True Image 10 Home 2009 and certain RAID device incompatibility

Long post, but posting this in case it helps anyone else diagnose a problem with certain RAID hardware and True Image. I did not find any hints to this incompatibility on the Acronis Knowledge Base site, and the Live chat folks I talked to did not give any clues about this potential issue.

I spent all day yesterday attempting to solve a problem with TI 10 hanging when trying to do a backup. I had 3 live chat sessions, each of which ended up with a feeling of being further from getting my problem solved.

I had separately found this forum from a Google search about True Image and Backup Location. After my live chat sessions and no solution, I paged through the forum messages and finally got a clue which helped me to solve my problem, although with an undesirable workaround.

The background to my issue was some system hiccup which resulted in XP continually rebooting on start up, and would not even get into safe mode without a BSOD message. After weeks to failed attempts to fix finally installed new motherboard, CPU, RAM, video, power supply.

The previous XP install and equipment was running TI 10 without any problems, including creating new backups.

The new motherboard has 1 IDE channel. I had 2 IDE hard drives, two IDE DVD drives and one IDE CD drive. So too many devices for too few connections.

I happened to have a PCI controller card. I bought this for such a purpose. I did not focus on this being a RAID controller, since I never intended to use this for RAID 1.

I had been using the new setup which had 2 IDE drives and 1 DVD drive and 1 CD drive on this PCI controller card since end of November. XP was working fine, Acronis Disk Director was working fine. True Image mounting of existing backup files was working fine.

My problem started when I wanted to create a new backup of the new C drive. I have TI 10 and when I got to the Backup Archive Location screen TI would only show the Desktop icon and not drives or folders. TI would then be hung, and even Task Manager could not stop the task. Other PC functionality such as Windows Explorer, Start menu, etc. would also be hung. End result was the need to reboot.

The 2nd chart session requested I create Bootable media. I found this menu selection also hung. Called back into Live chat. The 3rd session suggested I uninstall TI 10 and install TI Home 2009, which I did.

Turns out TI Home 2009 would hang on the first screen about 1 click backup. So this would not even allow me to get to some other screens to review existing backups. Very frustrating.

I then read a message from Formula99 on Dec 6th message title "Here we go again.... SCSI RAID Not supported AGAIN".

This got me thinking. My PCI Controller was showing in XP as a SCSI RAID controller. Had not given this much thought before.

I uninstalled TI Home 2009, did a restore point back to the point between uninstalling TI 10 and before installing TI Home 2009. Did some manual registry cleanup. Then re-installed TI Home 10 (build 4942).

Rebooted and observed the same Backup Archive Location hang, which was expected.

I then removed the two IDE cables from the PCI Controller, rebooted, and now TI 10 showed the drives in Backup Archive Location. Yeah, at least I had found the root cause of my problem.

I then only connected the IDE cable for the DVD/CD drive, thinking this may not load certain drivers. No luck. TI 10 Backup Archive Location was again only showing Desktop and was hung.

So my work around is that I am not able to use my PCI Controller card. This means some devices cannot be used. I am now having to mount one of my drives in a USB enclosure so that I can back this up and then stop using the drive.

It is strange that Acronis Disk Director can handle the RAID SCSI devices, but TI cannot. The fact that TI Home 2009 hangs on the first screen is scary. I will not be upgrading to this product any time soon.

 

Hello tyke53,

Thank you for your interesting in Acronis True Image

In order to investigate the issue with BSOD under Windows create support request and attach the following info. Please do the following in order to enable mini-dumps:

- Right click on "My Computer" and choose "Properties";
- Go to "Advanced" tab;
- Go to "Startup" and "Recover Settings";
- Choose "Small memory dump" in "Write debugging information" box;
- Close all the dialog windows by clicking OK buttons.

Now, please reproduce the system crash and send us the mini-dumps created. This will allow us to investigate the problem thoroughly.

Best regards,
--
Dmitry Nikolaev

 

What's the card in question and whose chip does it use for a controller?

 

I'm having similar difficulties but with a VISTA 64 bit OS.

I have a RAID 0 configuration and TI 2009 does not find the RAID array when booting from the recovery CD.

Even worse, after installing TI 2009, I was getting BSOD and reboots although oddly, the timing seems to vary quite a bit.

If I recover back to pre-TI 2009 disk image (using Vista backup since TI 2009 won't recognize the RAID), the problem goes away.

Somewhat disappointing to say the least

 

Hello gregm56,

Thank you for using Acronis True Image

Please collect the following information:

1. Please do the following under Windows environment in order to enable mini-dumps:

- Open "Start";
- Right click on "My Computer" and choose "Properties";
- Select "Advanced system settings" item;
- Go to "Advanced" tab;
- Go to "Startup and Recover" Settings;
- Choose "Small memory dump" in "Write debugging information" box;
- Close all the dialog windows by clicking OK buttons.

Now, please reproduce the system crash and send us the mini-dumps created. This will allow us to investigate the problem thoroughly.

Please be aware that the %SystemRoot% value is the location of the operating system folder. The default path on a clean installation depends upon the version of the operating system. By default in Windows NT 5.1 (Windows XP) and newer versions it is \WINDOWS.

2. - Open Start\Programs\Accessories\System Tools\System Information;
- Choose the "Save" option in the "File" menu (or "Action" menu under Windows 2000), enter the "File name" and set the field "Save as type" to "System Information File (*.NFO)";
- Send us the saved file.

Contact our Live Chat service here and have the collected information at hand.

Thank you.

--

Oleg Lee