Backed up images are not valid? - Please help, emergency!

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by nosyt, Nov 22, 2006.

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  1. nosyt

    nosyt Registered Member

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    After freshly installing winxp and some essential software, I performed the full disc backup using the wizard and saved the files onto my external hard drive. This is a new full backup archive, and I went to manual options to set the compression level to "maximum". I left everything else at default settings.

    After the backup was complete, I browsed to my external hard drive and these were the files created by True Image:

    image 10.201.06
    image 10.202.06
    image 10.203.06
    image 10.204.06
    image 10.205.06
    image 10.206.06
    image 10.207.06
    image 10.208.06
    image 10.209.06

    Please note that there is no ".tib" extension and I foolishly didn't take the time to validate these backup files. Guess what happened next?

    A recent Windows update completely trashed my hard drive and I had to format and reinstall windows. After getting True Image back on the system, I tried to recover the archive but it will not show up in the Restore Data Wizard. I even tried renaming the files to include the ".tib" extension, but I get error messages telling me that the archive is "not the last created volume of the archive" or it's not a valid archive.

    What's the deal? I REALLY need some help here. I just got back from seeing family out of state and had tons of digital photos archived on the images before my hard drive went on a tantrum, and i'd really like to show it to relatives this Thanksgiving.

    Any help would be greatly appreciated and I will gladly tip the person who helps me resolve this issue. :( :doubt:
     
  2. techtype

    techtype Registered Member

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    Rename them like this image01.tib, image02.tib thru image09.tib and then try again.
     
  3. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    Never use "." in filenames unless you deliberately intend it to signify a filetype not part of the filename.
     
  4. nosyt

    nosyt Registered Member

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    TI Boot Disc causes automatic rebooting

    I'm having trouble with the Rescue Boot disc, it seems that when I try to restore this test image I created using the boot disc, my computer would just reboot itself right when the "progress" or status bar shows up. It also automatically reboots itself when trying to browse for an image file.

    Any ideas? I'm really so close to getting things to work, I just want to get my pictures back. Reward still offered for a solution, and I appreciate all the advice given thus far. Thanks in advance!
     
  5. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    nosyt,

    First things first. Did you remove the tick from "Hide extensions for known file types?"
     
  6. nosyt

    nosyt Registered Member

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    Yeah, I got that part figured out.

    I noticed that TI just named the files the way it did because of the folder name, which corresponds to the date (october 10, 2006). I renamed it all to follow the sequence "1.tib, 2.tib, etc." and got it to show up on TI. The last part I'm stuck at is in my previous post where the program keeps rebooting my computer.

    Currently I noticed that the rebooting problem doesnt occur in the 'safe mode' version of the Rescue boot disc (without usb, or external HDD support) and right now i'm copying my image files from my external to my local hard drive.

    Once I get all the files copied (it's taking forever), I'm going to try to restore the image file from the safe mode on the rescue disc. Thanks so far for all the help, and i'm hoping this all works just in time for Thanksgiving!
     
  7. nosyt

    nosyt Registered Member

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    update: Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

    I'm still stuck without any luck and a few more hours to go. Even if I can't get the photos back within today to show to family, i'd still like all my other files back as well.

    My last attempt was using the Remote Management Console to mange my laptop and restore the archives from my desktop, but whenever it reboots my laptop prior to restoration, then loads up TI and displays the status/progress bar, the laptop reboots itself. Very frustrating.

    I'm really confused as to what is causing the laptop to reboot itself. From what I gather, using the "safe mode" option from the Rescue boot disc does not cause the laptop to reboot itsef, so it may be a problem with my external hdd or drivers or something loaded when not in safe mode. It's a shame I can restore my archive from the same local hard drive, but I can understand why that wouldn't work.

    I'm running out of options, it's been a busy day, but I hope everyone enjoys their holiday!
     
  8. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    OK, this shouldn't be happening, but there are lots of different types of hardware out there, especially with laptops which are especially proprietary, and TI tries to work with all of them. In some cases such as yours, there are problems.

    Since you can't use the full mode of the TI Recovery CD, you can't restore from a USB or firewire external drive. Since you have a laptop, you can't install a second internal hard drive. But the game isn't over yet.

    You can partition your hard drive. The image files can then be copied to the second partition of the hard drive, and TI in Safe mode will restore your C drive from the image on the second partition.

    Disk Director or Partition Magic are two disk partitioning programs that can be used without destroying your current installation of XP. However, you are going to wipe that out when you restore your image of C, so why not take this course.

    1. Make an image of your current hard drive (boot sector and C partition) to the USB external drive. This is just for insurance.

    2. Boot from the XP installation disk and delete the current partition (C), then create a new partition that is less than the full hard disk. I'd suggest even making it 50% of the hard drive if that leaves plenty of room for your full installation with all programs and data.

    3. Do a bare minimum install of XP.

    4. Format the second partition.

    5. Copy your backup images from the USB drive onto the second partition.

    6. Boot from the TI Recovery CD in Safe mode and restore C to the first partition.

    At that point you should have everything back including data and programs.

    Let us know if this does it.
     
  9. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Hello nosyt,

    Alternatively:

    1. Use TI's Manage Acronis Secure Zone Wizard to create a Secure Zone (SZ) large enough to contain the image that you wish to restore. Do NOT accept the default option to also activate the Startup Recovery Manager.
    2. Right click on "My Computer" and select Manage > Storage > Disk Management.
    3. In the Disk Management window, right click on the Acronis SZ and select Delete Logical Drive (click Yes when the warning about the partition not having been created by Windows pops up). You will now be left with an amount of free space equal to the SZ that you deleted.
    4. Right click on the free space, select New Logical Drive and follow the New Partition Wizard to create a new logical partition using all the free space.
    5. Once the partition has been created and formatted, copy the image you wish to restore from your external USB HD to the new partition and use TI's Backup Archive Validation Wizard to validate it after its been copied.
    6. Boot from the Acronis rescue CD into Safe mode and restore the image on the new partition to your C: partition. You don't say which Version and Build of TI you are using but, whichever, you do not want to restore the original MBR to your newly partitioned HD. Therefore, when restoring, only tick the checkbox next to the C: partition.

    Once you have successfully restored the image you may wish to get rid of that second partition and reallocate the space back to C:. If so, post back and let me know and I'll explain how to do it without destroying the data.

    Regards
     
  10. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    Definitely the quicker way to repartition the drive. As usual, Menorcaman has the best suggestions. :)
     
  11. nosyt

    nosyt Registered Member

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    Hello everyone, thank you all for the amazing replies so far. It's very unfortunate for me to say that I am STILL out of luck restoring my image.

    The 2-partition idea was genius and I was almost sure it would work. I created my partitions, fired up TI in safe mode and selected the image/destination to be restored...then clicked "proceed"...

    When the progress bar popped up, my laptop automatically rebooted itself. :doubt:


    I'm probably just going to call it a loss. It's very dissapointing but i'm out of options.

    I have one last question regarding the above quote, I'm going to reinstall everything on the current situation (two partitions, image on second) but I would really prefer to merge the two into one big partition, how would I go about doing that?

    Thanks to everyone again. I really appreciate all of your efforts in assisting me, the support network has left me with positive feelings and I do believe I will continue to use the software in the future.

    :thumb:
     
  12. bodgy

    bodgy Registered Member

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    All may still not be lost.

    If you've now installed a new copy of XP and installed TI, are you able to mount your tib files?

    You might need to make a folder on your PC and copy all the tib files for the archive over to do this.

    If you can mount the image, you should then be able to retrieve all your photo's.

    Colin
     
  13. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Hi again nosyt,

    As bodgy rightly suggested, recover your personal data (e-mails, pictures, etc) by running TI in Windows mode, mount the image (either the one on the external HD or the one on the second partition) and copy any files you require from it to your C: partition.

    Seems the problem is specific to your laptop. Have you raised a support case with support@acronis.com as detailed in the Forum stick titled <Please Read Before You Post>?

    You can recover the space being used by the second partition back to the C: partition as follows (obviously this will delete the image that you had copied to it from your external HD):

    1. Start the Windows Disk Management tool as detailed in my previous reply above. Right click on the second partition that you had created and select Delete Logical Drive. You will be left with an amount of free space equal to the partition that you just deleted.
    2. Run TI and use the Manage Acronis Secure Zone Wizard to create a temporary SZ using all the free space (move the size slider completely over to the right). Again, do NOT accept the option to also activate the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager.
    3. Use the Manage Acronis Secure Zone Wizard again and opt to Remove Acronis Secure Zone. Select the C: partition as the place to return the space currently allocated to the SZ and then click Proceed.

    After the system has finally rebooted into Windows you should find that you have a single, maximum sized, C: partition again.

    Regards
     
  14. techtype

    techtype Registered Member

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    Don't give up yet. Eventually someone will think of having you make a BartPE disk. That should work.
     
  15. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    Hi Nosyt,

    Techtype is right. A Bart PE boot disk runs in a Windows (not Linux) environment and that should eliminate the rebooting problem you are having.

    There is a lot of help about the Bart PE disk on this forum.
     
  16. foghorne

    foghorne Registered Member

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    I found this was all I needed:

    https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=839781&postcount=1

    F.
     
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