TI 11.8035, another sector read error, NO file information reported, what to do?

Hi Everyone,

Going into month 6 now, on my second version of TI, and I still have yet to make a successful backup.

Typically there are "sector read errors" on disks that have no errors as reported by chkdsk.

The latest is a sector read error reported in sector 35,556,103. NO file information was reported. This is the part that really bugs me, since I do nothing but data backups of folders I created, containing my documents. Since these are file-based backups, why can't Acronis report file information when it runs into a bad sector?

The sector number does me no good at all because I don't know which file has a fragment occupying that sector. How am I supposed to know what file got trashed in the backup? What if it's an important file that I must have viable backups of?

Most importantly of all, what is the point of reporting an error and providing information that is totally useless in resolving the problem?

I should also mention that the disk I was trying to back up is not even my system disk. There's nothing on it but my document folders, "System Volume Information", and RECYCLER. I specifically deselect the latter two folders from the backup so they cannot be causing the problem. Acronis should be accessing document files in the active partition ONLY, where chkdsk reports NO errors.

Plus I ran into the usual frustrations trying to do something about the error. I went into the help file to find out how to validate a backup archive. I've done this in the past but forgot how. Anyway, I forgot something else: there's NO search function in the help file. The contents folders must be expanded and manually searched for items requiring help.

There isn't even an alphabetical index!

How can this program, rated so high as a backup solution by CNet et al, have so many design and function issues?

Fortunately I've been making xcopy backups of critical data in parallel to make sure I don't lose anything Acronis can't handle. The message there is that xcopy can do error-free backups where Acronis can't. The advantages of Acronis are compression, organization, and easier handling of incremental and differential backups.

In xcopy, handling of the archive bits must be done manually with option switches and there's no visibility into whether or not you got the backup you wanted. The only safe way to use it is in update mode, which replaces backup copies only with newer updates. But hey, that's still pretty good considering that Acronis can't do the same backups without encountering some kind of inexplicable error.

Sorry to rant. I should ask if anyone has ever managed to figure out what's going on with these sector read errors when chkdsk reports no errors on the drive. Is there a way to find out which file(s) was(were) affected?

Thanks to all who took the time to read this long message,
Big Al Mintaka

 

1. Is this using ther Windows version or the rescue CD?

2. What switch did you use in running checkdisk? It is advisable to run it with the /F switch = chkdsk /F. This forces it to run at next reboot and fix the disk errors. You could also try using the /R switch, before running the /F as this will attempt to recover damaged information and forces chkdsk to read every sector that is on your hard drive.

Colin

 

I don't know whether this will be of any help to anyone - but I managed to create this problem for myself last night.

I have been running TI11 with no problems for a couple of weeks now, and the fact that I now have my large external disc for backups means that I can rationalise some of my partitions. Some of this reorganisation was taking place when the time came for one of my scheduled backups to start, so I quickly asked TI to cancel, and it remained in a sort of 'waiting to cancel' state until the partitioning operation was complete. Then the read error occurred, retry produced another one, ignore produced another, so I cancelled. The backup operation involved files on the disc which had been repartitioned, but the partition containing the files to be backed up had not been altered in any way.

By now, the time had come for TI to start its next scheduled backup, which involved exactly the same operation as the previous one, just to a different location , and it ran through without a problem.

It would appear to me that anyone having this read error problem, must have some software running in the background which is preventing TI from doing its job - I've seen something similar before with people having problems running Windows defrag because the had Kodak Easyshare software installed which was doing something it shouldn't.

Perhaps if everyone who encouters this problem were to have a really good look at what is actually going on in their machine instead of just slagging off Acronis, then we might uncover the real culprit.

 

RE Strangeman, "Perhaps if everyone who encounters this problem were to have a really good look at what is actually going on in their machine instead of just slagging off Acronis, then we might uncover the real culprit."

I didn't just "slag off Acronis". I've also been working with tech support on this and other problems.

They sent me two links to ISO images for boot CD. The first one started the backup job I wanted but reported a finish time of 28 hrs. I couldn't lock up the machine for that long. I reported this and they sent me the second CD image. That one was clearly a Linux shell and ran much faster than the first. But it still locked up the machine for several hours because I could not run the Windows shell during that time.

Then I tried using Acronis in Windows XP on a non-system drive. That's when I experienced the sector read errors.

In addition, I have another machine on which Acronis consistently hangs during backups. I am presently working on a solution with tech support using versions of the SNAPAPI drives.

So you see, I have been working on these problems both in the forums and with tech support. In fact if you search on my user name you will see posts going back many months.

Perhaps if everyone who encounters a post they don't like were to have a really good look at what is actually being reported instead of just slagging off the poster, then we might get some work done around here.

Big Al Mintaka

 

Hi Bodgy,
I used the Windows XP version and two versions of the boot CD that were recommended by tech support. RE chkdsk, I ran it with the /R switch the first time around. The disk is 250MB, so you can imagine how long it took when it got to checking the file system!

As far as running with the next reboot is concerned, chkdsk set itself up to do that and prompted me to "restart now" or "restart later". I restarted right away to get it over with.

It's something I should probably be doing more frequently anyway, just to be on the safe side and to be certain that I'm not throwing Acronis any curves with sectors that are actually bad.

The two ISO boot CD images they recommended acted somewhat differently. The first one reported an ETA of 28 hrs! I told tech support that I couldn't lock up the machine for that long, so they pointed me to a different version of the ISO image. When I ran that one, the information on the screen suggested that it was running in a Linux shell. Anyway, that one reported a much shorted ETA, but still too long for me to lock up the machine.

In order for this to work for me, I need a solution that can run data backups while the machine is in use in Windows XP. I don't have any options in that regard, unfortunately.

What's gotten me so piqued about this whole thing is the amount of time I've spent trying to get a backup solution with Acronis. It seems that every time one issue is either fixed or worked around, another one crops up.

I've gotta tell ya that the option I'm avoiding is upgrading to Vista and using the built-in backup that comes with it. It's supposedly a real backup solution, as opposed to NTBackup, which just seems to cram all the files into a single archive file with no compression at all.

I'm avoiding Vista because of the all the postings I see in all sorts of different application forums about the problems folks are having getting their programs to run with it. Also, the upgrade advisor reported a whole host of problems I would be having with my audio-video toys.

Are you using Vista with Acronis? I'm going to look around here and see if other Acronis users are going that route.

Regardless of all that, thanks for the tips about chkdsk. I sometimes run it in a utility shell like Tuneup 2008, which makes it a little easier to deal with the switches. It's also easier to log the results.

Have a good one,
Big Al Mintaka

 

Sorry Alan, I wasn't meaning to get at you in particular, it's just that there seem to have been a few threads relating to this problem which haven't been very constructive, I guess I just chose the 'wrong' one to respond to.

I myself am interested to find out what's causing the problem because it crops up on another machine which I occasionally look after for someone. From what I have seen on mine it doesn't appear to be a disk problem.

What I would like to know is - if you schedule Acronis to run a backup on shutdown, will the backup start after all other processes have been cleared out of the way ? I just thought that if it did, then that might point towards a conflict with some other software causing the problem.

Merry Christmas

 

Hello all,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup software

AlanMintaka, could you please let me know your Acronis request # which was sent to you in autoreply to your letter? I will find out how the investigation of your issue is going.

Could you please also clarify if the error message pointing to the same sector every time you're performing backup operation? Could you please also try to backup drive with this folder (full backup of partition, not via 'files&folders' backup) and provide us with the result?

Thank you

--
Michael Levchenko