Restore created 3 of same drive

I performed a restore of my C: drive (10Gb of data), and ended up with three copies taking up 30Gb!

As part of my trials and tribulations in this thread: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=195198
I performed a restore of all files from a full backup 2 weeks ago. The Acronis backup file was on my E: drive, and I restored to C:\TestRestore.

The screen shots below illustrate:

• The Acronis backup archive file contained only DriveC.
  
• The restore process created Drive(C), Drive(D) and Drive(E) all with nearly identical content.
  
• When I tried to delete the C:\TestRestore directory, it failed due to 12 files (4 files x 3 "drives") which cannot be deleted.

Additional notes:

• My D: drive is an empty CD-ROM drive.
• It took me quite a while to manually delete the 300,000 deletable files in the Drive(C), Drive(D) and Drive(E) directories.
• I tried using regsvr32 /u on each of the undeletable files, but I still could not delete them -- even after a reboot.
• To confirm that the duplicated files weren't aliases, I edited one of them in Drive(C) and confirmed that the other copies in Drive(D) and Drive(E) did not change.
• I also confirmed that free space on C: went down by 30Gb (not good, since it's only a 60Gb drive).

I'd like to get answers to these questions:

1. How can I delete these restored .dll and .ocx files?
2. How in the world could this restore behave so terribly as to turn 10Gb of backup data into 30Gb of restored data?

 

The Restore Files operation by Acronis left an even more painful mess to manually clean up than I realized. Each Drive(X) directory appears as shown below -- this is after manually deleting all non-hidden files after the restore.

The 2Gb pagefile.sys file and the huge and hidden RECYCLER folder were a shock. Just these (times 3) were taking up an additional 11Gb on my C: drive!

For anyone else in this situation, the following article provides some cleanup tips, including showing these hidden/system file, and deleting the "System Volume Information" folder:

http://www.theeldergeek.com/system_volume_information_folder1.htm

What frustrates me is that Acronis Restore gave me these choices...

• Restore disks or partitions
• Sector-by-sector restoration of disks or partitions
• Restore specified files or folders

...and I selected the last one. So I didn't expect volume information, special handling of DLL and OCX files, etc -- just files and folders.

 

Your posting shows your equipment as listed below. Is this still correct?

Additional questions:
1. When everything is normal,
a. how many partitions on your system disk?
b. Any hidden or diagnostic partitions when viewed in XP Disk Management?
2. Do you have a full and complete backup of your system disk which includes all partitions?

Your images shows the unwanted copies to be extra folders on your drive.
Why not perform another restore (using the TI Rescue CD) but perform a partition (or full disk) restore and restore the entire system drive. This would put your system disk back to same as when full backup created .

-------------------------------
Your attempted restoration to the external drive probably failed because your external drive contained more partitions than the original drive. Also, you cannot boot from the external. The boot drive needs to be internal and alone on the first bootup--if you have plan to have both original and copy attached.

 

Hi GroverH,

Your posting shows your equipment as listed below. Is this still correct?​

Yes, the system information you quoted is still accurate for my setup.

1. When everything is normal,​

I just want to note that things are normal. My purposes in performing these restores are: to test Acronis; to ensure I have a backup with integrity; and to ensure that restoring files works properly.

a. how many partitions on your system disk?​

One; see attachment.

b. Any hidden or diagnostic partitions when viewed in XP Disk Management?​

I don't think so. Do I have to do anything special to see them?

2. Do you have a full and complete backup of your system disk which includes all partitions?​

That's what I thought I created with my Acronis Full backup. I have 3 or 4 full backups of C: stored on E:.

Again, my system is fine, I don't need help recovering anything. I'm hoping to be educated about how I'm using Acronis incorrectly to have such shockingly bad results.

 

Your Disk Management attachment showed no hidden partitions.

I personally do not use Files & Folders backup or restores. Sometimes I will mount the image and copy a single or a few files from the archive.

My use of TI is primarily for disaster recovery. All my backups are either with a single partition checkmarked or with the disk option checkmarked. The purpose of my backups is to be able to restore my entire system within a few minutes either to a new disk or to overlay my existing system partition--should there be a need. I do not perform "Files & Folders" backup. I maintain secondary copies for that purpose. I do use Karen's Replicator for making additional copies of my personal files and email. So, TI backups my entire system and Replicator copies additional copies of files which change often. I use ERunt to keep daily copies of my XP Pro registry.

If you have the time, you might find some help reviewing my backup and restore guide links below in signature. They illustrate performing a disk option backup and restore, with additional discussion there regarding a single partition restore using Menorcaman's instructions.

Many people test their restores by restoring to a spare hard drive. You do need to know whether your restores will work. If your external is empty, you do a full disk test restore to that drive and then install the external as as internal in place of your current system drive. There has been considerable postings about testing to a new drive.

These links may also provide some additional assistance in using TI:
My backup strategy Escalader
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=159177

Best way for making functioning images
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=1047306

Backups
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=1036066#29

Recommend backup scheme for photos, music 32 replies--2 pages
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=164175

SAVE MY MUSIC COLLECTION! PLEASE (29 replies --2 pages)
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=167710​

 

~

Hi mcepek,

You did a backup of data. You did not do a Partition / Drive Image.

You can opt to do a restore the data to any Hard Drive or folder.

What you did not do, because you opted to test, was to restore the data to its original place.

To delete the restored files, boot into Safe Mode and delete the files and folders while in Safe Mode.

 

GroverH: Thanks for the tips and pointers. I don't have a spare drive to restore to as a test.

thecreator: Thanks for the tip about deleting my restored .ocx and .dll files. Also, my backup was of type Image (not Data/Files):
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=196316&stc=1&d=1198781040

All: I still have no answers to why Acronis exploded 30Gb onto my hard drive from a 10Gb backup archive. That's not compression, it was duplication - ONE drive backed up, THREE entire drive copies restored. WTF?

 

Hello mcepek,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Could you please clarify the exact sequence of actions that lead to the problem (i.e. choices on every step of the restore wizard)? Please also clarify, what set of default restoration options do you have (located under Tools -> Options menu)?

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

mcepek,
When you look at the TI logs file from main menu, what iinfo is shown about the 3 restorations? I noticed from your previous posting above, the folders were created a little over an hour apart.

 

GroverH: Good observation. I'm attaching a screen shot of the entire restore log. The restore took 3 hours, spanning the creation time for each of those three folders.

• "Overwrite existing file if it is older" is selected
• Nothing checked or listed for "Files to preserve during restoration"
• No "Pre/Post Commands" specified
• default Restoration Priority=Low
• "Restore files preserving their security settings" is checked
• Additional settings: only "Set current date/time" is checked

Tip for Acronis: It would be easy to log this information for troubleshooting. You can't rely on users to accurately recall exactly what they did days after they did it. Keep in mind this was my 3rd attempt to restore, and each attempt was different (since the previous attempts didn't work well).

I'll post my best recollection of the exact restore wizard sequence separately.

 

It happened again.

I wiped my external (backup) drive including reformatting and a bad block scan (no problems). I created a new full image backup of my C: drive, same as before. A "files" restore of everything created directories called Drive(C) and Drive(D) both with about the same amount of stuff (see screen shot).

Again, I only have one partition on each drive (internal laptop drive C:, and external backup drive E: ) -- see my screen shot from 28-Dec above.

Out of curiosity I decided to compare the contents of these two directories using 'diff -r -q --binary' under Cygwin. There were tons of differences, including:

• files whose contents did not match
• files in the Drive(C) directory missing from the Drive(D) directory
• files in the Drive(D) directory missing from the Drive(C) directory

I have taken screen shots of every configuration aspect of the backup and restore, and will be submitting this (and more) to Acronis tech support (now that I finally have my product serial number).

I'd like to hear some explanation for how this could possibly happen.

 

I may have missed this, but did you have the Restore absolute paths checkbox checked (located under Restore specified files or folders)?

In my tests, if that is checked you get the Drive(#) folder and if it's unchecked you don't.

Can you also clarify if you did the restore while running XP or if you booted to the TI CD in Full or Safe mode?

 

Nope (see attached screenshot). I painstakingly documented every single step this time around (I sent 56 screen shots to Acronis).

While running XP. This was a "File" restore (not Image or Partition or Disk or whatever).

I'm attempting to test this use case: "Crap, I accidentally deleted that whole directory! Good thing I have it backed up....". But instead of just one directory, I've selected all files from C:\ to ensure that I can restore any file in the entire backup.

 

I finally found time to try the Acronis Bootable Rescue Media restore test that Acronis Support requested that I try.

I booted from the Acronis Bootable Rescue Media CD-ROM that I burned. It seemed to boot up fine.

I selected Restore, and started through the wizard. One of the first few dialogs prompted me to select the backup archive to use for the restore. There were no choices there that I could use:

- The "Backup Locations" magic folder did not show.
- My E: drive (external USB where all my backup archives are stored) did not show.

I couldn't take any screen shots. The minimal windows O/S (on the "Bootable Rescue Media") kept me captive in the Acronis application. Alt-Tab did nothing.

It appears that I would be UNABLE TO RESTORE MY SYSTEM WITH THIS PRODUCT, even with the "Bootable Rescue Media".

After failing with the bootable media restore, I clicked the red 1/0 "Shutdown" button in the bottom-left corner of the Bootable Rescue Media screen. My laptop then made a loud, continuous beeping sound, annoying everyone in the entire office until I forced my laptop to turn off.

These aren't my only issues with this product. Besides the issues in this thread I've had this major problem and this major problem. So far no resolution to any of them, despite responding faithfully to Acronis Support requests.

Can someone suggest why I should continue to even consider this product? I'm ready to make a very strong recommendation to the key decision makers that our company abandon Acronis products forever, and look elsewhere for a backup product solution.

 

Unable to clean up after restore

The restore attempts I documented earlier in this thread left me with tens of gigs of restored data on my hard drive, which I have now been attempting to delete. It's not going well.

Quite a number of files cannot be deleted. Keep in mind that these files were restored using a "files" (not "image") restore. It appears Acronis restored files on my drive in a way that makes it extremely difficult to delete some of them. Some are DLLs, some are OCX files related to Adobe.

Quite a number of other files are "corrupted and unreadable", and Windows refuses to delete them. Although I'm using True Image Home v11, this post suggests that Acronis has had problems like this for many years. I've run chkdsk at boot many times - no errors.

It has literally taken me hours, including countless reboots, to clean this mess off my hard drive. Again, these are just files restored by Acronis -- I see absolutely no reason why I shouldn't be able to delete plain files I have restored.

Some tips for others with this problem:

• Check the permissions on problematic files and grant yourself Full access to them (requires Windows admin privs)
• Booting into "Safe Mode With Command Prompt" and using DEL /Q /S and RMDIR /S can help clean things up.

My questions for the experts here are:
1) Anyone have any explanation for this horrible behavior - Acronis restoring files I can't delete, and restoring files that are corrupt?
2) Anyone have suggestions for deleting files that Windows reports as "corrupted and unreadable" and "unable to delete"?

 

Re: Unable to clean up after restore

This problem seems to happen when files are restored this way (especially if any of the files or folders are tagged with the "system" attribute). You have to remember that a lot of the files that you restored in your test are files that Windows will not let you delete. TI is just restoring them back in that state. Also, some of the folders are not "real" and just link to their destinations.

I worked on a computer before that the user had accidentally copied the entire C: partition contents into a sub-folder on the drive. It resulted in exactly the same problem when trying to delete them. This was just a standard Windows copy (TI wasn't involved).

When I ran my tests to try and duplicate your results, I created a backup image before and then just restored it afterwards. A two minute restore was much faster than fighting permissions and deleting files that refuse to be deleted.

If you have a BartPE or VistaPE CD, you could boot to that and may be able to delete the files. At least, this way Windows isn't running and no files are locked on the drive.

Another option (if it's an image backup) is to mount the image and just copy out the files you need. In most cases, the files needed are not "system" files.

If you want to run the test the way you did, I would recommend that the files be restored to an empty flashdrive, USB hard drive or test partition instead of the Windows partition. This will allow you to easily reformat (or wipe) the partition to clear the files.

 

Re: Unable to clean up after restore

Is your TI Rescue CD the most recentt build?

Check this thread regarding your external drive. There is a really good chance that you will be able to get the WD external drive visible. Then you can do a full disk restore using TI and this will be a good quick solution to your current dillemma.

Also try using different usb connectors on your computer. Also, not all usb cables are equal. Also try disconnecting other usb devices on your computer. Do not use a multiple port device--connect direct. It is hightly probably you will find a way of connecting your drive and it be seen by the TI rescue CD.

Western Digital My Book External Hard Drive & Acronis True Image
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=144460

 

...and the corrupt files? The originals are not corrupt, I've checked. Many of them were Thumbs.db files, and I was able to delete them all just fine.

Yes: 11.0.8053. I was directed to that download by Acronis Tech Support, which matches the version I'm using. That version showed my USB drive 50% of the time (slow spinups? not sure why). Thanks for the link, but the folks in that thread appear to have different (un/replugging) issues.

I don't want to do a full disk restore. This was product confidence testing of file-based restores. Sorry if I wasn't clear about that in this thread.

I'm using the short (10 inch?) OEM cable that came with the WD drive.

I am connected direct, with no other USB devices. That has been my configuration since I got this laptop.