Bug I would like to see fixed in TI 10

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by sdavis57, Mar 8, 2007.

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  1. sdavis57

    sdavis57 Registered Member

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    First, I have the latest build of TI 10. When I was backing up my secondary hard drive to DVD, after putting the third disk and TI writing to it for a few seconds, TI came back with a message saying it could not write to the disk, and was possibly bad media, which then my only choice was to click ok. Then TI aborted. I then tried it again with new disk's and the backup completed sucessfully.

    Here's my problem with TI 10. In my first attempt it wrote to two DVD's, and now I have to throw them away because TI could not burn to the third disk, so the archive is no good.

    I think TI should asked for another disk instead of aborting ,try to burn the 3rd volume and go on to complete the backup. The program should know where it is in the volume and be able to write that volume again if there is an error with the media. That is what I would like to see fix in the next build.

    I like to backup to DVD-R because as long as you take care of the media, it will last along time. I really do not like to backup to other hard drive's, because they are mechanical, and they will fail. Just giving my input if anybody cares. Thanks:cool:
     
  2. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    I've lost more files on bad optical media than HDs but we can all have our opinions.

    Why don't you have the best of both worlds? Create the backup to a HD with the appropriate split and then copy the validated archive to DVD with Nero, Roxio or whatever. If you don't have an extra drive, partition or external HD you can copy the archive to the volume being imaged if there is sufficient room. Many of us consider the controlled burning environment of these products to be more trustworthy than the direct-burn Acronis has provided. BTW, once you do a restore from multiple DVDs you may change your mind about the advantages.

    I use a second internal HD as my primary backup location and copy some of the archives to other devices as I see fit.

    Edit: I'll step back onto my soapbox and offer this: By burning/restoring to DVDs you are virtually eliminating one of the real advantages of TI - making a quick copy of your system so you can fool around with it, test new software or hardware without running the risk of corrupting your system. I'll guarantee you won't be inclined to do this if you are using DVDs.
     
    Last edited: Mar 8, 2007
  3. foghorne

    foghorne Registered Member

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    :D Sounds like words of wisdom.

    F.
     
  4. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Even more so if the multiple DVDs contained a Files & Folders archive. Probably find that the DVD burner's disk tray wears out before the image is finally restored. :p :D :D
     
  5. sdavis57

    sdavis57 Registered Member

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    Thanks for all the replies, but really I was just posting a bug. I guess I shouldn't have carried on with the rest of my opinions. Although I will say this. I've used norton ghost 8.3 for a couple of years backing up my main drive to dvd-r and have not lost any data. It is slower, I will agree with that.

    I was using TI for awhile recently to backup my main drive to an image on a second drive, but other things can happen besides hard drive failure. Other hardware can fail and cause corruption and lost of data on the second drive also. I guess we all have our method to our madness.

    Right now I'm just troubleshooting a problem with Roxio 9, which I've concluded the new roxio has issue's. I have two drive's configured exactly the same, but I have roxio 8 on one, and roxio 9 on the other. I was imaging the roxio 8 drive to have a good backup incase I screw something up.

    Anyway I just wanted to point out the bug when imaging to dvd. Thanks again for all the replies. I would like to see acronis reply with something like " oh, well thanks for pointing that out to us, and we will look into this" or " were aware of this problem and are working on it in our next update".
     
  6. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    sdavis57,

    Could I ask if you have restored an image from multiple DVDs? Was it pleasant?
     
  7. sdavis57

    sdavis57 Registered Member

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    Was it pleasant? As I stated early, I agreed it is slower. I don't just sit looking at my computer monitor watching its progress. I'll go do something else and come back later to give my pc another dvd disk. Whats everybodies deal here anyway? Like I stated earlier we all have our own methods. I did not come here to be given a hard time about how I want to do my backup's.
    You people can do your backups anyway you want to. I will do them the way I want to. Ok?:)
     
  8. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Sorry. I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I realize you have imaged to DVDs but I wanted to know if you have restored an image from DVDs to the the HD. I tried it once and I wondered whether our experiences matched.

    I agree the bug should be fixed.
     
  9. sdavis57

    sdavis57 Registered Member

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    I'm sorry also. Backing up and restoring to DVD is slower, but it has worked really goog for me. At the beginning of this post, I guess I posted this in the wrong section. I just noticed the wish list thread, so I posted a wish to get the bug fixed.
     
  10. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    I agree that ATI should just pause with a message and request fresh media and then, if it gets it, continue where it left off with the backup. It's seems it's just a question of error-handling, which is what separates good programming form really great, well thought ought programs.

    I don't know why you think using CDs or DVDs is any less mechanical than HDDs. You have a motor that moves the disk and one to move the disk head in each case. Can't see why photon radiation is any more or less mechanical than magnetic waves.

    Recent info on long-term stored cds suggests that the safe time period for laser burned CDs is turning out to not really be any longer than magnetic media -- maybe 5-10 years if you want very high reliability -- not the decades that was once thought; perhaps the pressed CDs and DVDs can last longer.

    good luck,
    sh
     
  11. sdavis57

    sdavis57 Registered Member

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    The DVD media is not mechanical. You store them away, and they don't fail. At least they haven't failed on me yet. Yes the DVDRW drive may be mechanical and fail, but they are less expensive to replace.
     
  12. foghorne

    foghorne Registered Member

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    Each to their own. I have tried and optical disks for daily backups over the last 10 years and not only are they more unreliable than harddisk storage, they require a lot of housekeeping - i.e. they need to be stored out of direct light, preferably in order, and require purging to the bin every month or so to create space on the shelf.

    Actually the biggest problem for me is that I would need to be present when my backups run each day to feed the DVD writer and file the disks away. As it happens I don't use optical media for my primary backup and this means my backups can occur automatically at 3 a.m. each morning when I am usually fast asleep.

    I use an external USB drive for my backups and make the odd monthly secondary copy to DVD as an archive. This works well for me.

    F.
     
    Last edited: Mar 8, 2007
  13. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    Actually, this is not the case. Unlike diamonds, which are forever, CDs and DVDs, in particular the ones laser burned (as opposed to the commerical productions that are pressed), are susceptible to decay with age -- how rapidly depends on the quality of the materials used, storage conditons and handling. But current recommendations for reliable archiving is about 5-10 years. Most of them come from just a few factories--some of which typcially make the cheap types. E.g., memorex-branded disks reportedly are made at the factory with a reputation for cheap disks.

    The HDD media also is not mechanical; it is magnetic. Magnetic waves are no more or less mechanical than light waves. In fact, they are both captured under the same theory of quantuym electro diynamics. Anyway, the transport (or disk carrier) is mechanical for both types of drive -- it rotates the disk (another orients the head). The constancy of the magnetization of HDD platters rates about as long for archive purposes as burned DVDs and CDs. Of course, if the HD is running all that time, the motor could fail.


     
  14. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    The short answer is that we are all involved in a crap-shoot with being able to retrieve backups at any given time. There is not one type of media (which includes whatever you need to read it) that is totally reliable. However, I don't think it is applicable to OS backups to be overly concerned with long-term storage. For data files like pictures, documents, etc, long-term backup is indeed an issue.

    When you read a forum like this you get the impression that HDs are failing at a horrendous rate. Of course, that is untrue and the devices are actually very reliable. Once you get past infant-mortality the reliability is very good and HD manufacturers claim that a common cause of HD failure is improper handling especially during shipping. Nontheless, they do fail and given enough time all will fail but that is not different than any other device.

    My personal opinion is that a (not real old) HD is a very reliable device especially in the short-term. By that I mean from the time I make an OS backup and then access it. A year-old OS/apps backup will be better than nothing but usually is not ideal.

    I have had problems with home-burned CDs and DVDs for data backups to the extent that I made the comment that I have lost more data from optical media than HDs. Even so, the amount has not been huge but I would never use R/W media for data. Files like those produced by TI are a special case due to their size and the fact that every bit has to be correct or the total archive is useless.

    In short, no matter what you use can fail and the only way to play it smart is to have more than one backup stored in more than one place regardless of whether or not it is on HD or DVD. For speed and convenience HD wins hands-down and if I were forced into using a DVD archive I would copy it to HD before even attempting a restore.

    On long-term storage, I will repeat a comment made on a TV program I saw concering digital media and professional photographers. Archiving was done by copying to HD and putting the HDs into storage.
     
  15. twl845

    twl845 Registered Member

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    I have been doing backups to DVD+RW for quite a while, and didn't appreciate changing the disks and storing the present backup disks along with the last backup in case. I just bought a Maxtor 160 GB external HD at Radio Shack which were to my surprise on sale for $70. It appears that Seagate just acquired Maxtor so maybe that's why they're on sale. I hooked it up and did a backup. I like starting the backup and just walking away until it's done. :D
     
  16. sdavis57

    sdavis57 Registered Member

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    Well, alot of people have jumped on this thread and given their opinions. All very good points. Like stated early, to each there own.

    I own a computer business and have replaced many hard drives that haven't lasted even a year. Also have pulled hard drives out of USB external backups ( that did not last a year) to retreive the data becuase the USB interface failed on the external backup. To be fair I have also replace cd-rw and dvd-rw drives also that did not last a year, but people did not lose any data over a optical drive going bad.

    Anyway to continue on with the bug in TI 10. Real quickly, I switched to TI because norton ghost 2003 dosen't support the latest chipset intel 965 and the jmicron ide controller. I did not care for the latest norton ghost either.

    To continue on with my issue, when I burn a backup image to dvd-r using TI 10, it makes the image the full size of the dvd, and TI can not restore it. It says its not a valid archive. (This is another bug.) So what I had to do is make a backup image to my hard drive in 700mb file images, then used roxio to burn these files to 4 dvd-r disks. I tested so far a restore from the images on the hard drive and restored the full backup of my bootable drive. It worked well. I still have not tried a restore of these images from my dvd drive yet. In theory it should work, but it is pain to do it this way, because TI is not burning valid archive files directly to dvd. ( A bug I would also like to be fixed.)

    This is all I want is for TI to burn full backups of valid achive images of my hard drive to dvd, and to be a bootable dvd with restore features. This is why I have posted here to point out the bugs in hopes they will get fixed.
     
  17. foghorne

    foghorne Registered Member

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    According to the reliability engineering 'bathtub curve' there will always be so called 'infant mortalities', In the case of diskdrives I would expect those which have survived a few months to be beyond that. The fact that you are experiencing what sounds like a disproportionate amount of failures in the first few months points to either a quality issue or a handling one. You have been unlucky imv as your experiences do not match my own.

    F.
     
  18. sdavis57

    sdavis57 Registered Member

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    Actually it would be the customers the have been unlucky and they are the ones that have experienced the failures with computers they bought from various vendors. I have not had those experiences personally except for one hard drive a long time ago. But I still prefer to backup to dvd because of what I've seen.

    Anyway this thread is about bugs in TI 10, and getting it to work as advertised. Burning to and restoring from dvd. That is all.:)
     
  19. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    This doesn't help the issue at hand because it is still a problem but it is possible the problem TI is having has nothing to do with the media itself.

    TI isn't real strong on accurate, specific error messages. There have been posts about bad media messages when using HDs which had no faults.
     
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