Chokes during recovery setup, external hard drive

Using True Image Home 9.0 build 3633 I did a full backup up of 68 gigs of data from an 80Gb internal IDE drive to an external drive connected via USB. The external drive is formatted FAT32, so TI created seventeen 4Gb increments for the full backup.
Later I went to restore the image, and before getting very far into the process Acronis pops up a box that says "W00040011: Warning! Please insert media marked "Volume 1 (Retry/Cancel)"."
And the process pretty much doesn't go anywhere after that; neither retry nor cancel do anything favorable. Since "volume 1" (the first 4Gb increment) is right there on the hard drive and Acronis doesn't see it, there's not much more for the user to do. Apparently Acronis thinks we're dealing with removable media and is looking in the wrong place for it.
I was getting nervous so I tried mounting the image, but this yields the failure message "Cannot assign a drive letter to a partition from the backup archive." from Acronis.
Now I'm worried. What can I do to get the data back?

 

Hello bej98,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

I'm afraid that we have not heard about such problems of Acronis True Image before and therefore cannot suggest you a definite solution or workaround at the moment. I can only assume that for some reason Acronis True Image 9.0 Home recognizes your external USB hard drive as a removable media. However, you may try the following tips in order to solve the problem:

1. If haven't done already, try to restore the backup when your computer is booted from the Bootable Rescue CD.

2. If your external USB hard drive is connected to the computer through a HUB then try connecting it directly.

3. If it is connected directly, try using a different USB port.

4. Copy all volumes (i.e. ".tib" files) of your multivolume backup archive from the external USB disk to the internal or networked hard drive and try to restore the backup once more.

Please let us know if you are still unable to restore the image. We'll provide you with the further instructions in this case.

In order to avoid such problems in the future we recommend that you re-format your external USB hard drive to NTFS.

We also recommend that you download and install the latest build (3677) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home which is available for downloading in the Product Updates section of your account at Acronis web site.

You can find the full version name and build number by going to Help -> About... menu in the main program window.

To get access to updates you should create an account then log in and use your serial number to register the software.

Please uninstall the previously installed build by following Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs -> Acronis True Image prior to installing build 3677.

Note that you should create a new Bootable Rescue CD after installing the update.

If you are unable to re-format you external USB hard drive to NTFS for some reason or the same problem is experienced with the NTFS formatted USB disk and the latest build (3677) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home, please provide us with the following information:

- Create Acronis Report and Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post;

- Make a screen shot of Windows Disk Management by following Start -> Control Panel -> Performance and Maintenance -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management;

Please keep your external USB hard drive connected while creating Acronis Report and Windows System Information and making a screen shot of Windows Disk Management.

- Let us know the exact vendor and model of your external USB hard drive;

Then please submit a request for technical support. Provide the files and information collected in your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Hello bej98,

Probably not a good time to ask but are you prepared to do a test with your external drive?
If you arrive at the position that your image is not recoverable and you are about to reformat it to NTFS and lose all that data could you instead use the Windows convert command or a third party disk tool to change the FAT 32 system to NTFS. Neither of these should should actually lose any of the image and indeed the conversion might actually knit the split files back together again.

The operation will only take a few minutes though it will involve a re-boot. After that there is just a very small chance that the image may be mountable .

Xpilot

 

Excellent suggestion Xpilot. Worth a try with nothing to lose. Partition Magic would be my preferred software for the non-destructive conversion to NTFS.