True Image 10 not acceptable - slow

Hi at all,

a few days ago, I purchased True Image Home 10 and installed it on my new system:

C2D E6850
2GB Ram
500GB S-ATA, partitioned in C: 100GB, D:400GB;
ASUS P5K Deluxe

I want to backup my system with my new software but it doesn't really work. The operation needs almost 45 min for a backup of C: or even more and after that, when I check the file, it says "There's an error in the file".

I'm really f*** up because it doesn't work - and what is a backup programm good for if it is not possible for it to backup my system - that's its only task!
I already regret having bought this one.

 

Try to slow down and make sure you’ve covered the basics by reading the directions, FAQs, and this forum for awhile. Most here started off confused and wondering wth when things went upside down. What I do is make the “C” partition around 20Gs and store most items on other partitions. It takes about 1 minute per G to image. Make sure the image is not being sent to C, better another drive. Occasionally I’ll make an image that won’t validate so I trash it and make another in less than 6-8 minutes. HANG IN THERE.

 

Full backup does take some time. I use both TI and another backup program and the other one takes longer than TI to do a full backup to another internal drive, so TI wins that race. If I remember correctly because it's a scheduled task and I'm not around, I believe TI takes around 30 or so min and the other one around 40 min to do a full backup of a 120GB drive with around 55GB of data. I don't know of any program that will do a full backup in short time.

That said, the other program has a superior defrag that takes quite a long time to defrag because it does such an excellent job; you must reboot and surrender your PC while the defrag runs. I defragged around 55G yesterday and it took about 1 1/2 hrs, but when I looked at the drive using the MS Defrag analyze, it was a solid chunk of blue with one thin line of green. Programs load really fast after the defrag.

 

Well, the HD is completely new and no other processes are running while doing the backup.

There's still the other problem apart of the slowness: every produced archive is broken when I check it. Why do I buy software that does not do its only task?

Have you got similiar problems? How can I solve the problem?

 

I assume you have made sure you have the newest build installed?

When you say the archive is broken when you check it - are you refering to it failing validation?

Have you tried creating an image using the recovery disk? If not, give this a go. It will help narrow down the problem.

 

Yes, these archives fail validation. And I won't be able to restore them.
No, I haven't tried it yet using the recovery disk, but I will.
But that's not the great solution for this software as it had been designed for being installed on a computer.

 

Are you backup up a partiton on one Hdisk to anotehr partition on the same Hdisk? If so, that will roughly double the time it takes to back up since the reads and writes are both occuring on the same Hdisk. How many bytes of space are used on the source drive? I can backup 80 GB from one Hdisk to another with ATI 10 in less than a hour.

sh

 

Yes, shieber, both partitions are on the same harddisk.
I've just tried to backup from the recovery cd and - well, no problem! The backup process took 12 minutes and no error in the archive, when I validated it. I checked it from the recovery cd once and afterwards by using the installed version. No problem at all.

But it is quite uncomfortable to restart the pc everytime I want to backup my system.

 

Since the backup and validation worked from the bootable Rescue CD, your initial problem with the software is probably due to something running in the background in Windows which does not terminate when the Backup process shells out to Linux to start backing up.
Do you have GoBack or InCD installed?
Do you have anything scheduled to run before Windows shuts down - like a virus check?

 

No, neither GoBack nor InCD nor a virus check. I don't have a virus program yet.
The Application of my soundcard is running in the background, also the driver of my graphics card. The Windows Update also, but that's it. It is a clear system. The browser runs from a USB Stick.

 

This is the first time I have heard of shelling out to Linux to do a backup within Windows, certainly Linux is used in the recovery of an active partition. Is this true?

This problem where the CD version works and the Windows version fails is not the usual experience with TI. The long backup times indicate that something is running in the background or perhaps this time the Linux drivers are better than the Windows ones but not very likely.

We know bad RAM will cause validation failures so running memtest86+ for a number of hours or overnight wouldn't be totally pointless. This could be a problem in the Windows version and not the CD version because of different memory mapping.

Since it is a Windows environment issue trying the latest drivers, the snapapi.dll, might be useful.

Do the Windows Event Viewer logs, particularly the system log, provide any insight?

HaraldMenza can take a bit of comfort knowing he can make a successful backup and validate it with the CD even though it isn't the most convenient - he should be able to restore his system if necessary but that won't be known for certain until a test restore is done.

 

As far as I know, TI only goes into Linux when it reboots to do the procedure. Otherwise it uses the Windows version of the program.

 

I thought I read somewhere way back when, that when you start True Image from within Windows, and it does its reboot thing to start the procedure that it is then running in a Linux shell. I never use TI from within windows so I can't really be sure.

 

When you say shell it makes me think of encapsulation. Like TI is running Linux encapsulated inside Windows.

TI doesn't do this. When it reboots, it boot fully into Linux (just as if you booted from the TI CD). This is where a lot of people get into problems because when they reboot they find TI doesn't work correctly. Basically, if the TI CD won't boot and run correctly in Linux mode, then any operations started from TI in Windows that require a reboot will also not run correctly.

 

For disk images as I understand it:
It reboots into a "total" Linux environment when it is doing a restore of the active partition, usually C, because it cannot restore the partition Windows is running in with Windows running.

If you are just doing a backup of any partition or a restore of a data partition it is all done with Windows if you start in Windows.