Corrupt Archive with external USB-Harddisk

Have you tried copying a large file (4 GB +) under Windows to your various external USB hard drives, and then using CheckSum to verify the results? If the error occurs in Windows as well as in TI, as it did with my first several external USB and SATA HDs, then the issue is with your hardware/chipset/drivers/?, and not only with TI. TI does put the USB subsystems under stress...it's doing a lot of work in a short period of time, much more than uploading photos from my 6 MP digital SLR ever did.

I found that using an Adaptec PCI USB controller card worked for me. Onboard USB with nVidia chipset didn't work.

Good Luck!

Here's a link to the free Checksum utility I use:
http://www.irnis.net/

 

I don't really have any files that large to test. Besides my disk images in question are ~3.4GB in size (3,666,472,960 bytes on disk).

<A>

 

You could use a TI image as the file you try copying in Windows, from internal HD to external USB HD.

Or, you can create a large file, like I did, by opening a new Word Document, pasting in a photograph, or any large amount of data, then duplicating that as many times as you need, Control + V (Paste) again and again, until you get the size document you want to test copying. I did this to see if there was a file size below which I did not have the USB errors, but could not find a reliable size, and eventually bought the USB controller card, which ended my issues.

Good luck!

 

I've created an 8GB Virtual PC hard drive image (a single 8GB file) on my desktop, since it was the fastest way to creat a huge file. Then I copied the VPC image:

1. from the desktop to one of the USB hard drives
2. from the USB hard drive to the internal hard drive of the laptop I had problems with
3. from the internal laptop's hard drive to a second USB drive
4. from the second USB hard drive back to the desktop

Virtual PC mounted the resulting image just fine after it's been through two USB hard drives and the laptop's hard drive. I still insist that TI needs an update. But I don't want to spend any more time playing with it. Since it works with network shares I'm fine for now and hopefuly an update or other solution will appear in the future.

By the way, thanks for the replies!

A.

 

OK, you have narrowed the problem down to the USB drivers used in the Linux environment (the TI Recovery CD and when you try to restore your C drive in Windows, but it reboots into the Linux environment.

Since both the internal USB ports and the PC card USB ports have the same problem, I can only suggest that you try a different brand USB drive to see it that works.

 

Did anyone have success when getting a pc card for a laptop (toshiba). Get backup but on validation it shows the image to be corrupt. So the talk here is its the usb controller. Does getting the pc card with a usb port into the laptop solve this problem. before is spend $70 i would appreciate comments.

thanks

 

Ahumm, this is not freeware.
However this is: http://www.diamondcs.com.au/freeutilities/md5.php

 

OK, I've done some further tinkering around and I'm strongly convinced that there is a problem with TI9 and newer hardware that needs to be addressed.

On an older Dell Optiplex desktop (Pentium 4) and older Pentium M laptops it works without problems. Only onmy new CoreDuo laptop it has this corruption problem.

I've built BartPE CD with TI9 plugin (both most recent) and it fails to verify or restore an image from any of the 4 USB hard drives I've tried as well. These hard drives work fine with the older computers mentioned above.

One of the drives has a Firewire interface so I hooked it up via the CoreDuo Inspiron's built-in Firewire port and it works fine from BartPE. Unfortunately, the Acronis boot CD doesn't appear to have support for Firewire

To be fair, TI9 is not the only software that has this issue. I was unable to successfully recover and image from USB disks using NortonGhost 9 either - it gives me the internal consistency error.

I've emailed tech support but received no answer so far

A.

 

Being a new laptop does not make it immune from hardware problems. A thorough test of the RAM would be a good place to start.

 

I can create and restore the images just fine over network and firewire, it only fails over USB, so I don't really suppose there is RAM or some other hardware problem.

A.

 

Mounting the image isn't sufficient.
You need to use a checksum utility before the first copy and after each of the 4 copies.
The 5 checksums should all agree.
If not then it is a problem with the laptop USB chipset or a memory problem.

 

I have good news. I have tested TI9 with my old external HDD (icy box). This external HDD supports harddisks up to 120GB. Now the backup ist running with the boot CD. I am able to validate and to restore the backup archive. So, now I have to find another case for my 250GB HDD. But the question is for me: what vendor do i have to use? At the moment I use a new version of the icy box with the newest firmware on it and TI9 is not running with that combination. Does someone have an idea what kind of combination is working fine with TI9?

I am unhappy with the support of Acronis- I did not get an answer due to my request...I am still waiting...

 

I've run memtest and it found zero problems. Since this software only cost me $29 from NewEgg I won't be complaining too much, but I'm not very happy with it.

<A>

 

And what about the checksum test I suggested above?

 

No, I didn't get around to it. Perhaps some time this weekend. I'll post if I do.

<A>

 

I have the same problem with 2 different configurations.

* on pc1, first backup on a different HDD saved OK but corrupted, second try it was OK
* on pc2, boot from the cd, backup my HDD to my usb HDD, saved OK but corrupted too. Verified under windows after that. it says the archive is OK

 

You have to get to the right place on the page. Better link for the irnis free checksum calculator is:

http://www.irnis.net/soft/xcsc/

 

I used eXpress CheckSum Calculator - thanks for the link.

Results...

10GB VirtualPC disk image file created on my desktop PC.

Origial file as created on my desktop PC - checksums as on the internal PC SATA RAID::

CRC32 8C992A09
MD5 42378CB8018EF3BBD28AA25B7B8A3082
SHA-1 A15DA30F21D0263F5773AE6A6414E97A87882805

Copied from the PC to 1st usb drive then from the 1st usb drive to laptop internal SATA drive - checksums as on the internal laptop drive:

CRC32 8C992A09
MD5 42378CB8018EF3BBD28AA25B7B8A3082
SHA-1 A15DA30F21D0263F5773AE6A6414E97A87882805

Copied from laptop's internal drive back to 1st usb and then to 2nd usb drive directly over USB - checkums as on the 2nd usb drive:

CRC32 8C992A09
MD5 42378CB8018EF3BBD28AA25B7B8A3082
SHA-1 A15DA30F21D0263F5773AE6A6414E97A87882805

Copied from the 2nd usb drive back to the desktop PC - checksums as on the internal PC SATA RAID:

CRC32 8C992A09
MD5 42378CB8018EF3BBD28AA25B7B8A3082
SHA-1 A15DA30F21D0263F5773AE6A6414E97A87882805

Identical...

To summarize:

- TI9 creates images on a USB drive connected to my laptop but fails to restore them claiming the image is corrupted, both when used form Acronis CD and BartPE CD

- this happens on 4 different drives, two 2.5" USB-powered and two 3.5" AC-powered

- all software is newest, just downloaded: Acronis, BartPE, Intel drivers, etc.

- TI9 creates and restores just fine over the network and to FW drives, actually one of the 4 drives mentioned above has both FW and USB2 interfaces so it works with FW

- however, the images created on the USB drives still won't restore when copied to a network share or FW drive, this suggest the corruption occures during creation of the image to a USB drive

- all the drives function properly, above checksums are identical, I use the drives daily for other tasks on both desktop and laptop

- memtest shows no memory errors on the laptop

- Ghost9 has the same problem so this suggest there is an issue here, but I haven't tried (and will not) Ghost10

I think it's pretty obvious at this point that TI9 has some issues with the USB controller on the new CoreDuo platform. I wish someone from Acronis would respond and put some light on it.

Since it works with FireWire I'll stop any further tinkering as it basically works for me right now. I did the checksum test simply out of curiosity.

Adam

 

I don't know if I've stumbled into the answer or it was just a fluke. But read this thread

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=143739

Could it be RAM?

This may help some here, or at the very least give them food for thought

 

If it was RAM then wouldn't images get corrupted over FireWire and LAN as well?

<A>

 

point well taken

 

Can someone confirm whether the validation fails after every backup or just periodically?

 

For me it was every time I tried to backup to USB drive, but I don't remember exactly how many times I've tried, but at least 6-8 times, four different drives.

<A>

 

for me it's not everytime that's why it's funny

 

Do you guys see any difference if you run the backup in high priority mode? I have backups that are scheduled to run 3x per day, one of which in high priority mode. The two that run @ normal seem to periodically corrupt, while the high priority has yet to corrupt. I'm going to switch my other two normal priority backups to high and see what kind of results I get.