootrec.exe program if I can find it in the image, and if it runs like an ordinary program, for someone with Administrator privileges.)

 

You might check this and see if it will help.

http://download.cnet.com/EasyBCD/3000-2094_4-10556865.html

You can also do a google search on
rebuildBCD

 

Actually I do have a problem comparable to this, but I feel hard describing it, but I will give it a try and I hope you might understand me and even be able to help me. It is about the need of backup. My system does not reboot properly I think. I had a virus and my laptop was a complete mess, so I rebootet it and backed it up with the help of an online backup guide, but actually I do think the virus is still there and the backup did not work. what can I do now to get rid of the virus?

 

I would hesitate to comment on a virus problem when the damage is already done, being extra-shy myself: I have had no virus problems, since I keep my own computer strictly off the net - I have enough work for it offline.

On my earlier post of 1st August, there is an interesting sequel for Acronis users: I discovered, in my desperation to get at least something going by all means, that one can use a full-disk backup to restore a single partition, with the standard True Image product (Build 9709 or 9796). (I thought first of proposing to Acronis to launch a new product that could restore a single partition from a full-disk backup, for the benefit of those whose full-disk backup is like no backup, if they have only one disk and depend on multi-volume external backup media and try to rely on the bootable rescue disc to do the job. But I was delighted to find that I could already do that with the regular product, if I had at least a disk partition large enough to accommodate a hard disk copy of my multi-DVD backup. So even if I hadn't made a single-partition backup of just my OS partition (out of wariness and against the User Guide recommendation), I could still be in business from a full-disk backup. Besides I have now a bootable rescue disc derived from the Backup & Recover 10 product, which unlike my True Image one can make restores from multi-volume DVD backups. The only thing still hanging is that I haven't yet been able to do a full-disk restore from my 3-DVD full-disk backup, and don't yet have my exact original partitioning back, and therefore get MBR problems that I have to fix separately, whenever I restore between two even just slightly different partition structures. I will hold out a little for resolution of this, because my backups from the old structure would be more useful, if my new structure, after a major system crash and unsuccessful full-disk restore, was exactly the same as originally. I would have lost several hundred dollars worth of "pre-installed" software, if I hadn't found a way of restoring at least one partition at a time.

 

On the EasyBCD suggestion of GroverH, I could answer with http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/721404.html, which features reports of people who had problems with it, when one has no install disc and no rescue disc for Vista. In my case of this nature, with further progress since the situation GroverH commented on, Acronis True Image was in the end all I needed to get going with a recovered Vista and XP on the same machine, but I could get a perfect job only if the restore worked with an Acronis rescue CD, for a multi-DVD full-disk Acronis backup. Somebody commented, maybe in the blog cited above, that EasyBCD can edit, but not create what one needs for a dual-boot configuration. My solution was not to subscribe to the Vista BootMgr and its paternalistic partisanship, and then I need no 3rd-party software to dual-boot manually, which is good enough for me, with a 5-minute turn-around time from one OS to another.