Version 9 Corrupt images again

Acronis allowed me to make a second trial of Version 9 after I tried the old version and had many corrupt images.

One April 14, 2006, I made an image of my C: drive and selected DVD sized files. Verified the creation immediately after creating it and it verified OK. This was created and stored on one of my external hard drives and all files were in the same partition. It contained 4 files.

Verified again yesterday (April 15, 2006) and it again verified OK.

1. Today (April 16, 2006) I tried to restore a file from the images.

The message I received was "Please Insert Volume 1".

When I tried clicking on the first file in the set, assuming that it was "volume 1", it would not work nor would anything else that I tried. Could not "insert volume 1" because it was already there on the hard drive in the same place it was created. Retry did not work either and it was very difficult to get out of this cycle.

2. Next, I tried to "mount" the image. A message came back immediately saying "cannot assign a drive letter....".

3. Last, I tried to verify the image again. I assumed that it would verify since it already had been verified as being OK twice since it was created. This time, another error message popped up. It said "corrupt image" and blamed "poor media quality". This is ridiculous. The drive is working perfectly.

My machine will not run either Version 8 (wasted money) or Version 9.

Removed off topic comments - Ron

 

Create the bootable Rescue CD, boot with it and see if that works.

 

Also would be worth downloading and running <Memtest86+> for a few hours just in case you have some flakey/too aggressively timed RAM. There should be no errors reported at the end of the test.

Regards

 

I just tried the boot disk that I made a while back. It would not work on those 4.3 gig files.

Gave a message saying that they were not Acronis True Images files although they clearly are and still have the tib
file extension.

Next, I went to 2 old Acronis Images that are also on external USB drives but the file sizes are 700 MB. They both checked out clearly and I can restore data from them.

The files that I have the most trouble with are those that are larger than 700 MB and I suspect that if Acronis will look at those closely, they will find the problem.

Off topic comment removed - Ron Not sure how I will know though because they allowed me a second trial period so that I could try version 3657. It only took 3 days to find out that something is still wrong.

Somehow, after the images are created, they will verify OK and then somehow get corrupted even though they are not being used.

 

That may be your problem. If the files are created with the new build 3567 TI 9 Home the old version on your CD can't understand the new format. The new program (3567) can read old TI 8 and TI 9 images. Creat the B3567 rescure CD if you haven't.

 

seekforever

Thanks for the hint. After hearing about that, I created a new Version 9 boot disk and tried it. It did start out with the verification process but then gave an error and would no longer do anything. The error was

E0004000D "The file is corrupted".
Reason may be poor media quallity. Retry or Cancel.

Retry did nothing so I cancelled.

The media is a hard drive and yesterday and the day before, it verified OK. I was trying it every day because I have found that the images seem to deteriorate or get corrupted somehow as time goes on. I wanted to see if they had finally stabilized their images. Guess not.

Acronis Tech Support is excellent and I suppose that some day they will fix this.

Smaller file sizes seem to hold up but I am not sure enough of that over a long term to risk depending on them at this time.

 

Does the drive you have the image stored on get defragged perhaps during the time the image is created to the time it fails to verify? Defragging shouldn't upset the image but it has been mentioned.

Humour me and download this program, XCSC.exe (V1.0.0), it is a free checksum calculator available at:
http://www.irnis.net/free.shtml

Create an image, verify it and if it verifies OK, run the checksum calculator program XCSC on the file and record the checksum. When (if) the verify fails, run XCSC again and see if the checksums are different. The MD5 checksum is a good one to record.

If the checksums are different then it means something "physical" has gone wrong with your file; if they are the same and the verify fails then it is something to do with TI.

If it is a split image file, run XCSC on each tib file of the set and record the checksums.

Edit: I now don't think I can say that identical checksums on an image that fails verification definitely shifts the blame to TI since the file reading and calculating of the checksum is not identical to the way TI does it. What I am saying is that TI's method of reading the file could stress the sub-system more than XCSC. The real benefit is seeing if something does cause the files to be corrupted as evidenced by a bad checksum.

 

Hello DCM,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

As seekforever said above, you should run the eXpress CheckSum Calculator, specify any the .tib file on the external hard drive then click "Start" to create a MD5 checksum.
Then copy the same .tib file back to your internal HD and run the Checksum Calculator on the copied file to create another MD5 checksum, compare the two MD5 checksums and see whether they are the same.

Please also create the new image onto the internal hard drive (do not split it) and then verfiy it both in Windows and in rescue mode.

Please let us know the results.

Thank you.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

Hello DCM,

Ignoring True Image for the moment, there are a couple of well known reasons for image corruption that you should check out in the following order:

1) Bad or too aggressively timed memory. You can pretty well rule this out if your memory passes the Memtest86+ test that I mentioned in Post #3 above. If it does pass then move on to 2). However, If it doesn't pass then determine which memory module is faulty (assuming you have more than 1 stick), change it and retest with Memtest86+. Once the memory passes the Memtest86+ check, create another image on your external drive and see whether it verifies correctly. If it does then all well and good. If it doesn't then carry out the compatibility test in 2).

2) Incompatibility between your motherboard's USB subsystem and your external hard drive enclosure's USB to IDE bridge chipset. This can be checked by following the first part of Tatyana's advice i.e. create a MD5 checksum for a large .tib file on the external HD, copy the same .tib file back to your internal HD and create another MD5 checksum from that. If the two checksums are different then there is a hardware compatibility issue which needs addressing.

Regards

 

seekforever

I just shut off the Memtest program after 8 hours and 44 minutes. It made 9 passes with no errors and was still going.

Next, I am going to create some new images and then run the checksum program on them. It will take a few days because my experience has been that the images become corrupt after 2-3 days of sitting unused.

Thanks for helping and I will post again when I am done with the next stage. Hope that doing this will either fix my installation or provide data and a clue for Acronis to fix the program if it is broken.

 

I await your results with interest! I was thinking it might be good to run the checksum calculator a couple of times on each file just to make sure you get a consistent reference checksum recorded (it should always produce the same checksum number).

 

Another couple of issues which I have found can cause problems:

(a) Hard drive cables.
Try swapping cables with another set of cables to reduce the likelihood of a faulty cable.
If you have IDE drives ensure that you are using 80 wire connector cables not 40 wire cables (count the wires not the pins).
Also the recommended maximum for IDE cable length is 18inch (45cm) - if you have longer cables try getting shorter ones. Longer cables may work most of the time but are a possible cause of occasional problems.

(b) Logical file structure
Run chkdsk /f , possibly more than once, until chkdsk reports "no problem".
If still have problems with TrueImage try chkdsk /r also.
Sometimes chkdsk fails to report (and consequently fix) some errors.
You might find that other utilities, e.g. PartitionMagic, might also experience problems. If so, then it might be worth re-creating your system on a new partition (or disk), reinstall all software and use Windows to copy all the data files. This way you get a 'clean' logical file structure. You might also find problem data you can't copy, null files, etc which might be the cause of some of your problems.

(c) Disk media
Run manufacturer's diagnostics on hard drives.
If using CDs or DVDs then try several different brands. Use best quality well known brands. Check out websites such as www.cdfreaks.com for reviews of disk media. Maybe they have a review of your CD/DVD drive, if so cdfreaks usually give detailed analysis of media they've tried with the drive. All brands (or disk media product in same brand) are NOT the same!

(d) Drivers
Ensure you have the latest reliable drivers and BIOS for your hardware. Search the web for info and other user comments. For example, you might find that there are known issues with your motherboard which might account for your problems.

 

seekforever

I encountered a problem. I have never run a checksum program before.

After downloading the checksum software and starting, I cannot figure out how to tell it to check specific files.

Had the same problem with several other checksum programs.

This is only happening because I don't know what I am doing but want to learn. Can you help?

Thanks

 

Hi DCM,

Download the self extracting xcsc.exe file via seekforever's or Acronis Support's link and extract the xcsc checksum calculator.

After that, just run the xcsc.exe file and follow Steps 1 & 2 as per the Screenshot below.

Regards

 

Menorcaman

Thanks for the help. I was able to get it running after your explanation. Your program screen is much different than mine with that software.

Mine is supposed to be the latest version but is in black and white and has a grayed out box in the upper right hand corner for browsing.

Earlier, I looked at it but did not click on the grayed out buttong to browse for the files. If I had, it would have worked.

The first file I tried was in that corrupt image containing four files. It was created about a week ago and verified successfully on the day of creation and the next day. The third day, it verified as being corrupt.

I tried one file with 4.2 gig and the other with 7228 KB. They each came up with a message saying

"This file does not contain any known valid checksum information".

Next, I tried the program on an image that I created in November 2005. It has verified as OK many times in that period and I have restored some data from it from time to time. The files in this image are 700 MB each.

The checksum program came up with the same message on these files so I ran the Acronis verification again and it still verifies OK.

I do not know what this means but this is what happened to each of these images.

I am going to try to find another version of the checksum program too. Yours looks much nicer than mine.

 

Perhaps you downloaded the checksum verifier program rather than the checksum calculator? The calculator program IIRC is below the verfier.

 

I did download the verifier instead of the calculator. After downloading and running the calculator on the four files that became corrupt after sitting for three days, it worked well.

Next, I ran the verifier and it said that two of the four dvd sized files had incorrect checksum values.

After that, I tried to run the calculator on the 10 smaller files (700 mb) in the image that has remained sound for the last five months. It seemed to run OK but never did create a "md5sum.lst" file like it did for the image with larger files. The verifier did not indicate that it had started but after trying to exit, I found that it was running in the background.

I exited and gave up on that until I figure out how to run these two programs properly.

I am going to create another image without any limitation on file sizes and see how it holds up.

 

I don't know how the verifier operates. The checksum calculator calculates the checksum of a file and it should always get the same number if the file is intact. My intention was for you to run the calculator on each tib file of interest and write the checksums obtained on a piece of paper with the filename for later reference. To be certain, I would do it a couple of times on each file to make sure it is consistent. In other words forget about the checksum Verifier program you downloaded.

When the TI verify fails then you will run the calculator again on the failing image file(s) and see if you still get the same checksum.

You can also do as Acronis suggested and copy the files from the backup disk to another disk and compare the checksums of the original file and the copied file. They must be the same if the copy was good. This is a good test to do since it brings some extra parts of the disk sub-system into play.

The calculator calculates 3 different types of checksum for the file if all the boxes are ticked. You really only need one of them and the MD5 is probably a good one to record. Note that even a 1 bit change in the file will make a much larger change in the value of the checksum.

 

I can't remember which program it was but one of the checksum programs recommended by Acronis last year had a bug which caused it to calculate incorrect checksums for large files.
I found AccuHash 2.0.17 which seems to work OK for me.
I just downloaded it for free and used the feature limited version (didn't register). You can also buy the full version.
I haven't tried the latest 2.0.18 version.
Download from http://www.accuhash.com/download.html

 

I did another image of my c: drive tonight on my external USB 2.0 drive and ran the checksum calculator. Then, copied the image files to my internal hard drive.

The checksums are the same today. Will continue checking.

While waiting for the checksums to calculate, I had a thought. I was wondering if a poll might be in order to see where everyone is having this problem. It could ask about the drives ie: internal/external, usb/firewire/ ide/sata, file sizes in the image ie: CD size/DVD size, or unlimited, operating system etc. Maybe it would bring some common denominator to light.

I don't know how to set up a poll or I would try it. Someone more knowledgable might do a better job though.

 

This morning, I validated all my files. This included the ones on the external USB 2.0 drive and the internal hard drive. All verifed OK.

I expected this because in the past, this is what has always happened after creating an image. After the second day, the images begin to fail so I will try again tomorrow.

Validation is very time consuming because you have to be there to start the process for every file in the image. It would be nice to have a batch file or some other way to start the validation process and have it validate all the files in the folder so that we don't have to either sit and watch or come back every 15 minutes and start the cycle over on the next file in the image set.

 

I don't think that is correct. Just select backup1.tib and TI will verify the entire archive AFAIK. I don't think you have to select the first image file just any one in the set. The verification utility verifies the ARCHIVE.

 

Hi seekforever,

You are absolutely right. Select any .tib file from a particular archive set and TI will validate the whole image in one go. No need to repeat the validation for each individual .tib file in the set.

Regards

 

Hi Menorcaman,

Thanks for the confirmation. It will be interesting to see what happens with his images in time but DCM certainly has given them a good dose of verifying by selecting each tib file!

 

I have been checking the two identical images every day. So far, neither of the images has corrupted as has happened in the past. Maybe the newest version has solved the problem of deteriorating images.

The original was created on an external USB 2.0 drive and after verification, copied to an internal hard drive (second of two IDE internal hard drives in computer).