(TrueImage 10/11) Notification of External Drive state?

I have TrueImage 10 Home. I had 9 also. I am thinking about getting 11 if it fixes this for me.

I have an external USB 2.0 hard drive connected to my PC for backups that I perform weekly. Frequently I have this drive power off because I like it quieter in my office when I am working.

The problem: When the drive is powered off, True Image runs it's scheduled process and just logs some error messages. There is no notification to let me know that it can't find my drive and maybe Reconnect & Retry. So I end up missing my backup.

Once in a while I have noticed the TrueImage icon in my tray show up when my drive was powered off. I tried powering it on, but it wasn't recognized in time.

Any Solution:
Is there something I can do in my version of True Image 10? Or upgrade to 11, that will notify me if my USB drive is disconnected/powered off. A messagebox on top that will allow me to power up my drive and (Retry or Cancel)?

I'm not going to leave my drive on all the time.

 

I thought that perhaps somebody (I don't) who does scheduled backups might have a solution for you.

An easy way would be to schedule via the Windows scheduler a message to pop up telling you to plug in the drive several minutes prior to the scheduled TI run. You can schedule Notepad to display a file msgfile.txt which contains the "plug in the disk" message. (Notepad.exe C:\msgfile.txt)

There are the Pre/Post commands in TI10 and you might be able to write a batch file to detect if the drive isn't plugged in and inform you. This might be more elegant but also more work.

 

In all my tests, I could never get this to work. Any pre-command script runs just fine, but all programs launched (such as NotePad) or programs launched by the program run a Processes ONLY and DO NOT DISPLAY any windows. They also do not show up in the Applications list in the Tast Manager.

If you run the task manually, then it works perfectly. It seems to have something to do with how TI runs pre-commands on a scheduled task.

You may get around this by doing something that does not require a windows. For example, play a WAV file that says "Plug in your Drive so the backup can run", but you'd have to set it on a timer because you'd have no way of stopping it. If you didn't plug the drive in in time then the task would fail.

 

FYI.. I contacted Acronis support. I guess there is no way to do this. Maybe sometime in a future release..

 

I've been thinking about this problem and there may be a workaround for it, but I haven't had time to try it yet. If it does work, I'll post it.

I have not tested TI 11 with this problem yet. However, I suspect that it will probably behave the same way as 10.

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EDIT: I have tested TI 11 and it does behave the same way.

 

I would work round this problem in a different way altogether.
I would make scheduled backups to an internal drive preferably separate to the one being backed up.
Then when it was convenient to power up the external drive copy thereto the image that was recently made.

That way you would also have the necessary,to my mind, extra copy of your backups on a different medium. At copy time you could take a break or go out and buy some fresh earplugs .

Xpilot

 

That is my preferred method of backup although I always do manual, full archives.

 

Xpilot and seekforever,

I agree with you regarding the procedure. However, some people don't have room on an internal drive for a backup. Also, in another thread where this exact problem was being discussed, the user was actually switching between several different USB hard disks and needed to be notified if the correct one was plugged in before the backup took place. In this case, there are multiple backups being stored on multiple drives, they just are all external.

The problem is that the "normal" methods of notification work just fine when run manually, but when the task runs scheduled, it fails.

 

Yeah.. I am running this on a laptop with limited drive space. So I can't run this on my laptop.

I used to do this on Ghost (Scheduled with it popping up notification that the drive wasn't ready), and it would work. It is the only thing I miss from Ghost (definitely the only thing!).

 

Treat your self to a bigger drive in the laptop.
You know its worth it !

Xpilot

 

Hello all,

Thanks to everyone for sharing your knowledge.

mogulman
Please note that Acronis True Image does not support interactive commands in Pre\Post operations, so it is not possible to show any window or message when tasks is running. Our developers are working on this issue and we plan to implement it as soon as possible.

We recommend you to use Windows Task Scheduler in order to show the desired message for some time before the task is started.

Thank you.

--
Oleg Churkin

 

Meaning what? Sometime in the next two years? Maybe...

mogulman,

I worked on this some last night. So far it looks promising. I have successfully enabled manual "interactive commands" (despite Acronis's answer) and should be able to enable the process automatically as soon as I get that part written.

I'm hoping to include both a user defined message and manual/automatic continuation after the USB drive is plugged in. Also, if the drive is already plugged in, then the user will not be asked and the backup will proceed as normal. That's the goal, anyway.