Backup procedure

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by Peter_41, Mar 28, 2005.

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  1. Peter_41

    Peter_41 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2005
    Posts:
    21
    When I try to save to DVD I get multiple messages which may or may not be false alarms, especially since the messages come from different programs. I may need simple setup or procedure advice. The problem may be associated with disk spanning. I remember disk spanning from Microsoft backup, with a stack of floppies that you kept feeding the machine, and Saveall, from Compaq.

    In my case I have True Image 8 build 800 and Roxio Easy Media Creator 7, latest update. The hardware is a Toshiba Satellite Pro A10 (XP Pro) with an external HP DVD writer 420ve, latest firmware, set to record at 8X with a 1GB cache. The media are preformatted Verbatim DVD+R 8X, said to be capable of 12X with compatible hardware.

    Everything whizzes along looking great until a Drag-to-Disk (Roxio) error pops up to say 'Media status notification for drive I:\: Write failure while accessing the media'. Then a second notification from Roxio comes along to offer to run ScanDisk on the DVD. Then a message from True Image appears, telling me to please insert the next volume, as if I could ignore the other warnings, which appears to be true. I click them away and insert the next DVD each time until I come to the end, at which time True Image tells me that I have successfully completed the backup.

    If I run Check Image, starting with the final DVD, that DVD runs its course and then asks for the previous Volume number, which is one of the volumes on the previous DVD. The volume it wants is on that DVD, which I insert, but I can't get any closer than that.

    I would greatly like a backup I can count on, and I have yet to make a successful, or at least a verifiably successful backup with this setup and with this procedure. I would be grateful for any advice on how to do it properly and reliably. I have room to save to hard drive before writing to DVD, but I don't understand the procedure for that either. I may even have the network option available, but I'd like to keep it simple. I also have an internal CD-RW that I can use, but the problem seems to be with software or procedure.
     
  2. MiniMax

    MiniMax Registered Member

    Joined:
    Mar 17, 2005
    Posts:
    566
    Hi Peter - welcome to the forum!

    I have an old copy of Roxio ECDC 6.0 that I use for burning CD's and DVD's, so I am not sure what that Drag-to-Disk stuff is, but I guess it is either some form of UDF packet writing software, or multi-session writing??

    Anyway, UDF is not something I would trust for my backups. It is fine for a quick transfer of files (like a really big diskette), but that is all. Multi-session is better but I like the idea of making my backups FINAL.

    Using the hard drive as intermediate storage for the image before burning is what I would do. There is no magic to it. Before you start the backup, create a directory on a drive with enough space for the complete backup. Start TI and when it asks where to create the images, select the directory you just made, and ask it to keep the size of each sub-image down to max 2000 MB.

    When you are done, you will have a set of files named something like MyBackup1.tib, MyBackup2.tip, MyBackup3.tip - each 2000 MB in size.

    Now you need to use a tool that will generate a list of checksums of those sub-images. There is a couple of posts here in the forums with links to 1-2 programs that generates MD5-checksums. Personally, I use a little md5sum program I found at etree.org. Run it from a CMD.EXE window like this:
    Code:
    T:\> md5sum sub-image?.tib
    and you get a nice list of the MD5-checksums.

    Fire up REMC, create an Data-DVD project, add sub-image 1 and 2 to the project, burn, and repeat until all the sub-images have been burned to DVD's.

    Repeat the checksum procedure for the files that have been burned and verify that the checksum matches the originals.

    If you are really paranoid as I am, you can use the md5sum like this:
    Code:
    T:\> md5sum sub-image?.tib > sub-images.md5
    before you burn the DVD's, and include the sub-images.md5 file on the DVD's. You can also add the md5sum.exe to the mix - it a mere 50 KB. Makes it easy to verify the checksums if you have problems during the restore (md5sum --help and md5sum --check is your friend).
     
    Last edited: Mar 28, 2005
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