Cannot Explore Image

Product Name: Acrions TrueImage
Version: 8.0
Build #: 763
Version of OS: Windows XP Pro Version 2002 SP1

I just purchased Acrions TrueImage and have successfully made a back up of my two hard drives. My C drive (main HD) is a 80gb Seagate hd that has 48gb of info I have backed up with TrueImage, second hd is a 160gb Seagate that is partitioned to two 80gb partitions each partitions only has between 4 and 6 gb. I created an Image with Acrions with success on my external Maxtor 250gb hd and now I want to Explore the Image I created. So I chose the Explore Image in the TI8 main window and get and select my Maxtor HD and open the folder that I stored my backup in. I then select the images I want to explore and assign them letter drives. TI8 then tells me it is ready to assign temporary logical drive letters to the partitions from the image archive. Then it gives me a list of complete operations to be preformed. I select proceed and get the error message " Cannot assign a drive letter to a partition from the image archive "

Not sure why I cannot view the image, one of the reasons I bought TrueImage is because I thought I could restore individual files. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Not sure I understand what you are getting at here with the word "imageS" but try the Online FAQ's ("Sticky" thread) on the first page of this forum. Number 12 (ya gotta count down) might just be it (although it refers to CDR/W media).

 

When I refer to “images” I am talking about the *.tib file TI8 has created.

From FAQ's

I did read this before and did not think it related to my problem since I do have the images mounted to my Maxtor HD, but I might be wrong.

 

I was referring to your use of plural (imageS). You were not explicit as to where on the HDD you had strewn them. Also, I was unsure as to how many there were.

Have you tried exploring just 1 image at a time? I use TI7 and it is flawless when it comes to creating the virtual drive and of course from that you can restore individual files.

 

Yes I tried to explore one file at a time, I have some screen shots of the whole process mabey it will help explain what is exactly happening

http://members.cox.net/sliponflange/TI8/ti1.jpg

http://members.cox.net/sliponflange/TI8/ti2.jpg

http://members.cox.net/sliponflange/TI8/ti3.jpg

http://members.cox.net/sliponflange/TI8/ti4.jpg

http://members.cox.net/sliponflange/TI8/ti5.jpg

 

"The selected image is password protected"

Could you try again without password protecting your image when you make it?

 

I responded to your last post and screenshots with a long-winded reply, however, due to the marvels of modern computing when I tried to submit my reply I was informed that I must submit my username (had already logged in). When I did so, I was informed that my username was already in use (imagine that!) - anyway lost the damned message before it was all said and done!

Bottom line; I was able to reproduce your error but only twice (password protected or not!). I then shut down TI and relaunched it and could never get it to fail again. Perfect every time mouting 2,3,4 virtual drives at once from 1 image. I have never mounted more than 1 at a time before tonight as I never work with more than 1 virtual drive at a time.

Give a try mounting just 1 partition from the multi-partition image you have created. If it errors out shut down TI and relaunch and try again. One other thing; wait until the partition analyzation phase has completed when you first launch TI (watch the lower left corner of the TI window). This will probaly take many seconds on your machine due to the number of visible partitions on your HDD's.

Lastly, my test bed was Win2K/TIv7. Was too lazy to reboot to XP. Good Luck my man!

 

Ok I made a image without a password and still no luck, cannot explore the backup.

I also made a backup of just my C drive and still had no luck. I also have been making sure that the partition analyzation phase has completed now that mike_wells has brought this to my attention. I also rebooted my pc and tried several time to shut down TI8 and restart it. What I did notice is that if I move the error message window behind it you can see TI8 started to assiging a letter to partition 1 of 1 so it must have started to work? Also after I hit ok in the bottom left of the main window of TI8 it still says Assigning letter to partion 1of 1. Really dont know if this means much. Hope to figure this out soon, Thanx for everyones help so far.

http://members.cox.net/sliponflange/TI8/ti6.jpg

http://members.cox.net/sliponflange/TI8/ti7.jpg

http://members.cox.net/sliponflange/TI8/ti8.jpg

 

The one thing that I had noticed earlier is that we are working strictly NTFS here. Now I am well aware that it is the native file system for NT/2K/XP however up until just a short while ago I had never gone there! Well, I did and now I'm back (to FAT32 that is)! I seemed to have just all sorts of unexplained issues with XP and NTFS and to add to it I installed Linux during that time and that compounded the issues. Some of the issues I did own (some bad blocks in my XP partition free space), but the rest of them I did not. And, some of them were TrueImage! I tried several clean installs of XP/NTFS and the story goes on and on. Maybe it was all just freak coincidence but I do not think so. Finally got so fed up I trashed XP/NTFS and went back to Win2K/FAT32. After a cooling off period I did reinstall XP with FAT32 (dual-boot with 2K) and life has been good ever since. Even Linux gets along with the others now! I could make a strong case for why I drug my feet all these years before going to NTFS and a stronger one for why the hell I got rid of it but there is no point in going there. What I will say is that it is a closed file system and that it is M$ proprietary.

If by chance you have any FAT32 partitions laying around on all those drives you have, make an image of just 1 partition and then see if you can explore it. If you don't, and can create one and populate it with some "stuff" of any kind by all means do so.

Normally I would not even post something of this nature in front of God and everybody else but I know the agony I went thru with XP/NTFS and for sure I can not be the only one. Not tooting my horn here, but I am a Systems Analyst with 37 years experience and have been working with/on PC's since 1982. Just wanted to let you know that I have been around the block.

Again, Good Luck!

 

Hi, sliponflagne

Should not make any difference. [I make all mine PWP]

Can you please try again without giving it a drive letter when it ask for you to assign one.

Take Care,
TheQuest

 

My iPod is Fat32 dont know if I can back it up but I will try.

TI8 auto selects the next available drive which in my case is L the only options I have are to select another letter of select “Do not mount “ if I do this then it deselects the backup I am trying to explore and I cannot select the next button

http://members.cox.net/sliponflange/TI8/ti9.jpg

 

Hi, sliponflagne

What I mean is to tick your back-up.

And then click next.

Take Care,
TheQuest

PS: I use NTFS file system on all my Partition and it works.

 

Are you referring to the box with the red arrow next to it. When I tick it my L drive is auto selected. If I untick it the “Do not mount” option is auto selected.


http://members.cox.net/sliponflange/TI8/ti10.jpg

 

We keep trying the same thing here expecting different results. It does not work that way.

Let's get real adventurous and try some troubleshooting to see if we can isolate the problem or at least start ruling out 1 thing at a time.

Choose 1 partition (small) and take an image storing it on the other HDD (NO multi-partition image). See if you can explore it.

The file system; have you run Chkdsk (or similar) on all of your partitions? This must be done at reboot with NTFS cuz Chkdsk will report spurious errors otherwise (can not get a lock on the drive with Win running). If you can run from the Recovery Console run it with the /p switch first (exhaustive/no fix). If no RC then /f.

Uninstall/reinstall TI (completely!). Believe it or not this works in some cases!

Again, if you don't have 1 handy, create yourself a whatever (FAT32) partition and go after that and that alone. No doubt it should work with NTFS but we have to start eliminating the common issues.

Bottom line is that you have proven beyond a doubt that it is not working the way you are going at it now so let's try and get to the root of the problem.

I'll be checking on the thread from time to time today.

 

Finally it works!!!!!!!! After uninstalling TI8 and reinstalling it now works, I was able to explore all backups that I have created. Thanks for everyone’s help especially mike_wells for not giving up.

Thanks Ryan

 

Way to go, RYAN! Now you're gonna love it!

Mike

 

Hi
Thanks for all the above info, I am having the same problem. I am using the latest TI7 and am unable to explore my image.
The symptoms are exactly the same as in the previous posts, all other parts of TI appear to be working fine.
I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling but this did not help me on my PC.
When you say 'completely' remove what do you mean exactly?
I am sure this feature did work when I first installed TI7 a few months ago but this is the first time I have tried it since.
Any help would be most welcome.
Thanks

 

Folders, drivers, and in some cases, registry.

 

Thanks Mike.
OK I have uninstalled TI7 and removed everything I can find connected with it, registry etc.
Reinstalled TI with all my usual start up progs disabled (Antivirus etc).
Still no joy.
Unable to assign drive letter to image message again.
Tried different size images, no joy.
I am running WinXp pro SP1 fully updated. Plenty of HDD space.
Anymore ideas?
thanks
mesaboogieman

 

I am assuming that when you installed some months ago, you were successful at exploring images. Is that correct? Secondly, when the assign drive letters dialog comes up the letters are already assigned by default. Is that happening? Third, I assume that you removed the drivers from the Win dir\sub-dirs and that you deleted all Acronis/TrueImage keys in the registry. You stated that you were having the "same problem", and unless you and Ryan are identical twins all the way down to your machines, partitions, OS, file systems (NTFS?), applications and data I have to turn a blind eye to that one! If the above all holds true I am guessing that you have made some significant change to your PC since installing TI originally. If that be the case then a thorough uninstall/reinstall should clean it up. If not, then continue on with the procedures I had outlined for Ryan. Gotta start somewhere and with the scarce information that you've furnished I do not know what else to tell you at this point.

 

Hi again
Yes, I am using NTFS and have made quite a few changes to my PC since I installed TI originally.
I am interested in your comment on removing the drivers during uninstall. Do they not get removed during the normal add/remove unistall? I did check for left over folders and files plus registry entries on my last uninstall.
Could you please point me to where they are to be found so I can check this out if I try uninstalling again.
Back to your questions:
Yes, I was able to explore an image when I first installed TI originally a few months ago.
When starting the process to explore an image the program correctly selects the next drive letter (H in my case). I have tried selecting other letters but this does not help. The box then appears - processing assigning drive letter. About a minute latter after some HDD activity the 'failed to assign drive letter to partition image' appears.

 

TI and the Win drivers can present some strange issues (e.g., "Can't find any hard drives")! This particular one has happened to me more than once (after TI has been running fine for days, weeks, months). On the last occasion I had "repaired" XP from the installation CD. I have also found over the long haul that nothing (absolutely nothing) coexists well with NTFS (unless it was built by M$). See my earlier post on this thread. But, that's my issue, not yours, and a lot of people are using TI with NTFS and life is good.

The drivers are tifsfilt and timntr and are located in your \Windows\System32\Drivers sub-directory. I have never found an uninstall procedure that is 100% (NEVER)! So when it's critical I do my own uninstall after the fact.

Use Add/Remove Programs to uninstall, make sure the drivers are history, remove the \Program Files\Acronis directory and the TrueImage sub-directory and delete every major Acronis/TrueImage key in the registry (some say that RegClean is a good util for doing this). Do a clean install from your original CD and then upgrade (from the Acronis site) to 627.

Assuming all of that has gone well, take an image of just 1 partition, check the image on completion (using the Check Image procedure) and then try and explore it using the defaults established by TI. Insure that the 1 partition image destination is NOT the same as the partition you are imaging. If all of this does not fly, then we need to get serious!

 

Hi
Thanks for your reply.
I have today completely removed TI7 and reinstalled my original version 572.
On trying the image explorer out it still ended up giving the error message 'failed to assign a drive letter to the partition image... BUT on closing the error box the virtual drive appears and works ok!
However, I cannot 'unplug' it using the TI feature, it shows 'empty' in the selection box!
Anyway having got some success I updated TI7 to version 627 and guess what, no virtual drive again.
Repeated the above from scratch and got the same result.(Also tried updating to version 613)
Also tried complete uninstall followed by installing 627 straight away. No V.Drive.
Only way it sort of works is by using a clean install of 572.
Very weird.

 

Hi, mesaboogieman

That is what I was trying to tell sliponflagne.

When you did the above a window open with your files in, if you close the window.

And go to MyComputer>right click and open it you will see the mounted drive which you can explore [Image].

You should be able to right click it, and should see a dismount in the drop down context menu. [If I remember correctly]

Or a Reboot will automatically dismount it.

Take Care,
TheQuest

PS: Sorry dismount is not in the drop down context menu. [I remembed wrongly. :- ]

 

Hi 'The Quest' and anyone else who's interested.

Yes, I can dismount manually or by resetting the PC but it would be nice to be able to use the 'Unplug' button in the TI interface.

I press the 'Unplug Image' button and a box appears asking you to select the image you want to dismount but in my case it's empty (and it say's it's empty) even though it has just generated a Virtual Drive.

Do many users have problems with the Virtual drive feature?

Why does it only work on my PC using version 572, lots of unanswered questions about this feature I feel.