ATI 8.0 (826) TAKES TOO LONG TO RESTORE

OK, the change in restore time can't be attributed to an intentional hardware chage.

However, you said that using the old ATI 7 boot CD and an old image now takes 4 hours also, so there has to be a hardware difference since this eliminates any software changes to your system or changes in the ATI Linux drivers or program accounting for the change.

That's good, and it eliminates an obvious possible problem.

Did you also error check the external hard drive?

I agree with you about internal backups, but this is a way to separate the USB subsystem out. If the image restores fast from the Secure Zone, then the USB system is the source of the problem. If the restore from the Secure Zone is slow, the something in your system not related to USB functions is the source of the problem. This would be useful from a diagnostic standpoint.

The other uses are all within Windows and use the Windows drivers and operating system, so they don't apply directly to the Linux Recovery CD environment, but this does confirm that the hardware appears to be working correctly in Windows.

This is really a tough one.

 

Hi to all of you folks.
For Menorcaman:
I downloaded the tester you suggested (I did not know that there was a tester for External USB 2.0 HDs... Wow!!). I have been very busy today doing personal errands but as soon as I test my external HD I will post the result (screenshot with Snagit) here, possibly tomorrow.

For Beenthereb4:
You are making a very interesting suggestion. I will test it your way, I will crate image from the Boot CD to see if it is done in the usual 25 minutes and then if it is fast you could be right about the external HD and you also may have a very good point by signaling that if the writing is FAST but the reading is SLOW, maybe the READ HEAD on the external HD is failing (a very logical assumption!!). This topic is getting hot, I have several Sherlock Holmes here and possibly one Einstein to help me find the reason of the fast writing BUT slow reading. Every day we are getting closer and closer to the
culprit and when we find him we'll hang him from a tree!!

To jmk94903:
You are giving me a very good suggestion (error check the external HD), I never did it before because I thought thet Windows (CHKDSK) only error check the INTERNAL HD (and its partitions) but not external HDs. But you are right, I plugged the external HD to the USB port and went to My Computer and right clicked the external HD for properties + Tools and ... YES, it seems that Windows can also error check an external HD !! (I am learning a lot in this Forum thanks to all of you folks and I appreciate very much having very intelligent and experienced people helping me.
Thanks to you all (independently of whether we solve the problem or not).
I will error check the external HD later and will also post the result. I know that the purpose of the Acronis support suggestion about creating image in
a Secure Zone and restoring from it is just to rule out any USB malfunction but I know I will run into some problems creating the Secure Zone and the image on it (I may not have enough space on my HD (any partition) to create an ATI 7GB size on it and I would have to compress the image and I am not used to perform these Secure Zone actions since I have never used it so I will have to read the manual to know how to do all that and that's WHY I am leaving that suggestion as a last resort BUT I am inclined to think that the external HD may be the culprit (altought it is only one year old and I only plug it in when I will use it and unplug it when not in use (there is no point having nthe HD spinning 24 hours at 7,200 rpm for nothing) and maybe the reading head may be failing or malfunctioning or wearing out, so I will concentrate on testing the external HD speed and then creating image from Boot CD to see if it is also FAST.

 

Interesting. A head failure would certainly explain a lot.

 

For the restore speed test, if you can make enough space available on any partition on th einternal drive, you can make the image there instead of the Secure Zone. The Secure Zone is most useful for drives that have only one partition.

 

Hi again Mazaprin,

Believe it or not but earlier this year I had TWO brand new Seagate SATA drives go tits up on me within three days (hence the reason I ended up with a new Samsung!!).

 

Hello... I'm back.
OK, I have done what all of you suggested and here are the results:

1.- Creating an image from the BOOT CD also took 4 hours, so the only instance that the images are created at the usual speed (30 minmutes or less) are when they are created from Windows.

2.- I performed an error check of the External HD and checked both options (fix errors and scan sectors) and phases 1, 2 and 3 went fast and smooth but then phase 4 (verify file data) did not start (the progress bar remained blank) I waited 20 minutes and still nothing. the error check only did the first 3 phases out of 5 . Maybe, since there were only 2 or 3 ATI images stored on the external HD, window don't consider them system files (they are ATI files) so maybe windows did not have any reason to go on with phase 4 to verify file data. I don't know if any of you have error checked your external USB 2.0 HD and it completed the 5 phases (maybe depending of the type of items stored on the HD).

3.- I used HD Tach 3 to check the external HD and here are the results:
This is the first result, the QUICK BENCH (8mb zones):

 

Continuing with my reply, this is the second result, the LONG BENCH (32mb zones)

 

Where do you buy drives like that. I've looked at all of mine, but not one has tits. I think I'd pay extra for that feature.

 

OK, I thought the TI 7 Recovery CD made fast backups and restores.

Now, it sounds like a problem with the Linux (Recovery CD) USB drivers. They appear to be much slower than the Windows drivers.

Now, that you mention it, I 've not had any problems, so I never tried the full scanning. I'll give it a try.

These look good to me. I look for a very spikey response, but this is quite smooth.

 

I must say, your Quick Bench (8MB zones) result are MUCH slower than your Long Bench (32MB zones) result. In fact, my Quick Bench result (see below) is hardly any different to the Long Bench result that I posted earlier.

It might be worth repeating the two runs but, this time, switch off your USB HD and reboot your system between the tests. This will ensure any caches are flushed that might be providing false results (see HdTach Readme file).

Regards

 

Oh John!! You pervert

 

Hi to you all. I was thinking that if the linux drivers of the ATI 8 Boot CDs (any builds) are slow (compared to ATI 7.0), then everybody that purchased ATI 8 and created a Boot CD must be experiencing the same long restoration processes and I don't know that it is, in fact, the case. Have any of you restored from your ATI 8 Boot CD yet?

I don't remember trying to create an image from the ATI 7.0 (634) Boot CD (that always worked flawessly at everything (creating checking and restoring all in less than 30 minutes) BUT I will also try that to see if it creates the image faster than the ATI 8 Boot CD.

It would be interesting to know if any of you have performed an error checking scan of your external HD with CHKDSK to see if the 5 phases are completed or only the first 3 ones.

I have news... I called SimpleTech and althought my external HD is already two months out of the warranty they will replace it based on what I told them about the results of the HD Tach 3 and possibility of slow transfer speed. NOT that the tech aknowledged that this HD had a defect or something, he was just helping me out by getting a brand new replacement
to RULE OUT any malfunctions. So when i receive the brand new replacement i will test it to see if the problem persist.

I will repeat the HD Tach tests again this time with the reboots in between the quick and long benches to see if the results differ. I will post the results later.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------

I think adding a USB 2 card is the problem and restoring from a boot disk does not install the drivers needed to make the card run at USB 2. I added a card and did a "check image" through Win XP to get an idea how long it would take to check it. Then I booted from two different boot disks and it said it would take over twice as long to check the image. The boot disk is not able to install the drivers necessary for the card to run at USB2 speed. If this is the case, I think Accronis needs to correct this. It doesn't take special drivers Win XP installed it's own.

 

If the USB 2 card uses the NEC chipset, it will run fast. I have tested this with both PCI cards and notebook PC cards. Adaptec cards use the NEC chipset among others.

 

Mine is an NEC chipset and it runs slower when run from the boot disk. The only difference I can see is the drivers must be different and USB2 either isn't supported or working with the boot disk drivers. This is interesting and needs to be dealt with. Either I have a problem or the boot disk does.

 

This is for Rod Williams:
I want to explain here that i purchased the Belkin Pc Card (to enable myu laptop to use USB 2.0 devices) one year ago and a few weeks later I purchased ATI 7 (went thru several builds too) and After that I purchased the 7 port hub and I have been restoring with ATI 7 for a year plugging the external HD to the Belkin card port and also from the HUB port and I never had any problems restoring from the ATI 7 Boot CDs in less than 30 minutes.
The Belkin card IS NOT a new addition as I think you assumed. Moreover,
I have plugged other USB 2.0 devices to the card and to the hub (ZIP drive, Flash Drive, digital cameras, all of them intended for USB 2.0 and they all have been working fine and fast.

 

One of these earlier (earlier than 634) builds made the boot CD that was fast.

 

to Beenthereb4:
I don't know what you mean by your comment about one Boot CD from the earlier version (7.0) being fast (?)
When I purchased ATI 7.0 I went thru one or two builds, up to the 634 and all of them worked well with fast restorations BUT... Now the very same Boot CD from ATI 7.0 (634) which restored fast months ago NOW it is taking 4 hours to restore (and this problem began after I installed SP2 on my computer on or about January 2005, and related security updates up until May 2005 that's when I needed to restore (not because of any malfunction with the OS, just because I wanted to go back a couple weeks earlier) BUT it seems that windows or the SP2 or the security updates has nothing to do with thsi problem since Acronis restores using Linux drivers.

So... you are implying that ATI 8.0 Boot CDs (any build) will take long to restore BUT I have not heard anyone here complaining about long restorations from ATI 8 Boot CDs except for myself.
Have you restored your system from an ATI 8 Boot CD? Did it take long?

 

There are enormous variations in how boot CDs made from different builds (or versions) work with various hardware combinations. I keep a huge collection of builds and versions (on a multi-boot CD) because older computers frequently work better with older versions. Even newer computers respond differently to different versions and builds (newer builds are not always better for a particular computer). In your recollection, build 634 was fast, but I suspect that an earlier build was the one that was fast.

 

Hello mazaprin,

Could you please update your copy of Acronis True Image 8.0 to the 903 build? In order to get access to updates you should register account on our site (or just log in if you have already created it) and then register your copy of the product.

Then please create a new bootable CD and try to restore booting from it.

Thank you.
--
Irina Shirokova

 

To beenthereb4:
I still don't understand very well your point. All the builds of ATI 7.0 (up to the 634) have been working the same way on my PC with the same creating, checking and restoration times (I could not appreciate any difference in completion times) so all of them were fast.

Even ATI 8.0 Builds 826 and 889 (I excluded 859 for having a problem with the image exploration) have been creating and checking images at the same rate that of ATI 7.0 and nthe only problem here (that started 2 or 3 months ago on my PC is the extremely slow restoration process even for the ATI 7.0 that always restored fast now it is as slow as all the others).

I am not an expert in computers but I suppose that all the Boot Cds have the same Linux drivers and the only changes between Builds are "cosmetic changes" or soime new feature is added, but the drivers are still the same so every Boot CD should perform as fast as the others. Correct me if I am wrong and enlighten me on this.

 

To Irina:
Please Irina, could you explain to us what kind of improvements have been made on Build 903 and if all of the previous Builds have the SAME linux drivers and what improvements build 903 will offer?

Do you think this new build will correct the long restoration problems that I assume many people are experiencing?

 

Hello mazaprin,

We recommend to use the latest build and bootable CD because our Development Team will work only on the problem with the latest build. Also please note that each new build includes many minor fixes.

Thank you.
--
Irina Shirokova

 

The drivers vary from build to build (thus the changelog will refer to "hardware support"). Even more significantly, the Linux kernel can vary.

 

To Irina:
I installed Build 903 and creating and checking image using ATI 8 (within windows) are the usual BUT creating image and/or restoring from 903 Boot CD takes 4 hours

to jmk94903:
I tried to do what you suggested to store the full backup on a partition and I got an error saying that I can not store a backup on a partition that is going to be backed up.

I sent my external HD for replacement (it is still under warranty) with the excuse (just in case, not that I found out any malfunctions) that the transfer speed is not at the USB 2.0 level, so I will receive the brand NEW HD in a week or so and then I will test it with the latest build 903 Boot CD and also with my old faithfull ATI 7.0 (634) Boot CD to compare times.