CORRUPTED FILES???

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by SEABOYD, Nov 10, 2005.

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  1. SEABOYD

    SEABOYD Guest

    I bought a new Hard Drive (Master) recently and got the shock of my life... I had an Acronis True Image file (40GB) sitting on another drive, which I also added to the new computer. I set up Acronis True Image 9 and proceeded to do a Restore, only to discover that the file was CORRUPTED!!! How can one get a corrupted file by simply backing up to a D:\ drive and leaving there.
    I only use that drive for backups period. Needless to say, I had lots of work to do!! It's almost as much fun as beating your hands with a hammer!!

    If I am to continue to use Acronis True Image 9, then I have to know why or how a backup file can get corrupted just sitting there untouched on a slave dirive?? I can't imagine what I could have done to cause a corruption? OR Maybe I don't know what the word "corruption" means to Acronis? All I know is that it didn't work!!!!

    Any and all insight is much appreciated!!

    Ed Boyd, Absolute Mortgage Corp
    Bellevue, Wa ~email removed~

    I've removed your email addy from your posts for security reasons. Please don't post your email addy in an open forum where it becomes available for harvesting by the spam bots - snap
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 10, 2005
  2. Chutsman

    Chutsman Registered Member

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    Just throwing out a few ideas here ... was it TI 9 that created the image?

    Did you try restoring the image with the TI Boot CD also?

    Is the old hard drive still bootable and with all the info that you want to put on the new hard drive?
     
  3. seaboyd

    seaboyd Guest

    The version was TI 9. Did not use recovery CD and no the drive was re-formatted. I don't have time to be messing around trying to figure out software that I counted on, which failed me. Fortunately, I had some CD's with a lot of info on them and had printed material also... from that I have reconstructed back to about a 5-10% loss of data... most important stuff is reconstructable with time.

    Based on PC Mag, PC World and a couple other mags, along with Top Ten Reviews on the net, Acronis TI is as good as it gets. I like the idea of backing up the whole drive at once. That's why I have another 160GB slave drive! I thought of going to Norton Ghost but I hate Symantec! So I have resorted to make the best out of TI. (the next time)

    If it's bugs in the software, I may have to reconsider? If its me, then I should give TI another shot... I can't be smarter than all these reviews I've read, even though most of them are giving some free lance writer somthing to do.

    Ed Boyd, Absolute Mortgage Corp
    Bellevue, WA ~removed email~
     
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  4. Chutsman

    Chutsman Registered Member

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    Sorry to hear that ... there are several problems with ver 9 of TI, you only have to read some of the other topics here. Even though you reformatted the drive, depending on your method of reformat, you might still be able to recover the data if you have not added anything to it yet. And you might be able to do it yourself.

    Do a Google search for "data recovery".
     
  5. seaboyd

    seaboyd Guest

    I don't want to spend anymore time on the past. My main concern now is whether or not I should remain with Acronis or find something else to use?
    I can't see how I caused corruption, given that you and others site issues with TI 9. What's left... for imaging its Norton Ghost. If I go to Retrospect as a backup program, it's good and rated high but it's too complicated. I don't want to get married to this stuff! The rest are 3 stars out of 5?!?

    I guess the answer to my question is do nothing... try another backup and then try a restore a couple days later? I try this and I try that and all I do is pour money down a rathole. Backup is a sore subject with programmers, has been since DOS 101. Apparently it's difficult to create... that's why you see slop and or an occasional good product. I thought Acronis was the answer also.

    If half these software people worked for me, they'd be gone before lunch. Since I am in the mortgage business in Billy Gate's backyard, we have an all points bulletin out for Microsoft types... we give'em the same treatment!

    Ed Boyd, ~removed email~
    Absolute Mortgage Corp, Bellevue WA
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 10, 2005
  6. crofttk

    crofttk Registered Member

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    Oh, I'll bet you a dime to a donut, seaboyd, that those reviews were almost all on TI 8 and NOT TI 9 !
     
  7. Chutsman

    Chutsman Registered Member

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    I forget if it was here or in another forum, someone was able to talk to a reviewer - might not even have been a TI reviewer - and found out that the reviewer had not even tested the product yet gave a favorable review of it! Go figger!

    In any case, of all the product forums I follow, this one has the absolute most "new" messages every day. In fact the "Today" messages often take two web pages to show all.
     
  8. seaboyd

    seaboyd Guest

    Well thanks to you both... I've made my decision. I think Acronis is the lesser of the evils so far... not ready for Norton in any case. So I'll try it agian but I'll test it occasionally. Hate looking over my shoulder and I have littel time to do so.

    We, in the mortgage business, have been right out straight for several years. My business hasn't slowed down much these days, even tho others have. So I need something reasonably reliable.

    Even though you both didn't explicitly say so, you told me what to do.

    Thanks.

    Ed Boyd, ~removed email address - to prevent harvesting~ -dog
    Absolute Mortgage Corp. Bellevue WA
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 10, 2005
  9. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    I'd suggest you test it quite rigourously until you have complete confidence in the product and your hardware especially since you have an unexplained failure. Your backups should be the one thing that give you complete confidence. If it fails, as you found out, it is not the same as Photoshop screwing up red-eye removal on the birthday pictures.

    Was your TI 9 the latest version. There were reports of earlier versions having problems with the image file which turned out to be the Restore program, not the image. However, IIRC the problem was with the stand-alone program (o_O?).
     
  10. KevinDW78

    KevinDW78 Guest

    I have this EXACT same problem - only difference is I have version 8. This has happened to me TWICE now. I create a fresh new installation of windows with all my installed applications and settings - back it up to a D: partition on my drive - then it just sits there. At first it will be fine (I know because I run the "Check image archive for errors" tool on it. But then after about a month BAM all of a sudden it will be corrputed even though the archive file has not been touched! Ya know I can understand if it was corrupted from the moment it was created, but how can it be fine for a month or two and then without anything from me all of a sudden be corrupted?!?!?!
     
  11. RocketMagnet

    RocketMagnet Registered Member

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    Try mounting the image (Acronis uses its own terminology of Plug :( ) - perhaps you can still browse the image and recover data.

    My own experice with Acronis 9.0 has not been good - i've got Norton Ghost 2003 on other machines and i've never had a corrupt archive ever and its never failed me once. 2003 won't work with SATA drives (properly) so i'm looking for an alternative. Using an IDE drive on the test machine and NG 2003 functions perfectly.
    However using TI9 and a SATA Main HDD and it always creates corrupt images with large backup files. So i've effectivly proved my hardware works and its simply down to the SATA drivers (WHQL) and Acronis - which essentially means Acronis is at fault in this instance.

    Seemingly Acronis have no answer to corrupt images yet, why can a system that can produce large uncorrupt images with NG2003 fail with Acronis? and yet people keep pointing the finger saying its your setup at fault.. nope its the software QED.

    If this software works and was reliable then it would be great despite a few inconsistancies with the UI and unconventional terminology. Unfortunately you can't trust the software to perform its basic functions yet IMO.

    Personallly the software is now in what i would consider would normally be initial beta test quality.
     
  12. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Hello RocketMagnet,

    I don't see how you can draw that conclusion just yet because there is still a chance that your motherboard's SATA subsystem is not functioning correctly.

    Are you imaging from one SATA drive to another SATA drive, from one partition to another on the same SATA drive or from a SATA drive to an external USB drive? Whichever way you're doing it, create an image to the destination drive or partition and then download and install <eXpress Checksum Calculator>. Use this to calculate a MD5 checksum for one of the large .tib files and note it. Then, using Windows Explorer, copy the same .tib file back to the original SATA source drive and calculate the MD5 checksum for the copied file. Compare the two checksums - if they are the same then your SATA subsystem would appear to functioning correctly. However, if they are not then it points to a hardware problem.

    Regards
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2005
  13. h2ouup2

    h2ouup2 Registered Member

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    Try breaking it into smaller images. I know it sounds crazy, but the smaller images have given me less trouble than the larger ones.

    May just be my set up though.
     
  14. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Yes indeed, some motherboards have a problem moving moving very large files around. Hence reason for the checksum test I suggested above.

    Regards
     
  15. RocketMagnet

    RocketMagnet Registered Member

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    Yeah its possible - Ghost breaks up the file into 2gb portions.
    I tried a CRC check on a large file 76gb tib and the checksums were indeed different. However since this testing i've replaced the ASUS A8N Standard with an ASUS A8N Premium and not installed TI9 on it yet as i simply moved one sata drive to another machine and installed an IDE drive allowing me to use Norton Ghost 2003 and i'm now able to back up perfectly with this setup.

    If this is an issue then why doesn't TI9 split the image by default with an option and subsequent warning to select a composite image.

    If this is the case then i do stand corrected - Acronis shouls say so and modify the software that when it detects corrups images - check the file size of the image and if its big suggest reimaging with a split file size of 2gb.

    Not got time to mess with Acronis for a couple of weeks so i may try again in future.
     
  16. Shao Lung

    Shao Lung Registered Member

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    Try restoring with a VERSION 8 bootable restore disk. I have had problems with the CORRUPTED IMAGE ARCHIVE error message with the bootable disk created by version 9, but 8 works fine for me....problem creating the TI9 rescue disks, I believe.
     
  17. antirisk

    antirisk Guest

    which build of TI 9 did you use to create the archive?

    i have seen this problem and i was completley thrown when i hit it first.

    the problem was with the restore part of the TI9. i moved to build 2302 and i was able to extract from what was reported as a *corrupt* archive.

    i would just give a try with 2302 before giving up hope.

    Also try to stay away from 9, if you already have 8. If not, stay with some other solution.
     
  18. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Hi Shao Lung & antirisk,

    It seems that RocketMagnet has done what I suggested, namely, use Windows Explorer to copy a very large file from one disk to another and then compare the MD5/CRC checksum of the source file with that of the copied file.

    As he has confirmed that the two checksums differ, it's clearly a hardware problem that has nothing at all to do with True Image, be it Version 8 or Version 9.

    Regards
     
  19. Shao Lung

    Shao Lung Registered Member

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    My two files report fine from a checksum standpoint....the difference is in the boot disk TI9 created as compared to version 8.
     
  20. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Seaboyd,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    Please accept my apologies for the delay with the response.

    First of all, please make sure that you use the latest build (2302) of Acronis True Image 9.0 which is available at: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/updates/

    To get access to updates you should create an account at:
    http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/
    then log in and use your serial number to register your software.

    Please create new Bootable Rescue CD after installing the update and verify your image archive by means of the Check Archive tool both from under Windows and when booted from Bootable Rescue CD (created using build 2302).

    If the problem still persists with the latest build (2302) of Acronis True Image 9.0 then please provide me with the more detailed information on the problem:

    - Whether you checked your image archive right after it has been created? What was the result?

    - Whether your image verifies as corrupted both from under Windows and when program is running from Bootable Rescue CD?

    - Try to mount your image archive as a virtual drive using Plug Image tool and inform me about the results.

    Please also note that as Menorcaman has mentioned above the image archive corruption might be caused by the faulty hardware (e.g. faulty memory stick, hard drive cable, PC overclocking, etc.).

    Please calculate the checksum (e.g. MD5 or CRC) for your 40 GB image file as it is described above and then copy or move this image to both another folder\partition on the same hard drive and another folder\partition on other physical disk. Calculate the new checksums and compare them with the original one. Inform me about the results.

    Could you please also create new image archive and perform the verification process both right after the image archive has been created and after some time passed? In case Acronis True Image 9.0 still creates corrupt backups, you can also try splitting your image into a smaller parts as h2ouup2 has suggested above. Please post back with the results.

    Thank you.
    --
    Alexey Popov
     
  21. vnuh

    vnuh Guest

    I have the similar problem. I was trying to restore my C: (windows and lot of important documents) drive and was reported that the image is corrupted, the disk was wiped out and my backup's useless. I never had this kind of problem with TI8 but then right after updated to TI9 it happened to me. However I can plug the image and extract files and folders, I can obtain my documents however I dont know how to restore Windows again. Reinstall windows + application is a pain. Is there anyway I can make this image usable again. I mean to make it restorble since this is the windows drive so I guess just extract all files and folder back dont make it bootable, isnt' it? I'm not really familiar to this material. Desperate for help. Thanks in advance guys.
     
  22. drfergu

    drfergu Registered Member

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    My problem with version 9 was a little worse. I backed up a hard drive to an external hard drvie and had the system verify that the backup was good. I then had to restore the backup the next day because of a bad program. I booted with the recovery CD and tried using the verified restore and the backup program stated that the backup was corrupt. Either the verify is not correct or the recover is not working. Either way I had to reload the entire system from the original CD. <snip>

    edited to remove unecessary comment - Detox
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 30, 2005
  23. Detox

    Detox Retired Moderator

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    Hi drfergu, feel free to make your own thread about your particular support issue, and it will be helpful if you include your Acronis support case # so that their people here in the forum can help you more effectively.
     
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