Cannot validate vista boot drive backup

I'm currently able to backup my boot drive to my internal hard drive using TI-10, but cannot validate the backup...Kind of scary since Acronis indicates the backups are successfull...Still trying to determine what the problem is...I've attached a sample log file for the "archive is corrupted" error...

I was using Acronis TI-9 on XP/MCE and did not have any issues...Had to upgrade to TI-10 for vista and the problems started...(they say TI-10 is fully functional with vista)...

I have been able to use TI-10 to clone my Vista boot drive...I can also backup and validate my vista boot drive to a USB drive, but that is too slow for my needs...

Daily backups to an internal Seagate 400gb drive for my vista boot drive fails though...I have been trying to figure out the problem for 3 days now...

I've applied the TI-10 updates from last week, so software is current...

I've run the memtest86+ and all seems fine...

I've run the seagate FULL diagnostics on the drive and all seems fine...

I can mount and explore the .TIB image also...

I've tried using a different Seagate 400gb drive and it fails also...I removed the 400gb drive and used a smaller drive and the .TIB does seem to be validated OK...

The problem may have something to do with using large internal hard drives for the resulting backup files...TI-10 working with my controller card (adaptec 1200A) might also be the problem...I'm not using the RAID functionality, simply using it as a normal PATA IDE card...My recovery boot CD will not work with a drive attached to this controller card either...

Greenwing

 

Anyone from Acronis seeing this thread?

UPDATE:

I went back to XP/MCE 2005 and TI-9 to verify that all worked fine there before my Vista install and TI-10 install...

Sure enough, the same drive and controller configuration worked and the backup validated...

That eliminates the disk drive and the controller card...

XP log attached

Greenwing

 

Hello GreenWing,

It's always best to also raise a formal technical query through Acronis Customer Service as per the instructions in the forum sticky titled <PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU POST>.

Regards

 

Thanks...I filled out the form yesterday...

[Acronis #924433] Backup of Vista drive will not validate...

Greenwing

 

Good to hear. Here's hoping you receive a satisfactory follow-up response from Acronis Customer Support shortly.

Regards

 

Here is the reply from Acronis: I don't think they even read the above detailed description of the problem...

Got to be better support than this?

Private email removed. No private emails allowed without permission of sender. - Ron

 

Since the Acronis "canned" email response to this issue was deleted, I will try to summarize it...

Their canned (cut and pasted) response was: since the validate does not work to an internal hard drive it has to be a hard drive cable, hard drive, HD controller, or a RAM memory...

If the backups of my system worked perfectly and validated perfectly under TI-9 and XP, and I have eliminated the hard drive, controller and RAM as being the cause, then what's left besides the ACRONIS software and Vista?

There are several threads open here about folks having validation problems...

GreenWing

 

Greenwing, rather than pursue the validation problem and since you have some extra drives, why not Recover the Image to a spare drive and see if it works. Because of the possibility of a false positive with validation, the only true test is to see if a restore will work. I never do validations but I do test the Images by restoring.

 

I do complete drive backups every night via a scheduled task...How do I know the backups are OK if the validate fails...I can't reboot my system and restore my hard drives every day...

Greenwing

 

True, but once you gain the confidence that your Images will restore correctly you can then just test the Image by restoring, say, once a month.

 

My concern would be that a future problem gets introduced and the archives are truly corrupted...If I had to recreate a drive the images might not be usable...

The images mount, and can be explored...Why can't Acronis validate the images? If they validated, as they did under XP just fine, then your suggestion of trying a restore every now and then would be OK...But I have to much data to loose to take a chance...That's why I have been a long time user of Acronis...It's worked great in the past...

Greenwing

 

Hi again GreenWing,

If not already done, log into your Acronis registered account and download/install the latest build (4940) of TI 10 (remember to create a new bootable rescue CD after installation) .then create/validate a new image and see what happens

Regards

 

I downloaded and tried build 4940 the day it was released...

Does TI-10 produce some type or log that indicates the reason a backup image fails to validate?


GreenWing

 

This is weird one and the fact TI9 and XP works seems to point to a SW problem.

I am troubled by the fact your recovery CD doesn't work with your controller card and this would render the restore process useless unless you change controllers for a restore. Can you do that and hook the drive directly to the MB for testing?

Does the Vista event logger's System Log or other log files, I assume it has one, show anything relating to HD or other system hardware when you do the validate or on bootup?

It is not impossible that you could have a bad RAM location since I doubt very much that the Vista and XP memory mapping and utilization are the same. Since you are at the end of your rope, let memtest86+ version 1.70 run overnight and really flog it.

TI validates archives by reading all the data in the archive and computing checksum (or sums, I don't know if there are more than one). This number is compared to the checksum(s) stored in the archive when it was created. If the numbers don't compare exactly it gives the corrupted archive error. You can see why everything has to be perfect you have an archive of several billion bytes and if one bit is wrong it is declared corrupt.

Users often wonder why the archive creation process doesn't show errors yet fails on validation. The principal reason is that if TI can understand the destination disk structure it will read it and create the archive. It writes the data to disk and all is well. I am not aware of any disk check after writing in Windows. Also, if there is bad RAM in an area of memory that is used for data there is nothing that tells the PC that the RAM is bad. If it is in an OS executable area then when the CPU instructions are garbage or the program is told to jump out of its legal memory range then it can flag a problem.

 

I am also concerned the controller card keeps the rescue CD from booting...I assume that the CD is missing some driver...It's a RAID controller card but I do not use RAID...I'm just using it as a secondary IDE controller...

I went to the point of putting a different (smaller) drive in the system on the same controller and TI-10 will backup and the archive will validate...So perhaps it is some type of problem with the combination of the 400GB seagate on that particular controller card...

Vista does a lot of disk activity for volume shadow backups, restore points, cache, etc when the Acronis task runs at 11:00 pm each night...TI-10 does successfully backup and validate my non-operating system drives correctly...

I can get around this problem by putting my 400GB seagate on the other IDE controller or by backing up to one of my USB hard drives...

My biggest concern is why isn't Acronis support more helpful in figuring out what the problem really is?...I'd like to be able to trust my backup procedures and software...It's a nightmare getting my system re-installed from scratch...

Greenwing

 

Grasping at straws (again). Is the drive that works with the card less than 137GB by any chance? If so, is there anything you have to do to enable 48 bit LBA addressing for the Adaptec card?

 

I took your suggestion and let the memory test run all night long last night...End result is zero errors...I think RAM has been eliminated as an issue...

Greenwing

 

Hi GreenWing,

I've read through your posts carefully. Here's my take on the problem. The failure to validate is probably due to the interaction of the Adaptec driver under Vista with TI10. Did Adaptec provide a Vista driver or did you have to use the existing XP driver? The fact that you can mount and explore the image means it is not corrupt. TI has had problems with falsely reporting corrupt images on validation since the introduction of TI9. At build 3567 of TI9, a new engine was introduced to address this problem. At the time it helped greatly. Since then, as hardware has gotten faster, the problem is getting much worse. It would appear that speed is the reason why you are able to validate with a smaller drive. I bet the Seagate 400 GB drive is faster than the smaller drive you used.

You should try making a BartPE disk with the TI10 plugin and the Adaptec XP driver. This will help you with two issues. First, you will be able to see the drives attached to the Adaptec card. This will make it possible for you restore the image. Currently, you have no way of restoring your system partition. Second, you may be able to validate under BartPE because you will be running under a Windows XP environment using the same Adaptec drivers that worked with your Seagate 400 GB drive and TI9. There's no guarantee because TI10 may have more problems than TI9 with the validation process. Have you tried using TI10 under Windows XP? If that works, it's a good bet BartPE will also work.

 

Hi Mustang:

The controller is rather old...Vista did not have a new driver for it nor does the adaptec support website...For vista, I installed the same driver that I had used previously in XP...Since I'm simply using the card as a second IDE controller, the current driver should be fine...

It is pretty obvious to me that there are indeed a lot of validation problems being reported, which is why I am surprised Acronis is not making this a very high priority...

Since most of the new typical home users converting to Vista will not have a decent Vista full volume backup/restore utility, Acronis has some potential to sell a lot more copies of their software...

I'll try to get the time today to go back to XP and install TI-10 and backup XP to the 400GB drive...Better yet, I will try to back up and validate the Vista boot partition...

Thanks for the suggestion...

GreenWing