Archive is always corrupt?

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by Smeg, May 14, 2006.

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  1. Smeg

    Smeg Registered Member

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    I have had the software ATI for three days. I have tried numerous times to create a full back-up of my C: partition. The back-up proceedure completes but the Verification always returns the Error Code Image Corrupted (0x70020). I have tried the new build,uninstalling/reinstalling all with the same resulting error.
     
  2. TheQuest

    TheQuest Registered Member

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    Hi, Smeg

    welcome to Wilders and Acronis Forums.

    I would advise you start by checking you computers Memory :- Memtest86+, because what is happening is one of the symptoms of bad memory.

    Also a full diskcheck and defrag would do no harm.

    BUT do not defrag Partition with Images, because it has be reported that it can cause Image Corruption.

    Take Care,
    TheQuest :cool:
     
  3. GroverH

    GroverH Registered Member

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    Where is your backup being stored?

    create your own Acronis recovery boot CD (using the Bootable Rescue Media Option)
    bootup using the new CD
    Do a backup directed to a 2nd drive or external, or inside the Acronis Secure zone if one was created.
    Be sure and invoke the verify option.

    Using the user boot CD should remove other computer actiivity from the issue.
     
  4. Smeg

    Smeg Registered Member

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    Hi thanks for the response. Well the problem only seems to occur using the Secure Zone. Finally I tried just using a normally NTFS formatted partition.This seems to have worked?Any chance there is a dead disk Sector?
    BTW I am absolutely fanatic about Defrags and I run Chkdsk often.
     
  5. Xpilot

    Xpilot Registered Member

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    With that sort of error there is a good chance that there is or are bad sectors on the target drive. When you run Chkdsk this is presumably in the R mode and do you go through the detailed results looking for any changes since it was last run? If you have the slightest doubt as to the integrity of the drive I would strongly suggest that you download and run the diagnostic software that is available for you particular make of HD. Unlike Chkdsk it will not just mark bad sectors as being unfit for use but it may also give the chance to repair the bad sectors. There are two provisos when doing this. Any data in the repaired sector will be lost and once any bad sectors start to show up it is probably time to get a replacement drive anyway.

    Xpilot
     
  6. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    Pardon me if I'm all wet but I don't use the Secure Zone. Is it possible to check the Secure Zone with chkdsk? My impression is that it is "hidden" from anything but TI.
     
  7. Xpilot

    Xpilot Registered Member

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    You are correct the secure zone is hidden from Chkdsk. It can however be seen and worked on by the HD Mfgr's diagnostic/repair software. I use this from time to time on all my drives and recommend it to others.
    I agree my original suggestion should have been clearer in this respect.

    Xpilot
     
  8. Smeg

    Smeg Registered Member

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    This is not good!! I ran the Western Digital full diagnostic.... It Passed !!!

    Now, the Acronis loader says it can't find the boot partition and to press enter to load the OS?

    I was never prompted to "repair" anything. This appeared to be a non-destructive analysis only so now what do I do?

    Also per my original post;the Image file WAS on a NTFS partition; TI can't find that either.

    I reformatted that area to a new partition and it won't recreate the Secure Zone from existing partitions either?

    Now what do I do?


    EDIT: I uninstalled TI but the Acronis Loader Fatal error about the Boot Partition/OS remains? I'm lost?
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2006
  9. Howard Kaikow

    Howard Kaikow Registered Member

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    Defragging a partition, assuming the defrag works, cannot harm ANY file.
     
  10. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    Yes, absolutely correct.

    The reason I am responding here is that I made a statement in a post that may cause some to think defragging image files is an absolute recipe for disaster. I should have been more clear about my intent.

    1. A small number of users have posted that defragging their image files appeared to be the reason they are now interpreted by TI as corrupt. Did their defragging program cause the problem, maybe, but there are other possibilties such as bad memory.

    2. My personal opinion on defragging images is that a lot of data may be moved around for little benefit. You are not accessing an image file many times a day like some Windows files. Anytime something is read and written there is a chance for error so if there is little to no benefit, why do it.
     
  11. Howard Kaikow

    Howard Kaikow Registered Member

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    Defragging a drive used exclusively for backup can speed up the backup as the backup program has to find free sectors in which to write its file, so creation, and subsequent access to those backup files is indeed affected by fragmentation.

    As I write this, I have 3 USB drives connected. Each has TI and Ghost 10 backups.

    In the case of TI, on one drive, the file consists of 4 fragments, the other 2 consist of 3 fragments.

    Perfect Disk suggests "Defragment Only" for two of the drives.
    For the other drive, which I've never defragged, Perfect Disk suggests "SmartPlacement"defrag.

    However, one of the drives is only 80GB, so I delete the TI or Ghost fies before doing a backup, otherwise the backup might not fit.

    The other drives are 160GB and 200GB, so, currently, there's enough free space to not care.

    In any case, I find it disconcerting that anybody discourages others from doing a defrag.

    First of all, one should have more than one backup set on more than one medium, as a power outage is more likely than a bad defrag to mess up a file.

    Secondly, there are noticeable performance improvements from defragging.
    Ah shucks, 'nuff said!
     
  12. TheQuest

    TheQuest Registered Member

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    Hi, Howard Kaikow

    Meaning Me.

    My be I am wrong to give that advice, mybe I should not have said Do not, but Be Warned.

    But I will not get out of my Pram :'( [Perambulator], and delete my Post.

    Also I do not see any input from you to help this Thread of Smeg's and the Promlem.



    Take Care,
    TheQuest :cool:
     
  13. GroverH

    GroverH Registered Member

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    Smeg,
    My original post above suggested you perform a backup using the User created Boot CD. Was any of your backups created from this bootCD?
     
  14. TheQuest

    TheQuest Registered Member

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    Hi, Smeg

    I never Use Ti [unInstalled] in "Windows" so this is from memory when I did Play test the Zecure Zone about three years ago.

    Seem like you have delete the Secure Zone, but not with Ti and you had the Secure Zone Manager Activated.

    You can reInstall Ti and then deactivate the Secure Zone Manage.

    OR you can Boot with your Recovery BootCD to the main BIOS Acronis Recovery Screen and make a [new] Secure Zone.

    Reboot to see if you get a F11 promt if you do, press F11 and then when back at the Ti recovery screen go to Manage the Secure Zone and have Ti delete the SZ.

    Reboot you should then no longer the Fatal Error or the F11 promt.

    Take Care,
    TheQuest :cool:
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2006
  15. rogeru

    rogeru Registered Member

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    I am having the same problem and I have had ATI Home 9.0 over a month.
    Running Win 2000 sp 4, and 512 MB. Memory check tests out fine. So does chkdsk /r. I have even swapped hard drives and get the same problem.

    It only seems to happen if I try to back up the partition from which I have booted. If I take the same drive and move it ( by way of a drive caddy) to another machine, it backs up fine.

    Also after getting the Image Corrupted (0x70020) error, when I restart my PC, chkdsk is invoked and there are THOUSANDs of security index and other problems onthe disk I was trying to backup.

    Seems to me ATI 9 os not very robust. I am very unhappy and wonder if there will be no solution but to go to a different product.
     
  16. GroverH

    GroverH Registered Member

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    rogeru,
    Have you tried creating your backup from within either the User Created Boot Disk or the Acronis Startup Recovery.

    For my own use, I do all my full image backups from within the Acronis Startup Recover. I am able to create one backup into my secure zone. Create another identical backp into a second hard drive and/or external drive. From which, I copy the files onto DVD for even more storage.
     
  17. rogeru

    rogeru Registered Member

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    Thanks, I think that did work when I tried it, but it bugs the hell out of me that the product does not work as advertised. The minute I saw this huge trouble forum I knew there was big trouble with the product.
     
  18. b00sfuk

    b00sfuk Registered Member

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    I was feeling like this last month (always corrupt images) when I first started using the product but I now have a 100% stable product with no corrupt images. The difference....it was TI9 that finally showed I had a hardware problem (RAM). Although I did get the occasional windows error my PC passed every memory/CPU stress test I could throw at it. After a lot of further testing I found my memory was not 100% stable. Since I changed the RAM I've had no problems (and no occasional windows problems either). It seems that nothing stresses the PC like this product - whether that is a good design is another point. If you are able then try some other memory temporarily.
    Best of luck
     
  19. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    I obviously don't know the internals of TI but I am not aware of any method of running memory accesses faster than the chipset is configured to run it. Assuming you are properly taking care of disk transfers, buffering, reading and writing then it should work as any other program.

    However, there are a couple of differences from typical PC operations. The first is you are dealing with very large files in comparison to normal operations. The video people will truthfully say the also deal with very large files.
    The second, and I believe this one is the real issue, it only takes one bad bit to trigger a validation error in an image. One bad bit in a data file like a jpeg in most cases will mean nothing. A bad bit in a program can cause problems depending on what exactly is loaded into the bad bit area.

    I imagine with the large amount of memory in many PCs these days a lot of it hardly gets used until something like TI comes along.

    A hard error as described above should be readily detectable. Unfortunately, electronic gizmos don't always have the courtesy to fail in the simple hard manner but like to fail in a miserable intermittent manner which makes finding it a lot more difficult.

    My method for running memory diagnostics is to run a few passes with the whole series of tests. If that doesn't show anything and I'm still suspicious of memory, I restrict the test to the Random Data test; I find it is more likely to be the test that locates an intermittent fault.
     
  20. rogeru

    rogeru Registered Member

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    Maybe Acronis needs to add a memory/disk stress test to their program, or at provide one with ATI9.
     
    Last edited: May 18, 2006
  21. rogeru

    rogeru Registered Member

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    For what's it's worth I did run memtest86+ for 30+ hours with zero errors. I am beginning to suspect a problem witht he disk controller on the mobo.
     
  22. b00sfuk

    b00sfuk Registered Member

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    From my experience the ONLY way to to eliminate the memory as the problem for certain is to temporarily try some other memory sticks. If you can I would strongly suggest you try this route as memory is bar far the most likely problem. It might help but you could also try, as a test, lowering the memory divider and relaxing timings in the BIOS.
    Best of luck.
     
  23. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    If anybody reads this forum more than a couple of times they realize I advocate using Memtest86+ as a first step to see if memory is a problem. It is free and easy to do. Obviously, it didn't pick up any error in this case; I agree that the best way to verify a memory problem is by substituting known good memory since a diagnostic program doesn't run in the same conditions as a backup/validate/restore which places a load on the processor, disks, busses and power supply.

    Several people have reported success by using relaxed memory timings as well.
     
  24. Howard Kaikow

    Howard Kaikow Registered Member

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    Trying other memory sticks does not guarantee anything as the other memory sticks could also have errors.
     
  25. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Smeg,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    We are very sorry for the delay with the response.

    First of all, please make sure that you use the latest build (3633) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home which is available in the Product Updates section of your account at Acronis web site.

    You can find the full version name and build number by going to Help -> About... menu in the main program window.

    To get access to updates you should create an account then log in and use your serial number to register the software.

    Please uninstall any previously installed build by following Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs -> Acronis True Image, prior to installing build 3633.

    Note that you should create new Bootable Rescue CD after installing the update.

    If the problem still persists with the latest build (3633) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home then please provide us with the following information:

    - Create Acronis Report and Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post;

    - Can you confirm that the problem appears only when you save backups to Acronis Secure Zone?

    - Do backups saved within Acronis Secure Zone verify as corrupted both when the latest build (3633) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home is running from under Windows and when your computer is booted from Bootable Rescue CD created with the latest build (3633) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home?

    - What are the results of the memory test suggested by TheQuest?

    - Where Acronis Secure Zone is located?

    Please submit a request for technical support. Provide the files and information collected in your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

    I'm not sure how Western Digital diagnostic functions exactly, however, it seems that it affects hard drive's MBR or even Acronis Secure Zone in some way. Whatever the actual reason is, please do the following in order to solve the problem you encounter:

    - If you want to continue using Acronis Secure Zone and Acronis Startup Recovery Manager please remove and then re-create Acronis Secure Zone re-activating Acronis Startup Recovery Manager using Manage Acronis Secure Zone wizard accessible via the main program window. You can also activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager later using Activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager tool.

    - If you do not want to use Acronis Secure Zone and Acronis Startup Recovery Manager any more then please fix your hard drive's MBR either by booting server from Windows installation CD and issuing the 'fixmbr' command in Recovery Console or using one of the methods described in Acronis Help Post. Then simply remove Acronis Secure Zone using Manage Acronis Secure Zone wizard mentioned above.

    Thank you.
    --
    Alexey Popov
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2006
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