Backing up files to a Samba Share

Hi,

I use Acronis Home 10 in the latest build. When I try to backup files to a samba share on another PC in my network and that *.tib file reaches 2 GB in size, then the PC running Acronis, crashes and reboots. On the other hand I successfully backed up not files, but a partition to a *.tib file of 5 GB size on just that samba share. That samba share points to an NTFS file system.

kind regards
Heinrich Wolf

 

Additional information:

I booted the PC, doing a backup, from the Acronis Rescue CD.

 

Hello Heinrich Wolf,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please note that we would need some additional information from you to investigate this issue thoroughly.

Could you please create Acronis Report and Linux system information (sysinfo.txt) as it is described in Acronis Help Post?

In addition, please if you received any massages before reboot.

Are you able to create file-based backup archive smaller then 2 GB to the networked shared folder?

Having collected the above information please submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to 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 a solution.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

Hi,

a few minutes ago I successfully created a file-based \\tower\transfer\test.tib with a size of 8MB from my notebook.
As I wrote before, my daughter's PC successfully created a partition-based backup \\tower\transfer\xxx.tib with a size of approx. 5GB. I also tried a partition-based backup \\tower\transfer\xxx.tib from my notebook. It successfully passed the 2GB border, but I interrupted it long before it reached its estimated size of approx 30GB.

I did not see any (error) messages before my notebook crashed at 2GB progress of a file-based backup and approx. 3GB more to be saved in \\tower\transfer\xxx.tib . From one second to the next it lost the Acronis screen and then it showed the BIOS screen.

Soon I will create Acronis Report and Linux system information and write it to http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/support/

 

Hi,

in the meantime I extracted the requested files from the PC, which crashed, while doing the backup.

Here you are.

Soon I also will post all that to http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/support/

Heinrich Wolf

 

Hi,

why do I want to back up file-based?
Why do I back up to a samba share?
My notebook has only USB 1.1 . So I chose the 100 MBit/s network as destination. My notebook has a 40GB hard disk with Windows XP in a single partition. The "My Documents" folder contains approx. 20 GB, which I don't need to back up, since these data are mirrored from my tower pc, and I already have a partition based backup from that. I just want to back up my notebook's complex installation of Windows XP and all other programs.

kind regards
Heiner

 

Hi,

in the meantime I tried a file based backup from my daughter's pc to the samba share. It successfully passed the 2GB border. Then I interrupted it. Now I investigate if there is a relation of the content to te crash. On my notebook I selected all files on C:\ . Then I excluded "My Documents". That means a gap of approx. 20GB. On my daugther's pc I did the same. But the gap of "My documents" is only a few MB. Currently I count the sum of size in all files from my notebook starting with C:\ alphabetically up to "My Documents". If don't find a relation to 2GB, maybe it's a hardware issue of my notebook? Maybe I should chkdsk my notebook's file system?

kind regards
Heiner

 

Ok!

My counting program also crashed while reading C:\Windows\..., after it had passed the "My Documents" folder! From C:\ until the "My Documents" folder it counted 500MB. Right now chkdsk reported to have fixed some file system defects.

kind regards
Heiner

 

Hello Heinrich Wolf,

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

Yes, the report.txt file you have attached shows some errors on the partition C of your computer (File system error: 37 (Index corrupted)). Thus, please execute "chkdsk C: /r" command from Start -> Run -> cmd to fix the errors. Note that checking the C: drive may require you to reboot the machine.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

Hi Aleksandr,

I already tried chkdsk, but without success. Then my pc crashed a few KBytes beyond 2GB progress of Acronis backup. And there are more problems. Its NTFS was severely damaged. Meanwhile I formatted the disk, installed WinXP from scratch and currently I am restoring an ntbackup archive from March. I hope, then it is clean and I will give Acronis another try.

kind regards
Heiner

 

I thought that from problems with WLAN. But that seems to be a software issue and not a file system issue.

 

Hi,

I GIVE UP!

at long last I finished reinstalling my notebook.
- deleted all partitions
- created them again
- installed WinXP from scratch
- restored the system from ntbackup
- installed WinXP updates
- Copied "My Documents" from my tower PC
Then I gave the file based Acronis backup another try. It stopped at 1.7GB (too small). I was not standing by. The *.tib was corrupted. Seems to have crashed again. Immediately after that I created a new report.txt . It said MFT Bitmap corrupted. So again I chkdsk'ed my C: . It affirmed and fixed that error. I immediately booted the Acronis rescue CD after that, and not Windows. Again I gave the file based Acronis backup another try. It crashed at 1.7GB.

File based Acronis backup from the Linux rescue CD seems to be very sensitive to NTFS file system errors. It immediately crashes on an error. Windows is rather tolerant on NTFS file system errors and continues to work. In one particular case Windows on my notebook was not able to read a file from my tower PC over samba. At my tower PC I copied that file to a different folder, deleted the corrupted folder and assigned the old name to the new folder. Then my notebook was able to access it.

It's a pity! I returned to ntbackup.

Not to be forgotten:
If I do a file based backup from the Acronis rescue CD and choose a samba share as destination. e.g. "\\tower\transfer\notebook 2007-04-28", then not only ".tib" is appended, but "1.tib" is appended! So it will read "notebook 2007-04-281.tib"!

regards
Heiner

 

Hi,

the Acronis support advised me to use the Bart PE pluging of Acronis for creating the backup. Again I chose a samba share of my tower PC running Windows XP as destination of the backup. I first struggled to access that Samba Share, although it is writeable for everybody without password. Bart PE kept asking me for user name and password. But that is an issue of Bart PE or Windows. Then I changed the network name of Bart PE running on my notebook to the name, that Windows XP uses, when running on my notebook. Finally I was able to access that samba share from Acronis running on Bart PE.

After nearly 2 hours Acronis successfully completed the file based Backup without errors. While in progress, my tower PC's hard disk showed activity, but seen from the tower PC the archive all the time showed a size of zero. I had assigned the name "\\Tower\Transfer\Notebook 2007-05-11" to the archive and Acronis had not appended ".tib", but "1.tib". So the archive read "Notebook 2007-05-111.tib". But that only was a temporary name while in progress. After completing Acronis deleted the extra 1 from the archive name. And when Acronis closed the archive, my tower PC finally showed the true size of the archive.

Kind regards and many thanks to the Acronis support!
Heinrich Wolf