new user requests feedback

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by bubbainmiss, Aug 28, 2005.

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  1. bubbainmiss

    bubbainmiss Registered Member

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    I purchased & registed the boxed CD version of True Image 8 and have been very disappointed so far. I've had problems with installation, the "invalid file size" message when trying to image a drive and with updating, but I'm trying to remain patient & work through those w/Acronis support and by forum searching before posting any of that to this forum.

    What I would like from this post though, is some feedback from experienced users. I'm running Win Me (I know, but it actually works pretty well after all the years of tinkering) with a 40 (37.2) GB HD. on a Dell sysytem. I'm trying to image to an 80 GB Lacie external USB drive that has been set up with two 40 GB partitions. My C drive has about 23GB used. The full drive image I made two weeks ago took over 7 hours. I started the verify routine but stopped it when it said it would run for 7 hours. After scratching my head over the assorted other problems I was having for two weeks, I decided to try an incremental image. When I finally got it to work, it ran for over an hour. When it finished, I went for the verification again. That took over 9 hours. The connection to my external drive is only USB 1.1. All the imaging and verification operations were made with all possible processes shut down. My question for this post is: are these kinds of times normal, or does something seem wrong? I was under the impression that with ATI, this was a comparatively fast procedure.

    Thanks for any input
     
  2. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    San Rafael, CA
    Hi Bubba,

    Well, you have a lot of stuff, 23GB, to image, and with USB 1.1 that will take one day less than forever, or at least feel like it. The problem is the slow USB.

    Since this system is running well, why don't you install a USB 2.0 PCI card. The one's that use the NEC chipset have proven to be the most reliable. Adaptec sells card with this chipset, but you can look at the card and see the NEC on the large chip if you find a cheaper brand.

    A USB 2.0 connection will cut the time by a factor of 10-20 in my experience. That should get your backup down well under one hour.

    Other alternatives are to backup to a network drive since a 100Mbps network is 8 times faster than USB 1.1 or install an internal hard drive.
     
  3. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello bubbainmiss,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    I would agree with jmk94903. The problem is most likely caused by the low speed USB connection.

    However, could you please try to create a new full image saving to any internal or network hard drive and see how much time does it take? Please inform me about the results.

    Please also find the full version name and build number as it is shown at: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/ and let me know them.

    Thank you.
    --
    Alexey Popov
     
  4. bubbainmiss

    bubbainmiss Registered Member

    Joined:
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    Posts:
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    Thank you for responding. And thanks to jmk94903 for the feedback.

    The problems I have experienced with ATI are very frustrating--installs that won't complete & hang the computer resulting in BSOD's and requiring numerous reboots. The E0007000F invalid file size error, over & over. I finally found a suggestion from a forum member to reduce my swap file size to defeat the latter, and that seems to have worked, but it leaves my computer very unhappy, so I guess I'll just have to go back & forth when I get ready to use Acronis. Having read that updating is the recommended procedure, I attempted to do that, but couldn't get the update to install. Finally managed that (it says) by installing from safe mode.

    So, to answer your questions, I'm now (as of an hour ago) using version 8.0, build 937, which I have not actually tried. The version I did run is 8.0, bld 791 (the build on the CD). In answer to your other question-- no. I have no network HD and I don't have another internal drive--that's the reason I bought an external drive and purchased your product. My personal opinion is that having to fool with changing swap file sizes back & forth and boot to safe mode to install updates is pretty hokey for a product that has been as highly touted as this one, but if it works, I suppose I can live with it...sigh :doubt:

    Perhaps you could answer a couple of questions for me though, since you're attempting to help. I plan to create an incremental image about every two weeks or so. Meanwhile, I'm using other software for data backups to the second partition on my external drive. The drive is turned off except when I'm doing one of these two things. Is it necessary to have "Trueimagemonitor" and "schedhlp" running at all times in order to do successfully create the disk image periodically?
     
  5. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    Location:
    San Rafael, CA
    It's very unusual to have to install TI in safe mode. I've never seen this problem. What memory resident programs (antivirus, antispyware, etc.) are you running.

    The problem with the page file size is also unusual. I've never seen that one either.

    Have you thoroughly error checked your hard drive and looked for bad sectors?

    As far as the memory resident parts of TI, I'd ignore them. They use very little in the way of resources and disabling them and re-enabling them isn't worth the effort in my opinion.
     
  6. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello bubbainmiss,

    Please note that we will need the following information in order to proceed with the investigation of this issue:

    - How much time does it take to create an image saving it to the external hard drive from under Windows?

    Please use the latest build (937) of Acronis True Image 8.0.

    - How much time does it take to create an image saving it to the external hard drive when booted from Bootable Rescue CD?

    Please use Bootable Rescue CD created using the latest build (937) of Acronis True Image 8.0.

    - What is the size of the actual data you are imaging?

    - What is the size of the resulting image archive?

    - The exact vendor and model of your external hard drive.

    Please also do the following:

    - Create Acronis Report as it is described in Acronis Help Post;
    - Launch Acronis Report Utility once again and select the "Create Bootable Floppy" option;
    - Insert a blank floppy disk in the A: drive and proceed
    with creation of the bootable floppy;
    - Boot the computer from this diskette and wait for
    report creation process to finish;
    - Collect the report file from the floppy;
    - Rename the report created from under Windows to report_win.txt and report created using the bootabale floppy to report_diskette.txt.

    Please keep your external USB hard drive connected while creating these reports.

    Send all the collected files and information to support@acronis.com along with the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

    Thank you.
    --
    Alexey Popov
     
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