Acronis Woes

I have Windows XP Pro fully updated and running AvG Pro fully updated for antivirus protection. I have Roxio EMC8 fully updated for burning software including Drag-to-Disk.

I have to two HHDs:
Master = 20gb, with 3 partitions
C-Drive has only the XP installed
D-Drive is for Programs Files
E-Drive is all data

Slave = 250gb, with 3 partitions and only has data on it.

I have Acronis TI 9 installed. A rescue disk has been created sucessfully I think LOL.

First I created an image (full disk) for only the Master Disk and stored it on one of the slave drive partitions. This produced one file for the archieve. I then had TI to run check archieve. Here when it completed, it only said that operation was complete, NOT if it was good or bad.

Second I created an image (full disk), using defaults for only the Master Disk and burned this to a DVD+RW. I had expected problems with a +RW disk, but if I chose to use default options for the backup archieve, there was no problem. On the DVD, it created two (files), even though there were 3 partitions (third partition was empty). I had TI to run the check archieve for both images and again said only that it was complete, NOT good or bad.

Third I tried to creat an image (and setting TI to verify the archieve), as I did with the DVD+RW using a DVD-RW. I got the following warning:
W000400011: Please insert the media marked "Volume 1". Press Retry when ready or Press Cancel to cancel the operation.
ONly the Cancel would do anything.

I tried the DVD-RW again, this time using the defaults to for creating the backup and got this message:
E00040010 Device is busy, Click Retry to continue or Press Cancel to cancel the operation.

There was third option to Format.
The only option that did anything was the Cancel.

After thinking about it, I assume that DVD-RW disks have to be formatted. Is this correct?

At any rate, thinking I had two good images, I installed a couple programs and rebooted. I then proceeded to restore the Disk Image that was stored on my slave drive. After making my restore selections, TI rebooted into the restore manage mode. Again I made my selections and at the last step, it asked if I wanted to delete the partitions on the destination drive or NOT.
The NOT, would not let me proceed, so I selected to delete the partitions. This IS NOT a good idea.

When the restore procedure started, it said the archive I created on my slave HHD, was corrupt. WOW, how can that be? IT was was checked.
The question is, why can't the disk be restored without deleting the partitions?

To reiterate:
1. How can the image archieve created be corrupt if it was checked?
2. Should I have made image archieves for each of the 3 partitions instead of the whole drive? This is for the archieve saved to the HDD.
3. With an image created on a DVD+RW, how should the Drag-to-question be answered when the image has been created?
4. Does a DVD-RW have to be formatted? If so, should I name it "Volume 1"?
5. What happened to the 3rd file when the archieve was created on the DVD+RW?
6. How do I get around the "Delete partition" question when restoring archieves?
7. When the archieve is check, why does it NOT say good or bad?

Right now I want to be able to creat a backup for my Master HD, and have confidence that it will work when needed. I am having problems getting to that stage.

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

 

Try this:

Boot your box with the Ti bioot cd.

Choose to image the complete Master disk (drive0) with the mbr, with tib file sizes of 700mb.

Aim your save to a folder on the slave drive.
You should end up with a number of 700mb tib files and a last one of lesser mb. Don't worry about other testing.

The only way to test is a full restore to hopefully a spare drive.

If the full restore with the above method works, then you can be confident that Ti works with your hardware and can get a little more creative with it.

Post back with results.

 

What does box mean?

Definitely will try this.


Thanks for the suggestions. LOL This will be only the 3rd time this week I have reformatted this old HDD. It is getting boring to say the least

 

I question I forgot to ask in the original post:

If i create the archieve(s) for the master disk and save them to the slave HDD, can burn those to a DVD using Roxio EMC and still use them to restore?

Thank you

 

1 That means to start your computer with the Rescue cd. You may have to set your bios to boot the cd/dvd drive first before the hard drive. If there is no bootable cd or dvd in the drive it will boot from the hard drive, so you can leave it set that way if you wish.

2 Rather than creating 1 or more large image(s) with Ti9, set the image size to 700mb on the slave 250gig drive. This allows you to burn to cd or dvd later and also avoids some large file problems Ti9 has reported to have at times.You should be creating an image of the complete Master drive 20gig with all three partitions. Checkmark the complete drive when presented with the choices.

3 Yes you do have to format any RW disks first, although some programs do this in the background without you knowing it.

4 These Ti9 archive files (tib files) that you create on the slave drive can be copied anywhere, anytime, including burnt to dvd and can be restored from dvd, but slower than from a hard drive and yes, they are, as you suspected, less reliable. I just use dvd for secondary storage and personally have stopped using Roxio years ago, although I still have it in my collection.

For now, I suggest to just make your archive image on your slave drive and try a complete restore. Boot from the Rescue cd (boot cd) to initiate the restore. You can do the dvd burns at any time. Report back after trying this and we'll get you right with the dvd burning.

 

Thank you noonie for the help and comments.

At this point, I am just totally flustrated with Acronis TI. Again I reformated the hard drive and updated XP and my AV. This not a small matter LOL. It takes a couple of hours to get it setup to try TI.

TI seems to make the archieves just fine for the whole disk in a small amount of time. When it comes to restoring, it reaches a point where it asks if I want to delete the partitions even though the archieve was for the whole drive. The only response that will allow TI to proceed is to tell it YES. The default is NO, but it cannot proceed as the Proceed button is greyed out.

Having gone through this three times now, I know that it will delete the partitions and then when it looks at the archieve, it will tell me it is corrupt. I am at my wits end trying to figure why it has to delete the partitions in order to preceed. To delete the partitions, seems a completely stupid way to have to go and then have it fail.

I have used Ghost 2003 for a few years and really would like to have at least a backup way to image my hard drives and partitions as Ghost 2003 is getting up in age and will not work with the newer Main Boards and Operating systems on the market today. As an example it will NOT work with 64 bit system or with Sata HDDs.

I have looked at Ghost v10 and to tell the truth, it looks almost identical to Ancronis in the way it does things. It is also 7 times larger than Acronis. That does not speak well for it.

I thought something maybe wrong with my Acronis, so even downloaded the trial version and it worked identical to the way mine did.

LOL sorry all the venting, but I am really flustrated at the moment.

Again thank you

 

Check to make sure you are using Ti9 2337.
Try to uninstall and reinstall.
Create a new Ti boot cd.

When booting with the cd does it see al your hardware correctly?
Have you tried creating images with booting from Ti cd?
What hardware is your computer?

 

I am using TI9 2337.

I have done three formats with new installs of TI9 at each format. Is the enough reinstalls?

I will create a new boot disk, but I have NOT used the boot disk to start recovery. I have been starting the recovery from windows and TI reboots to the recovery mode. I guess I should try recovery that way and I will to a point. When I reach the point where it asks if I want to delete the partitions, that is where I stop.

It does see all the HHDs and partitions on them if that is what you meant.

Do you meant using the TI recover CD? or the install CD?

My hardware is pretty standard. I have two HDDs each with 3 partitions, two 512 sticks of ram, a basic floppy drive, I use basic Microsoft mouse (optical) and keyboard, I have NVIDIA Ge Force2 MX/MX400 Video Card, Creative SB Live sound card,a Sony DVD RW DW-U18A burner(OEM and no firmware updates available it), a Samsugng CD-ROM SC-152L, a cable modem
supplied by my cable company,a couple of printers (a lazer and a deskjet), a usb scanner.

That is about it for hardware.

There is really nothing special about the computer that should give any imaging program any problems.

Hope some of this gives you a clue what is happening.

 

Hello fawny,

I can understand your frustration because using True Image is not normally so difficult.

As you have found out, in order to restore the system partition, TI needs to boot into the Linux based rescue environment. This can be achieved in one of three ways:

- Via the TI bootable rescue CD/floppies and selecting "Full Version" at the selection screen
- From within Windows when TI's Restore Wizard prompts you to reboot the system
- Via the Startup Recovery Manager + Secure Zone "Press F11 whilst booting" feature

As you have also found out, as part of the restore procedure, TI needs to delete the destination partititon(s) prior to restoring the image. Therefore never, ever, proceed with a restore without first getting TI to verify the image, either separately via TI's Check Archive Wizard or by setting TI's "Options" to verify it during the restore process.

My recommendation now would be to:

1. Create a "whole disk" image of your master drive to a partition on your slave drive (you can choose to do this from within Windows or after booting from TI's rescue CD). Set TI's Option to split the image manually, either at 650MB or 1492MB (ignore the drop down picklist and just type the appropriate figure into the space provided). This will create a number of separate .tib depending on the size of the image being created e.g. mybackup1tib, mybackup2.tib, mybackup3tib, etc.

2. Once the image has been created, boot from the rescue CD and verify the image created on your slave drive via TI's Check Archive Wizard. It doesn't matter which individual .tib file you click on, TI will verify the whole of the image in one go. If the image verified o.k. then proceed to restore the "whole disk" image back to your master drive. Assuming the restore went smoothly, remove the rescue CD and exit TI to reboot into Windows.

To copy the image from your slave drive to DVD I would proceed as follows:

1. Use your normal CD/DVD burning software to start a new, Single Session (i.e. Finalized), DVD-ROM (ISO) compilation.

2. Depending whether the image was spit into 650MB or 1492MB chunks, drag up to 7 or 3 consecutive .tib files per DVD into your compilation window. If your recording software permits it, set the burn speed to around half the rated recording speed of your recorder or brand of media, whichever is the lesser, and burn to a blank DVD. Repeat for the remaining .tib files.

3. Once all DVDs have been recorded, boot from the rescue CD and verify the image via the Check Archive Wizard. Note that TI refers to each .tib file as a Volume. When verifying or restoring an image from multiple CDs/DVDs, you will need to insert the disk containing the last Volume first and then follow TI's prompts for subsequent disk changes.

Good luck and let us know how you get on. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you .

Regards

 

My sentiments, exactly. You will find the same scenario when trying to restore to a brand new drive. In other words, before TI will "see" the new drive, it has to "prepare" it by partitioning (format) it. Having done that when you get to the point in the process you mention, TI must now delete the partition - that it just made - before it will procede.

My only advice to you, since hard drives are relatively cheap nowadays, is to get a spare drive to test your Restores. And, indeed, to anyone I would say do not rely on the message "Successfully created backup" which appears at the end of a backup process and think you have a good backup.

 

By far the smartest and safest method, and you will need the new drive if you ever crash anyway.
In your case, it would have saved you from a lot of reinstalls, just for testing Ti.
This would also allow you to test cloning your Master 20gig with Ti.

 

Menorcaman your instructions were so concise, I just had to try them

I put the boot CD in and started up my computer and selected Full Version. Selected Backup for the entire disk. I then selected Dis1, which selected all the drives on Disk 1. At the next popup, I clicked OK. I then selected to backup on the slave drive and let Acronis give it a name (Mybackup.tib). I not give it a password, and compression I left at Normal, I had it split into 650MB files and to check the archive when creation was complete.

I told it to proceed. Initally it said 1hr and 28 minutes (seemed kind of long but so what). After about 1 hr, Acronis said Finished, Backup archive creation has been completed with errors.

I rebooted and went to delete the files created and XP said the whole drive where I had created the files was corrupt and would let me do NOTHING on that drive. I then ran chkdsk and it corrected this problem.

So again I booted with rescue CD and ran Acronis backup again, exactly the same way. Again it created the backup with error.

This is the first time I had any indication that the backup archive was bad.

Now I have a couple of questions should I ever again get a good backup with Acronis.

When doing a restore, and the partitions have been deleted, then what do I do? Do I wait for Acronis to continue or what? If I remember correctly, it sat there a long time and did nothing. I am just curious as to how to continue from that point.

 

Hello again fawny,

You appear to have done everything correctly (including running chkdsk /r on your slave drive) yet you still end up with a bad image. This leads me to suspect that you have a hardware problem, which if true, will require systematic diagnosis, starting as follows:

- The file corruption when imaging to your slave drive could be caused by bad or overclocked memory. Therefore please download and run <Memtest86+> for a couple of hours. There should be zero reported errors.

- If Memtest86+ gives your memory a clean bill of health then, via Windows Start > Run, issue the command chkdsk x: /r (where x: = the partition being tested) for each partition of your master drive.

Please report back the results of the above tests.

Well, clearly, you should not attempt a restore until you are satisfied that you have created a good image. However, when that time comes you need do nothing other than click the Proceed button to start actual restore process. TI will delete the appropriate source disk partitition(s) and then should continue to restore the image without further input from yourself.

Regards

 

Menorcaman

Downloaded Memtest and ran for about 3 hours, it came back 575%, 0 Errors.

Did that for all 3 partitions on Master Drive and far as I could tell, it found no errors and made NO repairs.

So NOW what

 

O.K. That appears to have eliminated your memory, overclocking and bad clusters. I would now try to create an image of your main drive onto your main drive. Yes, I know it sounds impossible but TI can image to the same disk/partition that's being imaged. Just ignore the warning that advises you to move the image to external media after creation. Once the image has been created, carry out a verification via the Check Archive Wizard.

Regards

 

OK I get that done in the morning and let you know how it goes

 

For Menorcaman and noonie

I do appreciate all the help and suggestions you provided.

I have spent all morning just trying to get Acronis to make good image to NO avail. Everytime it makes a bad image, it causes more work for me to fix the partition where I saved the bad archive.

It is just NOT worth the effort anymore. Either they need to fix Acronis or I need to find something that will work. There are other options. It was just that Acronis got such reviews is why I decided to try it.

Anyway, thanks again for the input

 

Your not having much luck.

You mentioned your hardware when asked before, but you forgot the most important one . the model no of the motherboard.

Let me know what that is and the problem may be found.

EDIT

Better yet download and install this free prog here
http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
Run it and either post screen catures here or PM me.

 

Hello fawny,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

If you try to create the image onto the internal hard drive and Acronis True Image 9.0 creates corrupt backups, we regret to inform that the problem is related to the hardware (a hard drive cable, or a hard drive, or a HD controller, or a RAM memory and so on).

We recommend you to test the computer in the nearest service center or you can try to replace some from your hardware temporary and create/check the image again.

Thank you.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

For noonie, the MB I replaced a little over a year ago. It is QDI PlatiniX 2PE/800 Pro Intel 82845PE Chipset 533MHz FSB Socket 478 - ATX

For Acronis support, I have run memory test <two different sources> and also ran chkdsk on all drives. The only time I had any issue was after acronis made a image on secondary HDD and locked me out of that drive. At this point in time IT is just not worth it to me to start replacing parts when I do NOT have problems except with YOUR product. Everything else on the computer is running perfectly, including Ghost.