Corrupt/Can't Verify Corrupt Archives: Let's uncover the problem!

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by johnmeyer, Sep 11, 2007.

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  1. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    An image corrupt message means that TI can't successfully read the data from the archive and recreate the stored checksums. This validation process does provide the means to flag hardware problems which certainly can cause corrupt archive messages.

    The validation process, and while it is not perfect, it probably is a lot more rigorous than most other things. What other application writes a checksum for every256K of data? HDs do a CRC at the drive but once the data is on the buss it is not checked any further in normal operation. RAM data is not checked other than a cursory check on bootup which primarily is to see how big the RAM is. I've mentioned before but I think it was in Windows 95 release2, that Microsoft improved the bootup RAM test because most of the problems reported with the then new and popular disk compression was really caused by RAM.

    A regular PC is not a high-end server with ECC and various other schemes for improved data integrity. The basic premise is that the hardware is working properly and fortunately for us, it usually is. TI puts a pretty good load on a system with high-speed transfers of many gigabytes of data and as I mentioned previously, the data is checked when read into memory. Bad data in other types of application often is indicated by BSODs or other indications by jumps out of legal program space, lockups, or some bizarre behaviour.
     
  2. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    If you are having trouble validating archives then it is pretty risky assuming that the restore mechanism will work when you need it. If it finds it can't read the archive properly which is really what the "corrupt archive" message means, it will terminate the restore and you'll have nothing.
     
  3. Xpilot

    Xpilot Registered Member

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    I could not sleep easy with that. To wait until a hard drive failed and then find that it could not be restored is what nightmares are made of.
    My way of regularly restoring to a substituted hard drive before disaster strikes really works.
    Images are proved by restoration. Validations are not used.
    Because the current hard drive is never overwritten and is safely outside the computer when a restore is run the whole process becomes totally risk free.

    Xpilot
     
  4. EdC

    EdC Registered Member

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    I was not trying to disparage your situation. In fact, if you have a standard machine which does not exhibit any hardware fault whatsoever, you have never used software (such as Kaspersky Anti-Virus) that may wreak havoc with disk management utilities, and either your apparently successfully recorded ATI images do not verify, or successfully recorded and verified ATI images do not restore, with all operations performed in the same environment (whether Windows, ATI recovery CD, BartPE CD), then this probably means that there is a serious error within ATI itself.

    And this scares me.
    Laptop drives are usually encased in a frame within the laptop, and
    1. These frame modules are not readily available as spare parts (you really have to hunt for them), so it is not always possible to prepare a couple of frame+hdd combinations in advance.
    2. Exchanging the disks within these modules is not recommended (one should avoid manipulating disks all too often, because of electrostatic discharges and all that).
    3. Performing such substitutions may void the manufacturer's warranty anyway.
    I have never seen that approach of replacing laptop drives in corporate environments either (backups and images are done either via the network, or via attached external disks).

    Desktops are much easier, because there are practical pluggable hdd casings that allow one to put in and take out disk units easily.

    So what do you realistically suggest to normal users of laptops that does not involve physically manipulating the internals of the machine?
     
  5. parosgoat

    parosgoat Registered Member

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    Well I've just had a validation failure using Acronis 11 and I then tried validating 11 other .tibs, all of which validated OK at the time they were made and ALL failed.

    I'm buying some decent software.
     
  6. layman

    layman Registered Member

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    Think about what you are saying here. If you did, in fact, verify (using TI) that these images were okay immediately after they were produced, and now they cannot be verified, how do you reason that the imaging software is at fault? One thing about binary recording is that there's no such thing as a complicated bit. A verified disk image cannot decay in some way because its recording is more complex than a "normal" file.

    I started using Karen Kenworthy's Hasher to develop hash totals for checking my image files. This makes it possible to detect when corruption has occured, without TrueImage entering into the picture. What I found was that the files sometimes mutate during copy operations or as a consequence of defragmentation. I actually keep redundant copies of verified images so I have some recourse when an image becomes corrupted.
     
  7. MrBrian

    MrBrian Registered Member

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    That's a good idea. You can even do error correction instead of just error detection, using the software mentioned in posts #74 and #85 in this thread. I personally don't do this though, since I make two copies when I burn backups.
     
  8. johnmeyer

    johnmeyer Registered Member

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    You need to be careful with that line of reasoning. I have had exactly the same thing happen and it is what makes this whole thing so scary. I cannot explain why or how TI decides that an image is corrupt but I do know for an absolute fact that once it makes that decision, it will refuse to restore the image (if you did an image backup). As you point out, the bits don't just suddenly degrade; it is the software that is doing something that causes the problem.

    I've just gone through this with another software program, Sony Vegas, where for two years they were silent on an amazing bug that caused intermittent corruption on captured video files. What's more, the corruption was sometimes there and sometimes not, and some users claimed they never had the problem and would berate those of us who did have the problem, claiming that we had a virus or that a background process caused it, or we just didn't know what we were doing. Well, surprise, surprise, about two days ago, after two years of this, Sony posted in their support forum that the bug really did exist and they wanted help testing their fix.

    Will Acronis ever finally acknowledge and fix this problem? Well, they aren't Sony, and if they don't fix this, they never will be.
     
  9. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    As mentioned before, TI validates by opening the archive, reading the data and re-calculating the checksums pertaining to each 256K bytes of data which results in 4000 checksums per gigabyte. The re-calculated checksums are compared with the corresponding ones placed in the archive when it was created. Each one must match perfectly or the archive is declared corrupt. AFAIK, there is no attempt to make any "sense" out of the data; if the checksums are all correct then the data must be as originally written.

    It refuses to restore the data if there is a bad checksum since it assumes that the restoration would be garbage. Some users have expressed a desire to have the archive restored anyway or perhaps with some limits such as "if only 3 or fewer checksums are bad, do a restore anyway".

    The issue of a previously good archive going bad is interesting but also troublesome. Reasons certainly can be degradation of bits resulting from data being written on a marginal area of disks. The field is strong shortly after the bit is written but degrades sufficiently over time to be unreadable. One might suspect this problem to be more common with just one archive rather than an entire collection but it would depend on the layout of the archives on the disk and how large a marginal area exists. Given the high densities of bits these days the physical size of a marginal area could be quite small and still do a lot of damage. Chkdsk should be able to detect this problem though since it should not be able to read the data properly but one has to be careful with the number of retries that each application may do. This can result in one app being able to read OK where another may not.

    Other causes are problems with other software such as defraggers which move a lot of data. The more you move the more chance there is for an error and this is why I never bother to defrag a drive I store images on. It also has no real time-saving payback in the practical world.

    Could TI be the culprit in a case like this, maybe, but unless it is writing archives overtop parts of existing archives, I think not. Computers, given the same set of conditions, tend to do exactly the same thing, either right or wrong. So it is unlikely that TI would declare an archive valid and then turn around later and declare the same archive corrupt unless something had happened to the data or something has gone wrong with another component of the PC such as RAM. If this were my machine, I would do as another user suggested, record the checksums for the various archive files and then see if they have changed when they turn corrupt. Note that checksum calculators also have the same weakness as TI when calculating checksums - the RAM and other components have to be good or erroneous data can result.
     
  10. layman

    layman Registered Member

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    Well, actually a bit can degrade. My point was that an image file is no more complex than any other file, such that it is prone to degradation.

    The further point was that, if (for example) your drive is being defragmented, there is no guarantee that the integrity of the file has been preserved. This is an egregious failure of the operating system, in my opinion, but it is there nevertheless. I read somewhere that the OS does not do the same sort of write checking on a COPY operation as on a basic WRITE. I don't know for certain if that's true, but my personal experience makes me suspect that it is. This is why there are utilities like CopyLargeFiles from Gatherbird Software that can do copies with CRC checking.

    I have a defragger that allows you to stipulate that defragged files are to be placed at the upper end of the drive. On one of my drives, I can frequently corrupt a TI image by having it moved to the high end. Neither the hardware nor the software detects that a loss of integrity occurs. Crappy.
     
  11. rwt325

    rwt325 Registered Member

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    Gave up validation a long time ago. Found it took too long, and was not reliable anyway. I had images that failed validation restore correctly, images that failed to restore the first try restored on the second, and images that validated that I could not restore. Now I keep a few images of C:\ on a couple of external drives and take my chances that one will restore. I do not keep any data whatsoever on the C:\ drive.
     
  12. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    I am not aware of additional integrity checking doing a write from an application but I stand to be corrected. Disk controllers may have the ability to do a "read after write" for such a purpose but it only gets turned on by special diagnostic programs. Most diagnostics just write a known data stream and then read it back with a regular read and do a comparison. In normal use write-checking would make operations much slower and users typically consider anything slower to be inferior!
     
  13. EdC

    EdC Registered Member

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    I was particularly curious about claims that image corruption originates from improper file copies or defragmentation, and about behaviour differences between the Acronis Windows installation and the recovery CD regarding validation and restore. I therefore performed a few experiments on a 2004 vintage, but very stable and reliable setup: an old machine running XP SP2, ATIH 7.0, an external USB disk that has been used for storing backups.

    4 groups of images were considered:

    • One incremental and several full images, originally successfully recorded and validated with build 613 of the Windows ATI installation.
      Some of these images date back to 2004 and had been transferred from a disk that had started raising faults.
      All underwent a series of defragmentations in their history.
    • One full image, originally successfully recorded and validated with build 638 of the Windows ATI.
    • One full image, originally successfully recorded (but not validated) with build 613 of the ATI recovery CD.
    • One full image of a completely different machine (a DELL with two extra exotic partitions recognized as "FAT16-EISE" and "FAT32-Concurrent DOS/RTOS", and one NTFS system partition) originally successfully recorded and validated with build 613 of the ATI recovery CD. Defragmented a few times.
    The system itself from which images were taken in (A), (B), (C) had been heavily defragmented quite a number of times.


    Experiments.
    1. Re-validating set (A) with Windows build 638. Success.
    2. Mounting set (A) with Windows build 638. Failure.
    3. Mounting set (A) with Windows build 613. Success.
    4. Re-validating set (B) with Windows build 613. Success.
    5. Mounting set (B) with Windows build 613. Failure.
    6. Mounting set (B) with Windows build 638. Success.
    7. Mounting set (C) with Windows build 613. Success.
    8. Re-validating set (D) with Windows build 638. Success.
    9. Mounting set (D) with Windows build 638. Failure for all partitions.
    10. Mounting set (D) with Windows build 613. Failure for exotic partitions. Success for NTFS partition, but user directories are not accessible (access failure, possibly because of differences in user rights between machines).
    I did not attempt a restore.

    Observations.

    There is a quadruplet of parameters that apparently determine the success of a mounting (and presumably a restore) with ATI: Version, Build, Mode (Windows installation, recovery CD, BartPE), and System (the one backed up and the one using the image).

    • Imaging a machine and trying to use the image on another one is failure-prone (possibly because of OS configuration differences when mounting, and obviously the lack of HIR capabilities when restoring).
    • Different builds rely upon the same validation algorithms and check bits, but seem to create and expect different restoration data structures. This is intriguing; it might mean that the initialization of these data strutures subtly depends on the state of each build (or perhaps on timing characteristics), and frankly this is not good. Could this be yet another explanation why some people have problems with ATI? Did they update their version of ATI, and attempt to use images generated with another build?
    • Different modes of using ATI are fairly compatible, which gives me some confidence that I could restore the same machine with the recovery CD -- provided the image was taken with the same build, whether with the recovery CD or the Windows installation.
    An experiment relying upon an obsolete version of ATI and that does not attempt a full restore can of course not be considered as conclusive, but it is instructive anyway. It shows there was some brittleness in the recovery structures used by ATI -- perhaps affecting only that specific version, because of errors in those specific builds. Version 8 and 9, which from what I know were the best ones, seem to have dealt with that issue, but something reminiscent of that brittleness has emerged in version 10, and especially 11. On the other hand, the assumption that defragmenting or copying large files leads to hidden corruptions that prevent restoration, while warranted, is probably over-emphasized.

    There are other issues with ATI, which I mentioned in a previous message:
    • ATI has had difficulties dealing with some hardware (Gigabyte mainboards did cause trouble in the past).
    • Utilities that play trick with the file system can confuse ATI. Kasperksy anti-virus is one. Roxio GoBack was another, at least with recovery CDs.
    I have two mandatory scenarios that an imaging utility must handle properly:
    1. Reinstalling a system after a disk crash.
    2. Retrieving individual files, erroneously corrupted or deleted after unfortunate user manipulations.
    All the rest is either important but not mandatory (scheduling, individual file backup), nice to have (disk cloning), or totally superfluous (try and decide, secure zone, backup merging).

    Acronis never failed me with (2); I fortunately never faced (1) so far with ATI, but all the fuss about version 11, and the results of my little experiment do not give me enough assurance that its reliability is satisfactory enough to fulfill this requirement. As for bit corruption introduced by defragmentation, careless OS primitives, or hardware failures, I view them as sufficiently infrequent as to not focus my worries on them.

    Sorry for the long post.
     
  14. suelloyd

    suelloyd Registered Member

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    I have just purchased Acronis True Image 11 and did my first 'complete drive back up' which was fine - I then tried to validate the back up and got a message 'back up corrupted' I then tried a back up to include 'validation' at the same time and got the same message. I do not have much computer knowledge but I assume the back up is useless for restoring if it is corrupt - therefore this software is not of any use to me? Any suggestions anyone?
     
  15. DwnNdrty

    DwnNdrty Registered Member

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    Where are you keeping the Backup Image, internal or external drive or Secure Zone?
     
  16. Jake_Speed

    Jake_Speed Registered Member

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    I was also looking at upgrading to ATI11, I have version 10. Bought 10 about a year and a half ago, back up a verified image to and external usb hard drive, unplugged it and left it for about 10 months. Corrupted my laptop, went and plugged the external drive in and ATI10 couldn;'t veify the backup and would not restore it. I was going to upgrade, but if they haven't fixed it, it's a useless waste of money. How can a backup get corrupt just sitting there for 10 months.

    Has anyone tried Casper 5.0, or R-Drive Image?
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2008
  17. laserfan

    laserfan Registered Member

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    As a long-time user of ATIv7, and prior versions back to Deluxe, I was amazed at ATIv11 doing this when I bought it last December. Put it away and didn't use it again until the other day when I wanted to try it with my new TabletPC:

    1. To backup my new Tablet, I booted with ATIv7 and made an image, but I had to cobble together a keyboard and mouse since the pen input didn't work (not surprising)

    2. For grins I booted the Tablet using the ATI11 Home original boot CD, to see if the pen input would work. It didn't but again I plugged a kb and mouse and made another image. Probably not much changed from the first but what the heck.

    3. Some days later I was doing something else and wanted to mount a TI image, any TI image, so I tried to Explore the image I'd made in 2. CORRUPT!!!??!!! Yep, corrupt image. Tried image #1 and it mounted fine. Then I remembered image #2 was made with ATIv11

    Something is rotten in the guts of ATIv11.

    P.S. The above images were made to my backup drive, a USB-based Seagate FreeAgent Pro.
     
  18. thecreator

    thecreator Registered Member

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    Hi All,

    Everyone is blaming Acronis True Image 11 Home, when failing to Verify the image.

    Experiment to try: Buy a new Hard Drive like the drive currently installed. If you are backing up to an external USB Hard Drive, remove the drive that you imaged and put the new Hard Drive in.

    Now either use the other operating system to restore or use the Bootable Rescue CD to restore that image. Now completed, reboot the computer and see if the image has been successfully restored.

    Since you are not using the same Hard Drive, you can't lose anything, if it fails.

    But you guys, might be right, especially if the USB Hard Drive is also a SATA Hard Drive, if you are backing up to. Might be a problem with timing in the drivers, but restores correctly.
     
  19. tuffshed

    tuffshed Registered Member

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    READ MY LIPS - Let's uncover the problem!

    Jake_Speed,
    I'm in your same boat. I too have had corrupt backups. I own TI10 and had so many problems with corrupt backups that I stopped using the product. I now do mass file copies to a USB drive. This doesn't backup my system, just my data but what else can I do. I came back to this forum to see if TI 11 has fixed these problems and apparently it hasn't.

    Acronis Support -

    I've read through most of these 100+ posts on this thread and you still seem to deny the problem. An unsuccessful backup is useless. I and most of your customers bought your product to do one thing - system backups. Why are your backups being corrupted on a regular basis? Why aren't you dropping all development and devoting all your resources to this one problem? You have a problem, don't deny it. Please fix it.

    I'm going to stop my bitching now and give you my details from when I did use your product (which I hope to upgrade IF YOU GET THESE PROBLEMS FIXED) : I haven't done as extensive experimentation as others here but here goes...

    My setup :
    Generic computer built by a local shop, Windows XP pro with all SPs, backup to one of 3 disks, an external USB WD 500Gb with external power supply, an external USB WD Passport 160Gb, an older internal drive left over from my last computer 120Gb. TI 10 Home, don't know the build number.

    My problem:
    I have about 60-80Gb of data/system on my machine. I usually start the backup overnight since it takes so long. I always use the boot CD, both to backup and restore since this is the only think I will be using on restore. I usually backup the system during the night. Reboot my machine the next day and validate the backup the next night. Since a backup takes me two nights, when I get a corrupt backup it is a major deal, two days of my life wasted. When I get a corrupt backup I delete it and start all over again.

    Percentage of good backups : About 1 backup in 8 will work (validate correctly) on the USB WD 500Gb with external power supply. About 1 backup in 4 will work on the USB WD Passport 160Gb. Almost all the backups work when using the internal 120Gb disk. This tells me that USB is flaky, some work others don't. This sounds EXACTLY like the original post for this thread.

    For me, backing up to an internal drive is almost useless. I need to back up to a removable drive. The reason for a backup is so you can take the drive to another physical location for storage. If the house burns down or the computer is stolen then an internal drive backup is useless. I assume, especially with the availability of cheap large USB external drives, that this is the usual procedure for secure backups at HOME using TI HOME. USB drive support should be bulletprooof IMHO. If there are problems with bad sector writes, the TI software should mark this and proceed to the next sector to try the write again. If there are problems with There are all sorts of programatic ways to work around HW problems.

    So what's the scoop Acronis? Are you going to concentrate on bulletproof USB drive backups for the TI Home version? I'm pissed, and from the length of this thread it seems like a lot of your users (you know, the guys that pay you) are pissed as well. I don't need fancy incremental backup or cutesy schedulers or Secure Zones, etc., I just need a reliable, easy to use, system backup on a removable drive. Please suspend all the silly bells and whistles development until you have a bulletproof system backup and restore facility that can deal with the problems of real world disk drives.

    For other posters. If this isn't addressed, I suggest we take our energy and channel it into reporting this on other review sites on the internet. Maybe then Acronis will sit up and take notice when their sales drop dramatically due to bad reviews.


    Suggestions for Acronis Developement :

    1. Provide a restore option to ignore corrupted archives. A restored archive with a few errors is infinately better than no restore at all. If the corrupted files are video, pictures, applications that can be reinstalled then this is much easier to deal with than the total loss of the entire computer. If there are only a few bad bits you may never detect or experience any problems whatsoever depending on which files are affected1. I would rather have one bad character on an email message than lose my entire disk. Sure log the problem on restore ("File xxx.txt on folder /email/lettersToMom/ detected
    corruption on restore") but RESTORE THE SYSTEM PLEASE. If you have the bad luck that this is a binary, you might be able to live with it, you might be able to reinstall the bad SW, but you will be miles ahead rather than starting with blank computer. All or nothing is no solution. I know computers don't work all the time and I can deal with it, but working NONE of the time is not good. Give us options and let us decide what we want to do.

    2. If USB drivers are a problem, write a tool to detect the drivers, upon installation check the drivers and let your user know that they are running suspect drivers, offer to update the driver or provide a URL to verified drivers.

    3. Make this usuable by HOME users. True, I am computer savy, but I don't want to spend my time running a memory tester or building a special disk if I have a problem. Provide a checkbox so that when a corruption is detected that you spawn a task to run a memory tester, or other diagnostic tool that you deam necessary and report the findings in a log. No one wants to have to debug a program that they paid good money for, if there is a diagnostic tool that you know of that will isolate the problem, RUN IT. Other programs do this, Virus detection programs always offer to quaranteen and/or fix the affected files, why don't you offer to run diagnostic applications automatically instead of us having to investigate through these forums? You guys know how to do this stuff, thats why we paid you for your application. Why do we (your customers) have to do your debugging for you?

    History for your consideration:

    At one time (15 years ago) I used to be a developer and tester at a major PC SW company. We made Ghost backups of all of our test images so that we could run SW from a known base. We used to run many different OS builds and configurations to the same machine after Ghosting the image onto a test
    machine. I don't remember once in the years of testing that this didn't work. When looking a system backup utility for home use last year I looked at both Ghost and TI. It seemed like Symantec had totally hosed what used to be a good product and that TI was the way to go. Was I wrong? Why haven't we
    gotten more reliable rather than less in 15 years of development?

    Thanks, and like the original post said - Lets uncover the problem.
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2008
  20. Xpilot

    Xpilot Registered Member

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    If there really is a basic flaw in the different versions of True Image over the years how is it that I have been able to make and restore thousands of images on different hardwares using different versions without even stubbing my toe?

    I did have a minute proportion of restores fail and the TI message was that the particular image was corrupt. Because my backup strategy has more than one layer these rare failures were of no consequence. It was simple to backtrack and be up and running again in no time with no loss.
    I eventually took time out to investigate these odd fails when there was a clutch of them. I found there was a hardware problem which I corrected and whenever I now restore a backup image the process is 100% sucessfull.

    I am very much aware that different versions of TI have had and still have problems in correctly blowing and ringing all the whistles and bells that have been loaded onto the basic system. There are also compatability problems with some system drivers though these can usually be worked round. However basic partition imaging and restoring have been completely sound for all the versions I have tried from 8 through to 11.

    So my suggestion is not to complain about software problems causing corrupt images but to apply your expertise in tracking down the hardware problems that probably are only surfaced when TI is run. My experience is that this is were the solution can be found.

    Xpilot
     
  21. foghorne

    foghorne Registered Member

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    Re: READ MY LIPS - Let's uncover the problem!

    I'm sorry but I come at this from a different angle. I agree the software has flaws, and for sure the bell-and-whistle brigade should have been stopped long ago. However, it is possible to apply a little scientific method to this particular problem and work out what the problem is.

    I have had this problem on 4 systems over the last couple of years. In each case I have been able to resolve it.

    Number of cases down to software =0
    Number of cases down to hardware =4

    This stuff has been done to death in these forums, but there are a number of common causes which eliminate a significant number of cases of this fault arising. They are (again)

    - A single bad memory bit. Running memtest on the problem machines revealed a memory fault in three cases. These were new machines which did not exhibit any problems with other 'less stressful' applications. The memory was swapped and the fault went away.

    - A system which is overclocked, or has not optimal BIOS settings. Try resetting the BIOS to default performance settings.

    - Check drive cables for any possible damage. Swapping an IDE cable cured the fourth case.

    - USB interfaces in external drives. I have not come across this myself but I am aware that there have been problems in the past which are only seen with large files being streamed across the interface which can cause problems in data integrity.

    I have used all versions of TI from V1 and seen very few problems. Every case of corruption I have seen I have conclusively traced to hardware.

    Your suggestion about allowing the restoration of a corrupt image is a sound IMHO. Given sufficient warning, this should be the choice of the user.

    F.
     
  22. tuffshed

    tuffshed Registered Member

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    Re: READ MY LIPS - Let's uncover the problem!

    Foghorn, glad you have no problems...but this thread isn't for people who have no problems, it is for nailing down what probably is a real problem.

    And what are you saying here : "...only seen with large files being streamed across the interface which can cause problems in data integrity", uhhhh hello... yes we are trying to transfer large files streaming across an interface...it's called a backup, that's what we are trying to do here...a backup... using TI... Sorry for the sarcasm but I paid for this SW for the sole purpose of it streaming my large files to my external disk, if that doesn't work can I get my money back ?

    Disregarding the posts that are just complaining or those that are resolved it does appear that there is at least a problem with the basic writing or verification process. The proposition that TI works "almost all the time for most users" is irrelevent, backup SW should work...period, it is backup SW for petes sake. If it doesn't work it should at least log exactly what went wrong, if at very least to the screen. I write SW for a living and I know, there are bugs in programs always, there is a bug in this program (or at very least it is not robust enough to detect and resolve HW frailties of disk writing). This bug should be fixed or at least a verified workaround to the situation should be posted by Acronis support. I've worked in SW long enough to know this is what should be done. I don't want to argue with Acronis support, I just want them to look into this and FIX IT.

    JohnMeyer and others have bent over backwards with his testing...for free.. and Acronis support is not finding the problem or documenting a workaround. WHY NOT? I admit that I haven't tried all the HW debugging...yet, but JohnMeyer definately has and he definately has a real bug. My problem sounds like his, hopefully a fix for him will fix my problem, BUT FIX JOHNS PROBLEM, PLEASE.

    I'm glad you agree that TI should at least try to restore from a corrupted (or so they say) backup. A little logging here would be helpful, I would be more concerned if a .dll was corrupted than a .txt file. I, and I'm sure everyone else would accept the consequences of a system restored with a corruption error, at least this would be a partial workaround for someone who is desperate. Why do we not hear from Acronis development that this would be a good feature or that they will consider it? Why don't we hear from Acronis development period on this thread? Do they really think that their precious program has no bugs...Let's get real here.

    Help us out here Acronis. Throw us a bone. Work with JohnMeyer, if you can fix his problem I'll bet you will solve a whole lot of others on this thread.

    Acronis, will you work with JohnMeyer to fix his problem? Please? Pretty Please?
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2008
  23. tuffshed

    tuffshed Registered Member

    Joined:
    Apr 19, 2007
    Posts:
    19
    See my ANSWERs above.....
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2008
  24. foghorne

    foghorne Registered Member

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2005
    Posts:
    1,389
    Location:
    Leeds, Great Britain
    Re: READ MY LIPS - Let's uncover the problem!

    Erm... correct. That's why I was offering you advice on looking at the hardware. Which you admit you have not done. You have already decided where you think the problem is. Good luck with that then. You obviously know best.

    F.
     
  25. tuffshed

    tuffshed Registered Member

    Joined:
    Apr 19, 2007
    Posts:
    19
    Re: READ MY LIPS - Let's uncover the problem!

    Foghorn,

    Sorry to be so sarcastic, I just read through all 249 posts on this thread and was getting a little testy. I know you are just trying to help. I don't know what my problem is. I spent a lot of time previously trying to find it, gave up, checked back here, and now I'm going to give it one more try.

    True, I haven't yet done all the HW testing I need to determine if I do have a problem, but I will...I promise. When I was using TI 10 in Feb 2008, I spent A LOT of time making sure the system was right. I made a lot of good backups, which I validated and tested, all seemed right. Then I started getting corrupt images (not always, just sometimes) and I found I didn't have the time to debug the problem since it was a two day affair even verifying an image. I came to this forum to see if TI 11 had a bug fix for the kind of problems I had, or at least made the product more robust and reliable for common applications like external USB drives, apparently not.

    But even more surprising to me was the fact that certain people (JohnMeyer) who had been diligent about his debugging and had spent days documenting and debugging his problem recieved no (as far as I can tell) official Acronis support on this forum. He received support from others on the forum but still he and a few others who also worked hard to isolate this are still SOL, no thanks to Acronis Tech Support who still have yet to make an appearance here on this forum (If I am wrong, let me know).

    So now after checking all 249+ entries on this thread, I will now check my HW and do a few more backup validates with my TI 10, but if I cannot do a backup I'm going to have to go with another product. I've already eliminated one such product (Cxxxxr 5.0) for the mere fact that they don't have a forum like this one, so there is no telling what problems real people like myself might have. I'm at least thankful that there is this forum so that I can see the error of my ways (If in fact I don't have a HW problem)

    Even if I can get TI 10 to work (hopefully I DO have a HW problem that I can easily find....I'm skeptical but hoping...) I still think that the way Acronis Tech Support is treating John and the rest of us is abominable. Read your own forums guys, help us out. Identify yourself, other companies do this on other forums, why are you hiding? Don't you want to help us?

    I hope this will stir things up at Acronis. I hope I find a simple problem that is my fault and TI will start working. I hope that we will get world peace... :)
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2008
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