using "automatic" tib file size settings...

What are the rules that acronis follows for setting tib file sizes, when creating an archive and the file size is set to "automatic"?

Sometimes it creates data-DVD-sized files, around 4.2gb, which is good for me.

But sometimes it creates one big tib file, bigger than a dvd (e.g. 8gb plus).

Another time it created the first file as just a little too big for a dvd (around 4.6gb, I think, and then put the remaining more in a second tib file.


So, I"m confused as to why it's not consistent -- what internal rules does it follow?

 

I thought it was based on the structure of the destination drive but never thought about it because I don't use it. I prefer to set it for what I consider a good way of doing it. It isn't the only way, it is they way I like it and I always get the same thing.

I always set a fixed size of 1492 MB which TI will turn into 1.457 GB. 3 of these files fit nicely onto a DVD and also permits the ISO file system to be used. I can easily remember 1492 because of Christopher whatzzhizname. If I was backing up huge partitions, I might change my mind and use a larger value.

One thing you have to be careful of when interpreting file sizes is what they are using for K; is it 1000 or 1024? You can put 4.7GB on a DVD if you are interpreting K as 1000 (the marketing people like that) but only 4.38GB if K=1024.

 

What do you mean by "permits the ISO file system to be used"? Could you elaborate on that?

 

If a file is bigger than around 2GB then the UDF file system has to be used. It is not as universal as the ISO system but as far as Windows and TI's recovery environment goes, it isn't an issue as they both can read UDF. I do believe that TI requires the UDF version to be 2.01 or lower for it to work. Nero pops up a warning message if the file is going to require UDF.

 

The reason I asked the question is that I'm still trying to understand what and ISO image file is all about. See the screenshot in this post where reference is made to an ISO image file. Is the image created using the ISO file system? Why is it that if I make an ISO image of a bootable disk and then burn this image to disk, the disk is bootable? However if I simply burn a copy of the bootable disk, the disk is not bootable? Does an ISO image somehow capture the partition which has Track Zero and MBR whereas simply burning a copy of a bootable disk does not capture this partition. These are all questions for which I can't find an answer.

 

From what I understand:
If you have a bootable ISO image of a CD, it has been created with the appropriate files and formatting to make the disk bootable. However, you have to tell your burning software that this is a bootable image and to treat it in the proper manner to end up with a bootable CD.

ISO stands for the International Standards Organization and the ISO CD file system is covered by standard 9660; you will sometimes see ISO-9660 when looking at CD info.
The ISO file system refers to the rules for placing files on a CD such that it conforms to the ISO standard. The bootable image aspect may be covered under this ISO standard as well.

I assume you mean you can't copy by dragging and dropping to another CD and have it bootable. I can make a bootable CD copy in Nero with the "Disk copy" option. I think the copying not providing a bootable disk goes back to my previous statement that you have to make the burning software aware that you wish to create a bootable disk and just copying the files is insufficient to do this.

Like I said, this my understanding and I'm certainly happy to be corrected by somebody who knows more about it than I do.

 

If you mean Copy entire disk in this screenshot of Nero Express, it doesn't work. I just tried duplicating my Acronis Rescue Media and it wouldn't boot. You have the use Disk Image or Saved Project.

 

I just did my Memtest86+ CD again but with Nero Express 6.6 version on another machine that does not have Nero Ultra installed and it booted OK. Nero Smartstart comes up on my installation and I selected in Copying and Backup menu the Copy CD option.

When I did the first one last night with Nero Ultra, IIRC, it said that it might not be able to copy some copyrighted or protected disks. Perhaps the TI disk is protected from simply copying? The Memtest CD shows as being copyrighted but it obviously is not a problem.

I'll try the TI CD and let you know what happens.

 

Just copied the TI bootable disk, build 3567, using Nero Express 6.6 from Nero Smartstart. Booted just fine so you must have some problem.

 

My version of Nero is 5.5.10.56. I just tried again to duplicate a bootable disk, this time my Acronis Disk Director. Again without success. Nero must have made improvements with version 6.6. Thanks for your time.

 

Yikes, I hate incompatibility issues, no matter how unlikely
I'll stick with 1492mb from now on.

Altho, having 3 tibs instaed of one per disc has got to make restoring from optical disk more problematic, somehow...