Exclude Drives During Data Backup

ATI 11 Home, Windows 2000.
I'm trying to do a data backup of two of my drives to a third. I untick all the data types and manually select the folders I want to backup. I put in a template for the exclusion of the third drive, H:\*.* so that nothing on that will be backed up (it has old backups that I wish to retain at least until ATI does a proven working backup first). But, ATI backs those files up too, despite my attempt to exclude the entire drive. Hence the backup drive runs out of space (and the backup takes far longer than necessary). How can I get the exclusion to work? After abandoning the backup (itself a problem when the drive is full), I go back to edit the settings of the backup task, I see all the unticked data types are ticked again. Thanks.

 

If it's a My Data backup, it should only be backing up the dirs and files you select (checkmark) -- exclusions shouldn't be necessary unless you want to exclude something within one of those selected directories. But that could be an entire dirve, so why are you excluding drive?

 

Hi,

I want to backup various data files from C:\ and D:\ to H:\ and ignore stuff already on H:\ and X:\ (as it happens). In the data backup I tick the folders I want backed up in C:\ and D:\ and set the backup running. ATI then seems to backup those files OK, but continues to search X:\ and H:\ for files of the various data types (images, video, etc.,) even though I had unticked them at the start, and it tries to add them to the backup on H:\ until it runs out of room. Excluding H:\*.* and X:\*.* in the list along with *.bak and the other defaults makes no difference.

 

How about a different approach? It is not what you currently do and may well be what you dont want.

I dont do file or folder backups instead I backup whole partitions.

Could you put everything that you want to backup on one or two partitions with nothing else and then just back these partitions up? In this senario you would not need to exclude certain files and folders.

Just a thought.

 

If you are doing just data backups I would suggest you look at Karen's Replicator as an option. Simple, can schedule, can filter, free and copies the files in Windows format so there is no problem if you get a corrupt tib file (for any reason) which means all your files in the tib container will be inaccessible.

A lot of posters here use it for data backup and use only True Image to make image backups of their OS drive or partition.

 

Hi, thanks for the responses.

I would like to backup whole partitions but don't (at the moment) have the storage space. Although I will backup C:\ entirely there is not room for two copies of D:\ on the backup drive (a recent backup and a fall-back previous backup), which is what I would do if there was space. Instead, I plan two copies of C:\ (recent and previous), and a data backup (or two, ideally) of the most important folders from either drive, or at least, from D:\.

I will look at Karen's replicator but will need to compress the data to make it fit I'm sure; I could use WinRar at a pinch, I suppose. But having paid for ATI I would like it to... erm... well, work.

 

I've found out a bit more about the problem. If I set up the task, as I did, using the Create Task option, I get the problem described above. If, however, I set it up using Create Backup, it works - except I am not then given the chance to schedule it. I can run it once only. Sigh.

 

Hello Alphatucana,

Thank you for your interesting in Acronis True Image

Have you tried source files exclusion option (see user guide for more information)? See which unwanted files are included into backup and exclude them by their extension. Note that if you want to exclude some folder it should be kept in slashes like:

C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\Test\

Excluding "C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\Test" will not exclude the folder Test but the file "Test".

Best regards,
--
Dmitry Nikolaev

 

Hi, unfortunately hundreds of unwanted files are included - an entire drive full of backed-up files (not compressed or encrypted, so in native windows formats) gets added to the files I've specifically selected.

I'll just check... OK, there's over 130,000 files and 12,000 folders to be excluded. It just isn't practical. Hence my trying to exclude the entire drive. It is my backup drive anyway and I don't want the program even looking at it. It works fine if I create a backup but not if I try and do so from manage tasks (where I can schedule it). I want to be able, simply, to backup the files I have specifically selected and exclude all others.

 

Erm... would an exclusion like H:\*.*\ work? I've tried H:\*.* and that doesn't work.

 

Preliminary results: the above seems to work: H:\*.* to eliminate files in the root folder, and H:\*.*\ to eliminate all folders. Phew.