38 years old and on the verge of tears!

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by christopherpm, Apr 1, 2007.

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  1. christopherpm

    christopherpm Registered Member

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    Man oh man - I have been using TI10 Home to backup for ages. No errors in backing up. I have a scheduled FULL backup running. Today, before installing Vista, I performed a full disk image backup of my C: drive.

    I'm not too happy with the amount of programs not running properly under Vista, so I am using the Acronis recovery CD to restore my C: drive.

    HOWEVER, the minute I click "Proceed" I get an error telling me my archive is corrupt with an error code of E0007002.

    I have SO much of my business in this backup - source code, web sites, my accounts, legal documents etc... I cannot afford to lose this under any circumstances.

    I don't understand why I'm being told that the archive is corrupt when there were no backup errors. The PC wasn't being used when the backup took place...

    What the hell do I do? I am "passing" bricks if you know what I mean. This is the first time I've had to restore, and I feel VERY VERY sick... :gack:
     
  2. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    This should not be the first restore since you should have done a test restore to make sure the entire backup/restore procedure works.

    What device is the archive stored on - internal HD, external HD, DVD, ...

    How quickly does it give the "corrupt archive" message after you hit proceed?

    Can you validate the image in Windows?

    Can you validate the image using the TI recovery CD?

    Can you Mount the image using the TI mount command. If so, you may be able to get your valuable data files out of the image and stored somewhere else for safety's sake.

    When images are made TI reads the data, compresses, formats and writes the file out. If it doesn't encounter a bad source disk structure it thinks all is well. The only way you can know all is well for sure is to do a test restore.

    Possible causes of corrupt archives are:

    The Linux drivers on the TI recovery CD can't handle your hardware properly.

    You have bad RAM - yes, even if everything else seems to run OK. TI puts a real load on the system and it only takes one bad bit when reading a mult-gigabyte archive to have it declared corrupt.

    The media on which the archive is stored is bad.
     
  3. thomasjk

    thomasjk Registered Member

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    Are you doing this from the restore CD? Have you validated the backup image? Are you backing up to an external drive? What build of TI10 are you using? Try building a BartPE CD Begginer's Guide to Creating a BartPE CD with one of Mustang's BartPE Plugins. If you've never restored then you don't really know for sure if it works properly on your machine. Tell us more about your configuration.
     
  4. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    Truly I hope you get it sorted.



    But I wanted to use your statement. I've heard it so many times about ATI & a couple other programs of the same sort.

    People having a sense of peace shattered. Because in a real world situation ATI failed.

    Unless one does a bare metal test. One never knows.




    Not that OP might care at this point. But what should be done? Different strategies. I have 3. A cloned HDD, image(s) DVD & my least favorite install everything again. Not taking for granted either Paragon Hard Disk Manager Pro Recovery CD Image v8.0 which makes my HDD images. Or Acronis MigrateEasy which makes my HDD clone. When testing either I add a simple txt file to my original HDD titled (~if this txt file isn't here after the restore, it worked). And I test them.
     
  5. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    The key to getting help is telling us your setup.

    Personally, I believe that at the very worst, you will have to reinstall Windows XP and your applications, but you will be able to recover all your data from the backups you have.

    OK, here's what we need to know:

    1. Where is the backup image stored? USB external drive, network, DVDs?
    2. What sort of computer is this and what sort of drives does it have? Brand, model, motherboard if known, SATA or IDE drives, etc.?
    3. Did you install TI 10 on Vista and try the restore?
    4. Did you make a TI Recovery CD? And, when you boot from it can you see all your drives including your C drive and the drive where the backkup is stored? Did you try the restore from the CD?
    5. When you run the Validate option in TI, does your image validete correctly under Windows? under the Recovery CD?
    6. What build number of TI 10 are you using, and what build number was the Recovery CD created with?

    And a final and very important piece of advice. You are right to be upset, but that's not the best time to make decisions about your data which is extremely valuable.

    At this point, the only guaranteed place where your data is intact is on your hard drive under Vista. Until you are positive that you have a good backup which restores correctly, I would not do anything with that drive. If I were you, I would remove the drive and set it aside. I would install a new hard drive and experiment with the restores to it. That way, your data remains safe until you have a tested plan for recovery.
     
    Last edited: Apr 1, 2007
  6. christopherpm

    christopherpm Registered Member

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    Right. Some more info. My PC Config is as follows:-

    MSI Motherboard with Athlon XP 2700+, 1.5GB RAM
    Internal HDDs - 1 x Western Digital 250GB, 1 x Western Digital 115GB
    External HDDs - 2 x Western Digital 320GB USB, 1 x Seagate 400GB USB

    The 400GB USB is where the backup is.

    The image was created with build 4940 of TI10 Home (i.e. one prior to the current release) - the recovery CD was made with the same build.

    As for recovering using the recovery CD, I am able to pick the archive off of the USB HDD ok, I then select the disk I want the data to be restored to, I say no to recovering another partition, click proceed and it's IMMEDIATELY after that, that I get the E0007002 error.

    The backup was created under Windows XP SP2. I then installed Vista on the PC (didn't reformat first), and after seeing how many programs were then incompatible, decided to restore from the backup.

    I am going to remove this HDD from the PC, install one of the 320GB as an internal, install Win XP and try and recover again.

    Thanks for everyone's suggestions so far.... I'll give them a go one by one.
     
  7. christopherpm

    christopherpm Registered Member

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    AH HA!!!

    I connected the USB HDD with my Image onto my laptop and mounted the image. IMMEDIATELY that I did that, I noticed the issue - when I boot up with the 4940 Recovery CD, It sees the image as the wrong size!

    So now I just need to figure out the best way to recover. Perhaps, now I know that I can mount the image properly, if I put a small HDD as primary in my PC and the 250GB as secondary. Load Windows XP onto the primary with TI10, and restore the image to the secondary drive?
     
  8. Tatou

    Tatou Registered Member

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    I would build a BartPE disk with the TI plugin either Mustangs or the one that came with TI10 but your suggestion should work.

    See https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=162424

    Make sure you remove the new boot drive you have made before you reboot the restored drive.

    As jmk90943 says remove the vista drive so it is available to attempt to recover files if the worst case happens (i.e can't restore).

    Good luck.

    I have 2 SATA drives (one the main system disk- now dual booting XP and Vista) , 3 internal IDE and 2 external USB drives and have never got the Linux based CD to restore or save to the USBs or SATAs satisfactory. I use BartPE for all my backups and restores.
     
  9. foghorne

    foghorne Registered Member

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    I agree. Invest a couple of hours and produce a BartPE CD. It will pay you back big time.

    F.
     
  10. DwnNdrty

    DwnNdrty Registered Member

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    This is very odd, the image being the wrong size! Can you give some details? Are you comparing it to the used space on your hard drive? The Image is usually compressed to some extent so it will not be the same size as the used space on the hard drive.
    Since you have some extra drives to play with, can you take the 400gb one out of its enclosure and install it as an internal drive in the computer? Then install another spare drive as Master in the Primary channel, boot with the Recovery CD and try the Recovery process.
    When you use the Recovery CD, there's no need to load XP on any drive in order to start the Recovery.
     
  11. christopherpm

    christopherpm Registered Member

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    OK, before I go down the BartPE route. I have tried twice to recover the image in Windows XP - trying to restore the Image to a different HDD. However, it gives me an error about an hour in saying "Image Corrupt" with the same E0007002 message. I have managed to mount the image and I know now that I can recover the most important part of my backups, so at this precise moment, I'm more miffed than suicidal. When I try and recover from the mounted image, sometimes I get an error saying "Device I/O error" then the copy stops.

    Is it possible to get TI10 to IGNORE errors during restore? If I could get TI to restore with the one few files unable to restore, then that would be more helpful than having to restore all of my OS and Applications...

    AND as i cannot recover using TI10 with this method, am I going to have any more luck using the BartPE disk with the TI plugin?
     
  12. foghorne

    foghorne Registered Member

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    No, not if you restored from XP without it rebooting. BartPE would give you nothing extra.

    F.
     
  13. christopherpm

    christopherpm Registered Member

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    Oh well - I guess I'm gonna be spending my day installing software and recovering what I can! What a pain in the rear end.

    It doesn't instill me with confidence about using TI10 in the future for my backups....
     
  14. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    As was pointed out above learn from the mistake. First thing after you reinstall, install ATI, image the disk, and immediately restore it. If you don't test restore you have no idea if the image is good.
     
  15. CatFan432

    CatFan432 Registered Member

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    I went down almost this exact same road with Ghost several years ago, which prompted me to revise my backup strategy. I now use TI 10 to backup (image) my C and D partitions, C being the operating system (Winxp) and D being for all the data files I could point there; My documents, Outlook Express files and address book, invoices, favorites, bookmarks, etc.

    In addition to TI, I use a synchronization program to keep my entire D partition duplicated to a second internal drive and also an external HD; the external is kept in what I hope is a secure place when not in use. This allows me to quickly restore, using TI, partitions C or D should there be a problem. If I ever have a corrupt TI file, using the sync program gives me the protection of having all my irreplaceable data files in their native format, and separate from TI’s single cabinet file.

    I also have another partition, H, which contains several thousand photo files, downloaded programs, and copies of installation CDs, which I keep synced to my external HD. Keeping this data in my H partition allows the TI image of C and D to be relatively small and fast to run.

    Regards, CatFan
     
  16. mustang

    mustang Developer

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    Hmmm. Nobody has mentioned the obvious. Ninety percent of the time you get a corrupt image message from TI the image is not really corrupt. USB drives can be the problem with TI. Before you go any further, you should try to copy the image from the USB drive to the second internal drive. Use the Acronis Recovery CD to boot and see if the image can be validated. If it validates it should restore.
     
  17. DwnNdrty

    DwnNdrty Registered Member

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    In essence that's what I suggested - see #10. It may also lead to a successful recovery. TI is also notorious for giving a false positive validation, so skip the validation.
     
  18. dantz

    dantz Registered Member

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    I'm sorry, but I disagree and I would never suggest skipping image validation. If an image doesn't validate then you become aware that you have a problem and you can go about troubleshooting and hopefully solving it. How does it help to bury your head in the sand?

    In my opinion, the so-called "false positive" validation failures that are periodically mentioned on this board are generally caused by hardware problems such as bad RAM, incompatible USB chipsets or various other types of unsupported or faulty hardware. Anyone experiencing inconsistent validation problems (i.e. an image validates fine under certain conditions, but fails under other conditions) should carefully troubleshoot their system and solve the problem before relying on Acronis True Image to accurately create and restore images.

    "True positives" (i.e. an image file becoming irrevocably corrupted because it was stored on bad media, such that the checksums will never match) should also be investigated, of course. There's no way you can have reliable image backups unless you solve basic problems like this.
     
  19. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    I agree. Even if you have had no problem with restoring it only takes a RAM location to go bad at some time and you won't be restoring. Unless you are validating you wouldn't even know this happened.

    I also think a lot of the so-called false positives result from validating in Windows and then having problem when trying to restore from the recovery CD which is Linux. Different drivers, different memory mapping, even the application probably isn't the same. New users particularly should ensure they can validate properly using the TI CD.
     
  20. greg32

    greg32 Registered Member

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    Hi, just a though....
    I had a similar problem last year, and it was to do with a usb connected external hard drive. It would lock up on me when ever I was moving significantly sized files around to or from it. I was at the time plugging it into the front USB hub (have four points) on my case, and found that in the end it was the hub that was faulty. PLugged it into the rear usb connection on the motherboard, and all was good from there.

    Cheers Greg
     
  21. It'sme

    It'sme Registered Member

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    Also, on earlier systems the front USB connectors were often wired as USB 1.1 whereas the rear connectors were USB 2.0. Just something to watch.
     
  22. greg32

    greg32 Registered Member

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    And often they are underpowered, so any device that draws power from the usb should be plugged into the motherboard's ports to be safe. I think the power issue is not relevant to this though, as usb hard drive enclosures are powered through their own supply.

    cheers greg
     
  23. foghorne

    foghorne Registered Member

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    No and I can see why. However you may be interested to hear that once you have a ironed out your system problems and proven your DR setup works including a full restore, TI is very reliable indeed and your confidence will return.

    Also, despite the fact that your expectations are dashed, this is not likely to be a problem with Acronis software. I think however that the documentation is weak in that it does not stress the importance of establishing confidence at installation time by encouraging the user to carry out things like validating a backup from both environments and going through a full restoration.

    One mistake to be here would be to put this problem down to gremlins or glitches or a software bug. There is a scientific basis for the fault and the most likely causes have been mentioned (memory/USB interface) - you can fix this if you want to.

    F.
     
  24. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    Absolutely, at least the common HW problems should be ruled out because if it didn't work this time it isn't going to work the next time most likely.

    It has already been suggested to get the image onto an internal HD and try validating/restoring since an internal HD is usually the least problematic device especially if plugged into a motherboard connector and in a non-RAID configuration. The HD can also be removed from the USB enclosure and mounted in the PC if necessary.

    Can also try the: quiet acpi=off noapic trick mentioned in section II of the sticky post:
    https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=55317


    Run a memory diagnostic like Memtest86+ version 1.7 overnight. Available free from www.memtest.org .
     
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