Error- corrupt .tib (Can't recover data)

I installed TI-11 several months ago & purchased a second internal drive to create a nightly backup of my data using TI-11. I created a backup location in TI-11 that pointed to the backup drive, then used the Task Wizard to create a daily backup of the data. I then validated the data after it performed the first backup, and was even able to double-click on the .tib file in Explorer and see the files.

Several days ago my C: drive went bad. I removed the bad drive & installed a new one; then installed Windows & TI-11. I am now wanting to restore my data. I can see a backup1.tib file on the backup drive. When I double-click on it or try to restore it with the wizard, TI-11 reports an error, that "backup archive file is corrupted". (See attached screen shot)

I also updated the version of TI to 8053, and tried restoring from TI boot CD, with the same results. I don't know what went wrong

 

Did you try mounting the image to copy the data?

When you reinstalled Windows (I assume you didn't make an image backup of your C drive. That's unfortunate because you could have restored the image and had exactly the same installation.) are you sure you installed all the motherboard drivers that were installed originally?

 

I tried mounting the image, since that was the recommendation in the error description, but I got a similar error about it being corrupt.

The computer is a Dell 4600. There really aren't that many drivers needed to install it. I installed video, network, sound, and Intel chipset drivers from Dell's website, and all Windows updates. The PC seems to work fine.

It was a big decision I had in making the backup... Image the whole drive, or just the data. It seemed that the data was the most important and took up much less space. Plus, I figured that if anything ever happened, that a fresh copy of Windows would be in order. Little did I know it would be several months later.

I am usually really good with this stuff and it seems that this should be pretty straight forward and not this difficult. I really would like to get my data back. If I can't, then I really can't trust to use this software again for this purpose, because it will mean to me that it is unreliable.

 

I received a response from Acronis technical support, that I don't understand. They wrote... "We may recommend you to try to explore this backup archive and to restore the data by copying it."

It sounds like they mean to try opening the .tib in Explorer and just copy the data. I tried both the recovery console and just opening it with Explorer. That is how I obtained the screen shot above, but maybe they mean something else?

 

Do you have or are you able to make a partition on you new drive ? If so then try copying the "corrupt tib" to that partition and then try restoring from there.
It may be that the problem is with the external drive or the cable ? Acronis can be funny with externals.

 

eeknight,

There are several things about this that don't quite seem right to me.

In Post #1, you say:

Then, in Post #3, you say:

This sounds like you created a "Files & Folder" (Data) backup and not an Image (My Computer) backup. Files & Folder backups can't be mounted.

In addition, Post #1 displays the backup filename as Backup1. I'm assuming you have extensions turned off because the .tib shows up in TI's folder box. When using Backup Locations you don't assign a filename. TI will assign it a filename (based on the date and time) and it won't be something like Backup1.tib.

So, if this was backed up to a Backup Location, why does it have this filename?

TI is also saying that the Backup1.tib file is not the Last Volume. Do you remember if the size shown for this file is correct or if it was larger before or had multiple parts (was split into multiple files)?

 

In response to Long View's post... The backup drive is a SATA internal. I used XP's disk manger to create the backup drive's partition and format it.

In response to Mud Crab's post... My decision was to only backup my data, not to create an image of the entire drive. Specifically all of the data in, "Documents and Settings", since I wanted to make sure I got the data for all users.

The first thing I ran was the Backup Wizard. It asked what I wanted to backup and I chose "data". For the next step I chose the folder to backup as "Documents and Settings". One of the next questions asked me to specify a backup location. It was looking for a location and wouldn't let me choose next unless I specified a .tib file. So I thought I must not have set a backup location. So I exited and selected the option on the left that says "Manage Backup Locations" and chose "Create Backup Location". I pointed this to my backup drive. Instead of running the Backup Wizard again I realized that I wanted the backup to actually be a scheduled task so I ran the Task Wizard and answered all of the same stuff, but this time when I got to the question about backup location I chose the location of the backup drive and I think I entered "Backup" as the name. The program then backed up the data, and after it finished. I went to the backup drive and selected the file and was able to see the data. I then verified the data and assumed everything was ok.

Extension aren't on, but the backup1 file is a .tib file. I don't remember adding the 1 to the filename. I thought I just called it backup.

I don't know why it is saying that it is not the last volume? That has me perplexed as well.

 

Is it possible that my main drive went bad while the data was being archived?

The reason I say this is because as I installed TI-11 on a different computer in my house to learn more about how it operates. I set the program to archive onto a backup drive that didn't quite have enough space. The program started archiving and created 6 .tib files with data in them, but couldn't quite finish the job because it ran out of space.

If I try to open any of those .tib files I get the exact same error about a corrupt file. It made me think that maybe that night during the last backup it couldn't quite finish the job. I came in the next morning and the screen was blank from when the main drive had gone bad.

With this said...
1.) If TI-11 is just backing up files and not an image, is there any way to get the data from the .tibs? It seems like there should be a utility. If not then the program definitely has a weak link in my opinion.

2.) Is there a way to prevent this scenario? I mean if a daily data backup is being performed and I could tell it how many copies to store, then if the main drive goes bad while archiving I could at least go back to the previous night's backup. Kind of like on a DVR where it asks how many episodes of a TV show to keep before overwriting old episodes.

 

Hello eeknight,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Could you please let us know your Acronis request number (e.g. [Acronis #123456]) which was sent to you in autoreply to your letter? We will find out how the investigation of your issue is going. If you have not received an autoreply then please send us a Private Message containing your e-mail address.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

I notice that many of the threads on here end with Acronis support replying with "send us your Acronis Request #". To let everyone know to date my issue has not been resolved. My Acronis Request # is 1356257.

The latest things that tech support has had me try was to Boot with build 8053 Boot CD (.tib still corrupt) , Run Chkdsk on C: (passed), and run a memory test from Memtest.org (passed).

I suspect that my C: drive went bad while my image was being created, causing my problem. This is a lesson to people that want to ensure that your data is safe to generate multiple data backups, if your backup drive is large enough. I was thinking like a daily then separate weekend backup. That way if your main drive goes bad during daily backup, at least you have the weekend.

I will keep updating this thread...

 

Another lesson that ought to be learned is not to use backup software that stores your data in a proprietary format, locks you out of your entire backup when even a small amount of data corruption occurs and does not provide data recovery tools that would allow you to recover from such a situation.

Acronis True Image is an excellent program for imaging your system, but in my opinion it does not provide enough redundancy or error tolerance to justify its use in safely backing up data. There are plenty of other backup solutions out there that allow partial or even full recovery from data corruption. In a well-designed backup program, if data corruption affected a single file then you might lose part or all of that file, but the rest of your backup would still be fine. In comparison with Acronis, if a small amount of corruption occurs to a single Acronis .tib file then your entire backup can become permanently inaccessible. At the very least Acronis should provide a tool that allows for the recovery of data from damaged .tib files, and until they do so I will hardly be able to recommend their program for use as a data backup solution.

 

dantz - I think you exaggerate a little. The odds on one image failing are small.
The odds on 2 even smaller and so on. With a properly constructed set up the difference between proprietary and non are insignificant. For large data partitions imaging as far as I'm aware is much faster. If there is a file back up program that can backup 80 gig faster than Acronis or even more so Shadow Protect I would be interested in giving it a go.

As to the "one small error means all data is lost" view - this is not always so.
I have a number of images made to DVD on poor media where the image can not be restored BUT it can be mounted and nearly all files read.

At another level it has always seemed strange to me that someone will happily trust a program to work for their OS and then not trust it for data. Yes I know that data is more important - but there does seem to be an element of the irrational thinking here. Having made and restored in excess of 1000 images without issue I feel that my data is safe.

 

Long View, I normally would feel the same about software working, but having now possibly lost data after my main drive crashed and not being able to restore the data from True image, I feel a little different.

You are somewhat at the mercy of the program for scheduled backups because you are not there when it takes place. I have figured a way to create a .tib corruption scenario and I though about starting a different thread on it.

One way to generate corrupt .tib:
Fill up a backup drive half full, then use TI to try and backup data that is a little larger than the empty space. TI will create several .tib files then stop after the drive is full. Attempting to open any of the .tib files will report "Error- corrupt .tib". I suspect that Acronis must store some sort of index in the last .tib file and if for some reason that file doesn't get written, you are SOL.

For my parents backup I bought an external Maxtor drive and it came with a program to schedule backups. Not only does it save multiple versions of the data on the drive, but guess what? In the above scenario the files up to the full condition could be recovered.

 

Interesting that Acronis fails in this way.

Personally I just make full Images ( lots of them). I don't let Acronis make several tibs - just one is fine. No secure zone, no diffs, no incrementals, and no scheduling and this way it works fine for me. Hope you get a solution.

 

Mutiple .tibs are generated by the software once the backup data file grows over a certain size by default. I didn't choose for it to be that way, but I remember seeing an option that could alter that.

I also didn't choose anything fancy (i.e. incremental or diff). Mine was just a scheduled data backup.

The whole point of scheduling is so that I can set it and forget it, until my drive fails. The software just does its thing. If implemented properly I would then never lose more that a day's worth of data.

 

Hello all,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup software

eeknight, multiple .tib files instead one large file can be generated in two cases - if you've manually choose to split image file in the image creation settings or you're using FAT32 file system on your backup drive. In the last case there is nothing to do with backup software because it is forced to split an image file due to file system restrictions (maximum file size in FAT32 file system is 4Gb).

I've never encountered the situation then hard drive is going down during image creation process, but things happens and it's possible. The result would be the same as in your case - image corrupted and 'not the last volume of the image archive'. I would suggest you to schedule 2 separate tasks to create a full image, running every 2 days, so every day one image file would be created (you can use weeks instead of days etc). Using this approach you will be protected from the situation you've encountered.

Regarding

Usually we're checking the support case in question, adding necessary information and comments and looking for the reasons of delay if it was not answered yet. Usually all the conversation is going via e-mail so there is nothing to add to the forum thread.

Thank you.
--
Michael Levchenko

 

I've been using Acronis for years and have never found the backup function to be reliable. Sometimes it works great, other times it doesn't. Even backups that passed a Verification won't open. There is know way to read any of the data in a corrupted backup because of the proprietary compression and Acronis's failure to provide a utility that can read it!

That said, I agree with Dantz that Acronis is an excellent tool for creating Images. I just can't rely on it to backup selected files.

The aggravating thing is that Acronis tech support has always acted as though this is not a problem. A search of this forum proves that it has been an on-going problem through several versions. Their final advice is always "Version XX will fix that problem". But the problem still happens far too often, and they still do not offer a utility for recovering data from a corrupt .tib file.

 

Have you checked for hardware error ? even a bad usb cable can result in an image failing to restore. The fact that sometimes it works great and other times it doesn't should give you a clue to what you are doing differently. Not all corrupt images are really corrupt and can be restored or at least mounted on other hardware. Even copying from a DVD or poor external to a partition has been known to fix a "corrupt" image.

 

I have different versions of Acronis... I have 9 and 11 and workstation and home.. I have also used Max Blast 5 ... which is the same program... but each one of these are different... in other words... if I make a backup with version 9 and then start using version 11 or make a backup using version 11 and try to restore from the cd using my acronis true image v9 interface... then ....

it may give me different error messages... like this is not an acronis image file or it might not let me highlight the file... when I try to put the focus on the file the interface would freeze up...

It said that both my good backups were corrupt... I reinstalled Acronis 11 home version ... rewrote my acronis management partition which has the F11 function.. and then my backups worked just fine... Not sure if this will help anyone else... But it fixed my problem and I made a mental note.... PS Acronis does not work on CD's or DVD from my experience .. I put the tib file on a seperate partition... and use 1 tib file full restore...

 

TI versions prior to TI11 cannot read a TI11 archive - the format was changed. TI11 should be able to read TI9 archives at least if it was made with one of the later TI9 builds since its format is the same as TI10. Acronis says that it guarantees backward compatibility at least one build back. It seems to be more than that as a rule.