Corrupt disks when writing to multiple CDs

I have been using TI for a couple of weeks now and am having problems with removable media. I have not had any trouble when writing to internal or USB connected hard drives backing up either partitions or file sets. When backing up directly to CDs I have also been able to do file backups (I have not tried partitions) either full or differential, as long as the backup does not require writing on to a second, third, or subsequent disk. Whenever the next backup requires the insertion of another CD, the first CD becomes unreadable. TI knows it has reached the end of the CD and correctly prompts for the next disk. The file on the last CD is always correctly named and numbered (e.g., ...2 if on the second CD) and the last CD always remains readable. But any CD, where TI has written to the end, produces an error when I next try to insert it into the CD drive. The error message indicates that the CD has errors and is unreadable and asks if I want to run scandisk. I am using TI V9.0 Build 2323 and am running Windows XP Professional SP2.

Has anyone encountered a similar problem?

 

Part of the official response will be to download the latest trial version. Be that as it may, using CD media with TI is stacking the deck against you. Stick with your external hard drives for all your backups.

And if you want to burn certain files to CD, use standard burning software to do so and you will not get bald prematurely.

 

Thanks for the response, but the reason I bought TI was specifically to be able to create encrypted backups on removable media. I just want it to operate as advertised!

 

Hi trayer,

TI 9 Build 2323 is two builds behind the drag curve!! Do yourself a big favour by logging into your acronis.com account and download/install Build 3567. Amongst other things, 3567 has a completely new imaging engine for both disk/partition and files/folders images and may well overcome your problem.

Regards

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I have now downloaded and installed build 3667 and there is no change to my problem. If I try a file backup larger than a single CD size, the first CD becomes unreadable.

 

I never directly write to CDs or DVDs so pardon me if my comment is misguided. Do you need to select a split size when writing to CD in this manner and if so, what size are you splitting at?

Personally, I would write the backup files split at the correct size to another partition, Verify with TI, copy tib file(s) to CD or DVD and then use the burning programs "verify after writing" to ensure I had a quality backup on optical disk. This is the so-called "2-step" method and IMO provides a lot more confidence in the backup than direct burns.

 

Thanks for the comment and suggestion. My understanding of the documentation is that the program will automatically split the files when writing to removable media and this seems to work as the second CD has a volume 2 file correctly created on it. This file is readable until I then use this CD again for a subsequent backup which happens to be larger than the remaining space on the CD. Then this CD becomes unreadable.

I know I could create the backups first on local disk and then write them out to CD but the program is advertised to write directly and thus I should be able to do this. It seems to be a rather straightforward feature and should work correctly!

 

Do you have Archive Splitting set to Automatic in Options?

 

Yes the archive splitting option is set to automatic.

 

I used to image directly to CDs with a previous version without problems. But I never used the last unfilled CD to store the start of the next image. What happens if you write to every CD only once?

 

I didn't mean to confuse anyone with the comment about adding files to the last CD but this is what I was trying to do when following up a full file backup with subsequent differential backups. The point is that any CD (either one that starts clean or one that already has files on it) becomes unreadable when TI writes to the end.

 

Don't remember seeing an issue like this one.

Did you try disabling all other burning software running in background (like Roxio Drag-to-Disk), as well as Windows' native burning tool? Just an idea.

Addendum: There have been reports of such conflicts, but up to now they always manifested in preventing the burning of Rescue CD to start at all.

 

Hello again trayer,

True Image calls each .tib file a "Volume". When creating an Incremental or Differential to an image that's already spanned over multiple CDs/DVDs, do you start off the backup process by inserting the disk that contains the last created Volume (.tib file) first? See this <previous Acronis Support reply>.

Regards