Can't "Mount" an image

Hi: I have XP pro, sp3 running with TI-2009 installed.
I can run TI from Windows and create image backups of my C: drive and store than on a different internal hard drive, F:.

Now I can start TI again and go to "manage". From there I can "verify" my images successfully.

I can "explore" my images and easily "copy & paste" files to my C drive.

What I cannot do is "mount" an image. The mount begins, I hear a tone that I think is a drive letter being created, but the mount never finishes. What does happen is the computer just sits there telling me the mount is happening. This could go on forever. Anything I try to open or close gradually makes the computer begin becoming less and less responsive. Shut down is impossible, a reset switch is the only way to end the pain.

I tried this after booting a rescue CD but "mount" isn't an option that way.

What is my problem? How to resolve? Maybe I don't need to "mount" if I can expect a full image restore would still work? Will it?

My only guess is my BitDefender Internet Security 2008. It causes similar problems with "CDBurnerXP".

Fungus

 

I suspect you either have a SNAPAPI problem or a wrong entry in registry possibly in the upper filters section.

Having said that, I 'd wait to get a second opinion on that idea. You could try disabling BitDefender in Services.msc to see if this is the culprit.

 

fungus:

The symptom you are seeing can also occur when trying to mount some of the EISA recovery partitions that are furnished with laptop PCs, or other partitions where Windows cannot understand the file format. How many partitions are in your image file? Have you tried mounting only one partition at a time?

 

Mark:

My first hard drive (sata) is divided into 2 partitions, C: (XP boot) and G:, the upper half.

My second drive is also sata and is F:, where the backup TI files are located. The image does not include any TI backup files.

I first tried to mount C: and it failed as noted.
Next I tried to mount an image of F: as a test, it failed the same way.

Q-1. What will "Mount" (if it works) give me that "Explore" doesn't?

Q-2. Can I expect to be able to restore a C: image to a new drive installed in the place of C:, even though "Mount" doesn't work?

Thanks,

Fungus

 

Good questions.

Q1: Mount, when working properly, gives you all of the features of a normal disk in Windows Explorer; you can see the correct icons for files and programs, you can double-click on files to run them, and of course you can copy files from the backup archive. There is also a capability to modify files in the archive; changes are saved as an incremental image. Explore, on the other hand, is more limited. You will not always see the correct icons for files and folders and only some file types will run when double-clicked. On the other hand, only partitions containing file systems that Windows understands (FAT and NTFS) can be mounted. If you also run Linux you will note that you can explore an archive of a Linux partition but you cannot mount it (unless you have installed a special driver in Windows that allows Windows Explorer to work with Linux partitions).

The big picture here is that Exploring an archive is probably sufficient for most recovery needs. Mounting is more convenient if you need to pick out and copy a large number of files from an archive.

Q2: You probably can expect your archive to restore properly. Restoration is done without the help of Windows -- TI runs in its native recovery mode (Linux based) when restoring. Whatever is preventing your mounting of an archive is a Windows issue. But there's only one way to find out if restoring is going to work properly and that is to do a test restore to a spare hard disk. At the moment your reliance on TI for disaster recovery is untested; you are working in "write-only" mode. You absolutely must test the app fully if you are going to rely on it; don't wait until disaster strikes. If you restore to a spare hard disk then there is no risk to your current Windows installation.

[Tip - make an image of your current Windows partition before connecting the spare disk. Save it to your second disk (you probably already have done this much). *Important* Then remove your main disk and put it aside for safe keeping. Install the spare disk in its place. Boot to the TI recovery CD and restore the image to the spare disk. Reboot to test]

Back to mounting -- perhaps something happened to your installation of TI. You could try uninstalling the program, reboot, then reinstall. If that doesn't work then I think bodgy may be correct in his analysis. I would then recommend contacting Acronis via the Live Chat feature on their web site.

 

Mark:
Thanks for the quick response.
Your answers are what I expected (and hoped for).
I do have a few spare sata drives that are 80GB and that is much larger than the content of my C: drive. The image should fit. I will do this test for sure and I expect to run the process with a booting of the TI rescue CD.

I'm not going to get too busy getting "TI Mount" to work until I replace BitDefender in about a month. I'd say that BD is a pain in the a$$ if you were to ask me. As I mentioned earlier, BD causes this exact problem when I run CDBurnerXP.

Thank you for your advice.

Fungus

 

Hello all,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

fungus, all suggestions given to you are absolutely correct. Also, please check Acronis True Image Cannot Mount Backup Archive article for troubleshooting.

Thank you.
--
Alexander Nikolsky