Images for multiple DVDs not working

This concerns Acronis TI Home version 9 (Build 3.641)

There are various things I'd like to complain about, but I'll try to keep my temper down, and state things as they have happened.

First off, and regarding making an image spanning several DVDs:

I ordered Acronis TI Home Version 9 to save time; I thought the DVD burning direct from Acronis would save me time. (Up to now, I've been burning the tib files with Nero.

I did a burn of the C partition, which fit on one DVD. Things seemed ok.

Then I did a burn of the D partition, which was pretty big. Acronis asked me to feed the DVDs, and after each was burned, it was spit out, and the program directed me to label the volumes 1, then 2 etc. Feed another DVD and push the continue button.

Things worked well until the third disk. Halfway through that one, Acronis spit out the DVD (and didn't mention anything about labeling), and asked me to re-insert volume 1. I did. Then, after a pause while the DVD was being read, the disk was spit out, and I was asked again to insert volume 1.

The only option I had here was to continue--or to abort. I had to abort.

The message number of the instructions to insert volume 1 was W00040011, if that means anything.

OK. I did this series twice: I fed a total of three DVDs into the drive, and the third one was truncated in the burning, and I was asked to insert volume 1 again.

Result: lots of burned DVDs, but no effective backup.

I suppose one could say, well, go back to Acronis 8. After all, that was working for me. But no, that was gone too. It seems that when I upgraded to 9, version 8 was written over.

So now, I'm faced with not having a workable Acronis package, as the old one is gone, and the new one has a bug or something.

To add insult to injury, I'm in Germany, and when I first ordered the Acronis version 8, I did this from Germany with no hassle. I'm American, speak English (although I'm fluent in German), and prefer to have my OS stay in the English language when possible. But no, I had to get the German language version.

Now it seems to me that there are some mistakes here:

1. If I want the English version, I shouldn't have to use the German-language versin.
2. If I upgrade, somebody should give me the option of retaining the older version so that I can use it if needed.
3. The new version should work. I was careful in everything I did; I read the instructions (although some of them in German seem to have been translated in parts kind of quickly (I've very fluent in German, so I can tell).

However, I'm ticked. This kind of software has to be 100 percent. It's the mainstay of data integrity. I can't afford to have the SW make mistakes here.

FWIW

Has anybody else experienced these problems?

(As an aside: I have notified support, and I'll be reporting back in here, when I have results.)

-- John

 

Hi jbooth,

Unfortunately, yes, many of us have had problems trying to burn direct-to-dvd with spanned volumes.

Here is a lengthy thread that you might find helpful, titled:
Re: TI 9.0 Build 3677 Direct To DVD Imaging - NO CHANGE!!

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=137764

You may want to return to burning images using the 2 step process, with Nero.

It seems that the issue is with concurrent validation when burning direct-to-dvd. If you need a workaround at once, you might try burning to dvd without checking verify upon completion. Then, you can verify the images later.

I agree with your frustration. We need this software to work. It's our precious data at stake. So, please, Acronis, do only what you can do that works. Leave the rest to others. If Acronis True Image is to be what it claims, the most reliable backup software, then stick with reliable.

Many of us, and likely millions of other customers, will sing your praises!

 

Re: Images for multiple DVDs not working--worse news!

Well, I tried, but the product failed--again.

I did everything that people suggested, particularly with the recommendation to wait for writing verification. I repeated operations of imaging for a partition requiring only one DVD. That seemed to work.

Then I, again, tried to make an image directly on a (spanned) set of DVDs. Acronis told me, again, to insert DVDs, label DVDs, and informed me of the progress being made. 1, 2 and 3.

When the process was through, I then decided to verify the writing. I did this for the C-partitioned data that was written to on one DVD. Acronis said the verfication was complete. "Hey!," I said to myself, "Gee. Maybe things will work out now! Great!"

My entusiasm was premature.

I couldn't get the DVD file of the spanned set activated in the selection menu. I tried several times, but something was wrong.

Then I checked the DVDs outside of Acronis. No wonder the first disk was hard to read: nothing was written to it! Nothing was written to the second DVD. Only the third DVD had the third image part. (Although the DVDs now read (in Win Explorer: Acronis data).

Result: Again, I'm not able to write an image spanning disks--regardless of whether or not verification is requested during or after the writing.

And, what is very serious: Acronis was telling me that things were working well--when they weren't.

What I am going to do now is this: I will remove Home Edition Acronis TI #9 from my computer system, re-install version 8 (which was obliterated by the upgrade), and (hopefully!) make an image of my computer's D partition.

I have used up over a dozen DVDs, spent money needlessly, have wasteed a LOT of time (getting me behind in other things), and I am a bit uncertain about the QM and Quality Assurance used by Acronis for its products.

I can say this: If I were asked to evaluate this product respective to a quality control review, I wouldn't give any thumbs up for this product. Maybe sombody could, but on the basis of my experience so far, I can only shake my head.

Sad story.

Bad news for some folks. Take it for what it's worth.

And by the way, in spite of having sent an e-mail to the US (here: English-speaking Acronis folks) and the German side (because I was forced to use the German-language version), I have not received any reply. Only you folks have provided any feedback.

Again, a sad story.

I'll try to get my money back, but quite frankly, I have my doubts as to how that will work out.

It's not really the money (the upgrade only cost about $29), however. It's the principle of the situation: Acronis puts "Computing with confidence" under their logo. I have absolutely no confidence about the TI version 9 home edition.

-- John

 

Hello John,

Early builds of TI 9.0 Home had a problem creating spanned images to DVD (amongst a number of other things!!). This particular bug wasn't fixed until Build 3666.

As far as I know the German localised version of TI 9.0 Home is still at Build 3641 (which you have). If you want to download and use the English language version of TI 9.0 Home Build 3677 then you need to contact Acronis Support at https://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/support/ and request they change your German language licence for an English one. See this previous thread titled <Stuck with the German language Version?>.

Regards

 

Say, a warm voice in the dark jungle of despair! Thanks for the tip and info! I'll do just what you suggest: I'll send a note to the Acronis folks and ask for an English (up-to-date) version. I'll give things one more try!

The idea of burning right away to a DVD, without clogging up the hard disk sounds like a logistical time saver. (Hope the verification process is less time-consuming though: my goodness, how that process takes time!

I'll report back with whatever info I can on what happens.

'nuther point at this time, however: I mentioned my trials and tribulations to a PC friend of mine (a IT guru), and he recommended that spanned DVDs are not the way to go. He recommended my making tib files with Acronis, and then using Nero to burn on DVDs, one phase at a time: find what "fits" on the DVD, and then burn. Then burn the rest on another DVD. Then, later on, if one needs the images, peel them back to the hard drive, and restore from the hard drive.

Any comments on whether or not spanned DVDs/media is a good/bad idea from the onset?

Again: many thanks for your input!

-- John

 

Hi John,

Yes, many of us prefer this so called two-step approach. But you shouldn't let Nero do the splitting of the image across the DVDs (if Nero can do that). You should set TI (Options) to split the image into DVD sized chunks instead and then burn them to DVD one by one. This way the image will be usable for restore directly from DVDs if needed. If the image was split by other means, the rebuild of the whole image file on HD before restore would be inevitable.

This method also allows to verify the image copied on DVDs faster. I use the CDCheck program to run a bit-to-bit compare between the original (split) files on HD and their copies on DVD. It only takes about 7 min per DVD.

 

Thanks for getting back to my question!

What I have been doing is this: I let TI make the image, but I specify a 1.2GB size. (My IT guru suggested that after we experimented a bit.) Logic? In 1.2GB "chunks," one doesn't have to worry about a chunk not fitting a DVD, as the 1.2 GB will allow the greatest writing size without going beyond any limit. I.e., one is guaranteed that the writing will always fit a DVD, as one is using a size that can be incremented (via burning of another 1.2GB "chunk.")

We tried various sizes for the image file size criterion before settling on 1.2, as it ended up giving us the least hearburn when sizes were made. Larger chunks resulted in "lost" space or runover.

The only disadvantage is that one has to manually "fit" the burning of TI-made images to Nero. But there is no problem there: what I do is just start off with three tbi files (running at 1.2GB)--if I have that many, and then once that is burned, I go to the next set of 3 or less--if there aren't three left over. The idea: always blocks of three.

Then I carefully label the DVDs "1 of __", "2 of ___" so that when the entire burning is over, I know to put a 2, 3, 4 or whatever on the dashed line.

The absolute first step, of course, is to have TI make the images on a separate hard drive that I have in my computer system (Partition E). This way, I don't have to run into the problem I had a while back (before having an extra drive) when I put C images on the D partion, and D images on the C partition.

Once the files are on DVD, then my plan is to delete all images prior to the very last one. This way, the last one is available for quick call up if my system crashes. (With the last one being, of course, stored on DVD too.)

I think this matches what you have suggested above. Just checking here!

Now a last question (regarding this posting; you knew this was coming, right?!): does my "plan" seem sound? And if I store say, three tib files on one DVD, and say three more on another DVD (constituting, say, the entire 6-file image made by TI), can I use those two DVDs in a boot disk recovery of the images involved? Does TI "know" that if it only finds the first three files, that more will be coming?

And a last question: could I transfer those tbi files to a USB external drive at some time, and then recover the image for the PC by using the bootdisk for run up, and the USB-drive images as the image to be used?

The reason I ask this question, is because I had a problem reading images via Acronis (i.e., searching them) when I tried to do this with images that were not originally burned on the pc I was using. Somehow, there was an "file ownership" problem here.

Thanks so much for getting back to me with your additional comment!

Quite frankly, I think that the 2-step process (here: Acronis 8 and use of Nero) is the best bet: I have seen that if one verifies the files while burning with Acronis 9 home, it takes tons of time to complete! Even a verfication after burning (here: not verifying while burning) doesn't save time, and the verification for one DVD took about 40+ minutes!

With Nero, however, the burning is stable, and the verification of the burn is very quick.

So, to summarize my stance on Version 9: I don't think it's worth getting, even if I wouldbe able to get the English version, as using Nero is faster.

-- John

 

Hi again John,

Yes, some systems won't accept DVD-sized files. You described what is called the 2-step method quite well. To improve it somewhat you may type 1492 MB in the split size box, so as to fill a DVD to the brim with 3 files and still be under the 2 GB file size limit. Moreover, finalizing all the disks upon burnig is advisable too. Better forget the space left on the last DVD of an image set.

The DVDs created with such correct sequential compilation as you describe, will be usable for direct restore from them too. Any TI build will do that. You will start with the last DVD and TI will eventually prompt you for the next one in reverse order, up to the first DVD. Or, you could copy the files from DVD to any HD (internal or external) again and restore from HD after booting from the Rescue CD, yes. The (split) image files may be copied or moved at will, all to the same folder though (if split).

However, your opting for the 2-step method doesn't put away the language version switchover dilemma. As I gathered from this forum, not only are the German builds permamently behind the English ones, they also seem to be of some intermediate release (as far as implementations go) with relation to the English builds. That may lead to some confusion when seeking help here. And the German support seems to be far inferior as well. You may want to search this forum for "german" before making up your mind for good.

 

For what it's worth I believe I have seen an English-speaking German here in the forum trade the German version for the English. Don't hold me to it please; but it might be worth inquiring about with Acronis if you think it might help.

edit - here it was. Mioght try the email he used - mentioned at the end.

 

Another vote for the 2-step burn method. Like bvolk I also use 1492 MB for the split size. I do this for all my images even if I know I'm not going to copy them to DVD with Nero; "set it and forget it". I also always use the Nero "verify after burning" feature just in case I have a dud DVD blank.

As far as I'm concerned direct burning to DVDs is nothing but an uncontrolled hazard. With a burning program like Nero you can set the maximum burn rate and various other parameters if you wish. My experience validating an archive on DVD is nothing but a slow death. If I have some way of copying an archive from DVD to a HD before restoring it, that is what I would do to save lots of time.

After you create your image files on your other partition, you can indeed copy them to an external HD. The archive files are just another file albeit rather large ones.

If you use an external HD, make sure you can access it with the TI rescue CD and restore an archive from it before you really need to. Some USB chipsets are problematic so make sure you do a real test which means a real restore. You can do this safely since you have an image on an internal HD to fall back on if it fails.

I always keep a number of images on my backup partition and only copy selected ones to DVD as an extra line of backup. My primary backup is the images on my second internal HD. If your backup partition is on your primary HD then you will have to be a bit more careful in case of failure.

 

Thanks again bvolk--and detox and seekforever-- (not to forget Menorcaman and Christopher NC. You folks have been right in there, with your kind words and good advice.

Anyway, there was only one thing I wasn't sure of, that you wrote, bvolk: "Moreover, finalizing all the disks upon burnig is advisable." What do you mean by "finalize?" (I looked in the TI 8 PDF User Manual, but the term isn't there.)

Thanks again, for all your help. If any Acronis folks are watching this thread, I can say this with an honest heart and well-meant intentions: your German support (regarding the distributor where I bought the product) sucks. (Roughly translated from an e-mail I got from the distributor: "Gee, we're sorry the product doesn't work for you. Well, sometimes this happens. But we sure can't go into details about how it works or why it doesn't work; I mean we only sell this stuff. And we can't switch your German version to the English-language one. You had best go to the manufacturer and register a complaint.!)

And the way the auto-switching of registration, contacting etc. jumps in, is very user-unfriendly: I tried to send a note to the American Acronis folks (because the German distributor said they couldn't help me in getting the English version of TI Version 9 home, and I would have to go to the US side on this.) So every time I wanted to send a note to Acronis support, I'd have to enter my email address, and because it has a ".de" on it, I was getting switched to the Acronis.de side--where everything, natch!, is in German, and those folks probably can't help me anyway, as they deal with the German version--not the USA version, right? And so, hello Catch 22. The only thing that worked smoothly was the cashing in of my credit card data, which, for some reason, does not give me the warm fuzzies.

Again: I have no problem with German. I married one. And I'm fluent in the language--except when I have to explain to my wonderful wife why I'm spending so much time lately juggling DVDs, cussing a bit, and sometimes giggling in the corner of my office (stress can do that to you; I'm a psychologist, and should know).

In brief: if I want to contact USA support, then let me do so. If I want the USA-type/version of your products, let me order that--and get same. From what I have learned here, the German versions are trickle-downs, which don't have all the goodies and smashed bugs of their American English counterparts.

And probably more important: have your system do what it is best designed to do. I'm not an expert on this stuff, but I do know when I understand the dynamics behind a problem: Acronis is good for image making. Nero is good for burning. What's the saying? Leave to Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar?

Again, folks, vielen Dank (many thanks) for your kind help. Appreciate it very very much. Once I'm into what finalize means, I think I'll be where I want to be regarding image backups.

-- John

 

Hi again John,

I'm glad to hear that one thing worked smoothly...

Well, let's think positive, as you would probably say.

The finalizing is done by Nero. It's also called closing the disk - nothing can be added to the DVD after it is finalized and that is the most compatible and transportable state of data on DVD. On second thought, Nero probably did that for you by default as you had the impression that 3 files of 1.2 GB each did fill the DVD. A finalized DVD would show zero free space in Explorer even if it is actually not full.

Enjoy your True Image.

 

I don't get why Acronis' "direct burn" to DVD's is causing this many problems for people. There is Freeware programs out there that burn to CD/DVD with No problems at all, but yet...Acronis has a very serious bug that won't allow the "direct burn" feature to work.
This really should be addressed immediately. There really should be a warning on the web sight to warn of this disasterous problem. They should warn people that if they're not careful when trying to Restore from a DVD (that was made with Acronis Direct Burn), they could actually delete the entire C:/ drive off their computer....IF the DVD fails to read during the attempted Restore.

But However, it's strangly ironic that you can take that very same file that was made by Acronis' "direct burn", and Re-Copy it to another DVD using Nero, OR copy it to an External HD....and it will work just fine!

My opinion is Acronis' Burn Plug-in is burning to the disc way to fast. There is NO speed select to allow you to choose a slower burning speed. They just need to tweak this software in the DVD area to allow you to choose a Slower burn speed. When they do that, I bet it solves the problem. You just can not burn a file that's 4gb at MAX speed. You're asking for reading errors everytime you do.

 

I think you have hit the nail on the head, and others agree with you also. It seems like an simple modification but an essential one.