Problem with SATA?

Last week I bought TI for my new computer. TI seems to successfully create backup images, but I can't be sure since it fails to restore them. I've studied the FAQ, User's Guide, and Helpfile.

Could the problem be an incompatibility with the two new SATA drives in the system? (Western Digital 36 GB Raptors, 10k RPM. The rest of the system consists of a P4 2.8 GB, XP Pro SP1, the latest MSI 875P Neo-FISR motherboard, 1 GB RAM, and a Lite On SOHW-812s DVDRW drive which writes CD-R 40x.)

Windows installed perfectly on the first HD and works fine. I also have a second installation of XP on the second HD. I can boot to either one at bootup. It all works fine.

I've created multiple partitions on each HD:

HD 1:
C: System
D: Data

HD 2:
E: Swap
F: Backups
G: XP 2nd installation

(I suppose multiple installatons of XP could be problematic, but it's a lot easier to test XP installations if I have an extra one to experiment with.)

So here's what I did: I made a backup image of the 2nd XP Installation and saved it to the Backups Partition. Then I tried to restore that image to the second XP partition. It failed, with an error message that said "Failure to write to Sector 0 of Disk 2. Retry, Ignore, Ignore All?" Retries didn't work. Hitting "Ignore" produced similar error messages regarding other sectors.

I thought maybe the problem had something to do with restoring a system partition, so I made an image of the Data Partition and tried to restore it, resulting in the same failure to write to the HD.

So I went to the Acronis site and got the latest build (613) and went through everything again. Failed.

I also tried to make a bootable rescue CD. The computer failed to boot from the CD. The bootup got as far as "Acronis loading..." and then a "Boot Failure" error message came up. I tried burning another CD-R, same result. Then I tried it with a CD-RW. Same failure.

Finally, I tried setting up a "Secure Zone" just to see if it might help, but once again the program failed to write to disk.

So, I sent an email description of the problem to Acronis Friday morning. Now it's Monday evening and I have received only their auto-response.

I know that many people are happy users of the product -- I'd like to be one of them!

 

Well, I still haven't heard anything from Acronis, by email nor on this board. I give up. I'm putting in for a refund from the eBay vendor who sold it to me by download. Going to try Drive Image. I think I'll return the Disk Director Suite, too, since it's going to bother me whenever I see the word "Acronis" on my system.

What a disappointment.

 

Hello --

I apologize for the delay...

Could you please download Acronis Report utility available at http://www.acronis.com/files/support/AcronisReport.exe and run it, create a report and send it to me (ag-at-acronis.com)? This would provide me with information on the hard disk partition structure.

Thank you.

--
Best regards,
Anton Gromov

Acronis, Inc.
395 Oyster Point Blvd. Suite 213
South San Francisco
CA 94080 USA
http://www.acronis.com/

Acronis... Compute with confidence

 

I emailed that to Acronis support five days ago. I've already ordered a different product and I've started the refund process with the eBay vendor.