Problem with DVD Restore

Hi,

I'm using Acronis True Image Home Edition V10 Build 4871 and have made a complete backup of by PC onto 2 DVD-RW Disks.

Now when I do a restore of some files and insert the last disk first it then asks for the first disk, so I insert that. Then I'm asked for the 2nd disk, 1st disk, 2nd disk, 1st disk etc. It just goes around in circles.

Problem does not exist if I try to restore a whole disk or partition.

Any ideas on how to overcome this problem would be appreciated.

Greg

 

You have just discovered the other downside to using optical media for backup - the disk swapping tango.

 

I've the same problem, although a bit more extreme. I've backed up all data to an external usb-harddrive using Acronis True Image 10, but just to be sure (in case I accidentally drop it on the floor or something) I've transferred the backup to 100 volumes spanning 26 DVDs. Now, when I wanted to do a restore test, it first asks for volume 100, then 20, then 21, then 84, then 21 again and then freezes. Acronis really ought to fix this.. If I want to restore this backup, I'll have to copy all volumes to the harddrive, putting them all together, so as not to confuse True Image.

Tried restoring a complete partition instead of specific files as above - asked for volume 100, then 1, 20, 1, 20, 3, 20 and 3 and then started. It seems as if it is restoring the backup. I'd still like to be able to restore single files though.

 

Hello andersinn,

Well you could copy all 100 volumes (.tib files) of the image into a single folder on your HD, use TI to "Mount" the image and then drag-and-drop the file you require out of it.

Regards

 

Supposedly this problem is reduced it the disk is defragged before being backed up. To what extent it might be reduced I have no idea because I consider DVDs a second or third line backup media.

I would copy all the DVDs to a suitable HD area for restoration before attempting it. If you want to validate the archive before restoring multiply your swapping grief by 2.

Copying the DVDs requires a second PC or a stripped down image that can be used to get the broken PC operational to perform the copy. I would say that the time to restore the machine to a base version of XP and to copy all the DVDs would still be a lot faster than directly feeding them.

 

Allright, I guess it's ok to just copy the volumes to disk and restore them from there - I copied the backup to discs just as a precaution in case my external harddisk fails (being external it gets carried around a lot).

 

Hello ghines and andersinn,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for the delayed response.

Please be aware that this process of disks swapping is a normal procedure. The main reason is that a single file can occupy several clusters of a hard drive and these clusters can reside in different places of a hard drive. But the snapshot technology creates image archive consequently and splits it into several parts consequently too. For example, the first cluster of a file can be located in the first part of image, the second can be in the third, the third in the second and etc. Some files can occupy hundreds of clusters and when the next cluster of a file resides in the archive volume saved in another DVD then you will need to swap DVDs.

The restoration of disk/partition as well as separate files/folders from the image archive might require swapping DVD discs several times.

Please also take a look at this previous post for details.

If your archive spans several CD/DVD discs and you copy all volumes into a single folder on a local or networked hard disk drive then Acronis True Image automatically recognize all these volumes and perform the restoration just like if it was a single image archive (no disks swapping needed).

Thank you.
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Aleksandr Isakov