Acronis 11 for XP Pro backup - verification fails

Running XP Pro with current updates with 1 yr old Dell 410.

Acronis v11 will do a complete backup and report it succeeded but when I add the qualifier to verify, it always reports the backup failed?

I'm unsure if I'm getting a good backup when relying on the backup made without the verification process selected.

Should I be worried? Any suggestion as to why the verification process fails?

my thanks for your time.

MEL

 

Yes, you should be worried. You may or may not have a backup.

1. What build of TI 11 are you using? The last build was 8101. (Help / About will reveal the build number.) The Rescue CD should be made from the build of TI that you are using. If you don't have 8101, register your software with Acroni, download 8101 and install it.

2. Where are you storing your backups?

3. Try to manually validate the backup in Windows with TI.

4. Create the TI Rescue CD if you haven't done so. Boot from it and verify the backup from there. If the backup verifies, run the Restore wizard up to the point where you see the Proceed button. At that point click Cancel.

5. If the backup does not verify, create a new backup while booted from the Rescue CD. Validate that backup.

Let us know the results.

 

Hi John,

Thank you for taking the time to reply. Well, I was slightly behind in my updates as I was using build 8053. I assumed the software would alert me to new updates so happy to know I need to check along on these. So, now I have the most recent, build 8101, installed and will attempt another backup with verification tonight and see how it goes. I don't get any messages from Acronis to turn off things like virus software or screen savers, etc. so assume Acronis can operate with these things in place?

Will let you know the backup results. I will also create a new recovery cd, using this latest build.

Thanks once again for taking the time to help me.

Mary

 

Hello Mary E Leek,

Thank you for your interesting in Acronis True Image

I would also recommend you to check memory modules first, as bad memory modules may result in backup archive corrupt. To make sure that the memory module of your machine is not corrupt as this can be the reason of the issue please download one of the archives depending on what media type you are going to use:

- diskette http://www.memtest.org/download/1.70/memtest86 -1.70.floppy.zip
- USB Flash drive http://www.memtest.org/download/1.70/memtest86 -1.70.exe.zip
- CD http://www.memtest.org/download/1.70/memtest86 -1.70.iso.zip

Unpack the archive and create bootable media with the test. Instructions on how to do it can be found in README.txt in the same archive.

If the issue persists contact Acronis support and submit technical request using this link or contact us via Live Chat

Best regards,
--
Dmitry Nikolaev

 

We look forward to hearing your next results.

 

update:

After downloading to bring my Acronis v11 up to the currently available build, my backup with verification completed perfectly!

I must also say that I backed up to a different harddrive than I had been using. Also checked my Acronis recovery disk and it loaded just fine.

Now that I have a safe backup on hand, I will attempt to use the harddrive I'd originally used. I'm wondering if there may have been bad sectors on that drive that was stopping the verification process from being successful? It is a fairly new USB external drive but wondering if bad sectors could have been the culprit?

My thanks for all the advice and assistance.

Mary

 

Mary
As previously mentioned, the TI Rescue CD plays a very important role. Should you have a virus or disk failure or upgrade, it will be the Rescue CD which enables you to recover.

At the very bare minimum, you should boot into the TI Rescue CD and perform a backup directing its storage to whatever device you plan to use if you need to recover.

While still booted from the CD, perform a validation on any or all your backups so you know that TI will not reject any of these backups.

It is also recommended that you perform some types of restores to make sure your recovery plan is working. There has been too many postings where the backups were made but never really tested to see if the recovery plan worked. For many, this failure to test turned into a data disaster. Testing is safest when done to a spare hard drive. The CD has almost all the same functions as in Windows.

Any restore of your system drive is best done when booted from the TI Rescue CD. You do not need to have TrueImage installed but you absolutely must have a proven functional TI Rescue CD.

 

Verify is often more problems than it is worth. I generally don't use it, but if it makes you feel better go ahead. I gave up on it when I found that three consecutive backups from my laptop to an external usb hard drive, refused to verify. I discovered that if I moved them to an internal hard drive, they would verify just fine. All three of them. It does seem verify is sensitive to the hardware that is running. I can tell you that two of the three were used to restore the C: drive from the internal hard drive, and they worked without problems. This on a Vista laptop.

Verify does not compare anything external to the image, it simply compares the checksums in the image to newly computed checksums from the image. An image that won't verify may well restore, and one that does verify may well not restore.

Good luck.

 

Wow Verification does not mean Verification? That is pretty scary.

My problem is that my Acronis 10 used to verify all my backups and every six months I really did restore a backup to a spare drive for my laptop. Since January the backup does not verify when checked. After a lumpy upgrade to TI 2009, the new backup did not verify with that either. Now I cannot go back to Acronis TI 10 because I get a corrupt "cab1" file when I try to install it using the latest version of TI 10. I feel I am between a rock and a hard place.

Ideas?

Mike

 

Uninstall TI 2009 and then use the Acronis uninstaller to complete the job.

You can then download a fresh copy of TI 10, last build, and install that.

If you made a TI 10 backup before installing TI 2009, you can restore that by booting from the Rescue CD (both 2009 and 10 Rescue CDs will restore a TI 10 backup).

Have you run CHKDSK x: /R, where x: is the drive letter for both the internal and external disks, on all drives?

 

Thanks for your input and sorry for the delay, but my progress was painful.

The bottom line was a memory failure. I checked my disks and found errors and fixed them. Still problems. After many attempts at fixing the problem and with high frustration with slow Acronis Support, I decided to download memory test software (the memtest86+-2.11.iso file) from memtest.org and free easy burner from www.koyotesoft.com to create a bootable CD (select copy CD/DVD, burn an Image file, select the iso file) to test the memory.

I found errors in two places at the lower end of my second half GB.

I have now purchased and tested a single 1GB from 4allmemory.com - no failures - and since then Acronis has worked fine - although it is only a week or so. Soon I'll try adding my good half GB too.

One other comment, at the only time where I did get very good help from Acronis, I was told: 1) if the backup mounts and can be viewed, it is probably OK even if it does not Verify; 2) try installing Acronis with a modified Boot file that allows only 256MB of memory - that worked - and was a key thing to trigger me to test my memory. If 256GB worked, why not 1GB?

I hope this helps others.

Mike

 

The validate procedure shows that the file can be properly read into RAM and the 4000/GB checksums can be recalculated and are identical to the ones placed in the archive file when the archive was created. If one bit in any one of the checksums does not agree the archive is declared corrupt.

If the file can be mounted and viewed it indicates that the archive file is understandable to TI and that you should be able to extract data from it. However, I wouldn't bet that you can get every single file back out of it. If an archive will not validate using the rescue CD then it is very improbable that it will restore. The restoration appears to be much more stringent on archive integrity than the mount and view process.

I can't stress enough that you must do a test when you first run TI or after some hardware changes to show that the TI rescue CD works and can restore an image. If you don't want to do a test restore to ideally a spare HD, then make sure the CD will create an image and validate the image. Not as good as a full blown restore but pretty good.
The CD must be used for this because it is the Linux environment, not Windows, that is used for a restore of the active partition. This is where a lot of users come unstuck, they validate in Windows and think all is well (and why not). Then a restore is needed, but the Linux lacks good drivers for their system, the restore fails and the validate gets blamed. Its like saying you can easily take a corner at 100 MPH while driving a Ferrari then wondering why the family Ford ended up in the ditch.

Typical PCs inherently assume that everything works. Data in RAM is not checked (there is no parity check or error-correcting code), data from the disk is checked for CRC correctness at the drive/controller but no further. Data is not checked after it is written to the hard-drive only on the read.

I always validate my archives. Makes me feel happy and I know that my image related hardware is working fine. It was TI that brought to light my SATA drive cable problem.