TI will not backup in Windows

Windows XP Professional PC. Pentium 4

Maxtor 2 harddrive connected by Firewire for backup.

This PC is part of a 3 PC network.

Even though I have (successfully) changed the harddrive in this PC, (which the Intel diagnostic software said was failing with many bad sectors and needed replacing(it certainly WAS very flakey !)), with a larger harddrive of same kind, and completely "restored" it from a TI backup, TI STILL refuses to do a complete new backup from Windows, giving error E00070021 *Cannot access drive .... running applications .... or bad sectors" etc.

I've "killed" every running program either with EndItAll or by hand, disconnected all networking, until Task Manager shows NO applications using CPU ( the only one which shows a CPU usage of 98 is the "System Idle Process" which Task Manager will not allow to be closed)

I have even run ChkDsk /f on this disk which should repair bad sectors if there are any (although I discount this on a brand new harddrisk),

There are no hidden partitions on the disk,

I HAVE HOWEVER, been able to do a successful backup by booting the PC from the Acronis Resue disk, but this is not a route that I want to normally take.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

(Is a backup using the Recovery Disk the same as one made through Windows ?)

Kind regards,

Ron Luxton

 

The backup is the same either via the Rescue CD or from within Windows. I always use the Rescue CD to make and restore my images precisely to avoid a situation like you have run into. My guess is that some update to Windows or other software is conflicting with the backup process.
What version and build number of True Image are you using?

 

Hmm... The end result is the same from within Windows or from the CD. However for speed and ease of use including scheduling and unattended backups the Windows way is far superior.


ronluxton,

It should be possible to trouble shoot your system and get TI working properly from within Windows.
Bad sectors on a brand new drive are not impossible especially if it has been roughly treated in transit. However if you were unable to repair all the bad sectors on the old drive they will have faithfully been reproduced on the new drive unless you used the resizing workaround.

Can your external drive be run via a USB connection? if so give that a try first.

Your approach of turning off "everything" that you could via task manager is not one that I would use. You have probably turned off some necessary Windows processes that are needed to run anything.
A better way is to run msconfig and first look at startups to see if any of them can be disabled. You should have a normal minimum of Trueimage monitor,Timounter and Schedhlp. I also have a firewall, Antivirus and a spyware service running.

Still in msconfig go to the services tab and tick the box at the bottom to hide all the Microsoft services. You could leave the Acronis Scheduler2 service running and disable half of the remainder.
Now if the problem has gone away you will know that there is a fair chance that the problem is in the ones you have disabled or Vice Versa. You could then repeat the process of halving the suspects or do them one by one.

That should be enough to get on with ! Though a removal and reinstall of any progam can often work wonders.

Xpilot

 

Ralphie,

Thanks for your interest and advice.

I'm using v10.0 build 4,8717 - about as up-to-date as I can get !

Comforting to know that the backup using the Rescue disk is the same as that from Windows even though (vide XPilot) it is slower and less convenient. As I usually sit waiting patiently for just complete backups or incremental ones to complete, I can accept that - at least for the time being !

Kind regards,

Ron Luxton

 

XPilot,

Your thorough and detailed advice is just what I need !

Now, why didn't I think of that ? I'm not sure what the resizing workaraound is, so I didn't use it, so I suppose that I now have bad sectors ?

ChkDsk /f is supposed to repair bad sectors usually but maybe it doesn't work with "inherited" ones ?

You've advised a big list of things I should do, and I shall do them all diligently, but this will take a while so I'll report back in a few days.

If ChkDsk /f[/COLOR cannot repair bad sectors here, what can I do ? A Windows XP REPAIR suggests itself ?

Kind regards,

Ron Luxton

 

Try using chkdsk /r -.

/f fixes bit errors, but /r looks at sectors and repairs + recovers the information in them.

You will need to reboot your computer for chkdsk to work.

Colin

 

Bodgy,

Thanks for the tip about chkdsk. I shall file that away in my "Important to remember" file (!)

xpilot,

I started out on the list of repair operations that you suggested, but the further I went, the more it became apparent that my whole setup on that PC was completely corrupt.

Having replaced the faulty harddrive with a new one and restored everything from a backup made from the faulty one, I guess that I merely transferred all of the problems - including the "cloning" of the bad sectors - to the new drive !

[How many users innocently do this i wonder ? Is it one for a "Special Warning" in TI ?]

So I took a deep breath and re-installed Windows XP from the original disk,ran SP1 and SP2, and I've spent many hours re-installing original software, updates, and copies of files. Some task !

There is much left to do but I've just made the first backup in TI - THROUGH WINDOWS ! - which has been completely successful. I guess that after more than 3 years my Windows software - and others - has accumulated so much rubbish that a complete re-installation was the bast way to go ?

Many thanks to you and to everyone who contributed to helping me.

Great forum, this !

Kind regards, Ron Luxton