Can't recover hard drive space after aborted backup attempt

Hi everyone,

I’m brand new to the product (Acronis True Image 9.0) and have run into a problem I can’t seem figure out. I’m using XP

I tried to create a backup of my hard drive using the “backup” button in the main menu under “Pick a task”. I picked my drive to backup and started the task. After starting the backup I had a change of heart about where I wanted the backup to reside as I realized I was short on space (I never created a secure zone BTW) and cancelled the operation before it finished. When I checked my hard drive size immediately afterwards I noticed it had lost about 30Gig worth of space and there doesn’t seem to be a way to get it back. At this point I just want my hard drive the way it was before the aborted backup, as I need more space in that drive. I double-checked to see if a secure zone was somehow automatically created but Acronis does not show that any exists nor does it show that the .tib file I created exists when I go to “check archive”.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

 

I've aborted lots of backups with TI and never had any change to the hard drive, so I really doubt that this is the source of the problem.

It's more likely that you did in fact create a SecureZone even though you did not intend to do so.

What partititions are shown for your hard drive(s)? You need to use a partition manager or the Windows XP Disk Management tool. (Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, and click on Disk Management in the left hand pane. In the right pane, you hard drives and partitions will be displayed.

Tell us what you see.

 

Hi John,

Thanks for the reply. Disk manager shows all my pre-existing drives and they all look normal and there are no additional drives showing. My c: drive is the drive in question and it shows that I've lost 30Gig.

Just for kicks I duplicated the aborted backups 2 more times just now and lost an additional 10Gig. I go check windows disk manager and all looks normal except I've lost another 10Gig on my c: drive. Acronis log clearly shows the attempts and cancellations. I'm definitely using space up. I had Explorer up when I ran backup just now and could see the .tib file being created and then vanish on abort.

When I run Acronis Secure Zone Manager it shows that no Secure Zones exist. Now I'm in trouble because I'm almost out of room on my C: drive and there isn't much I can do to clear out files to make space. I'm pretty close to just recloning my original drive to get back to where I was but I hope it doesn't come to that.

Any other thoughts?

 

Create a secure zone and then delete it. When asked allocate the space used by the secure zone and expand to fill the drive.

 

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the reply.

It looked like what you suggested was going to work great. Acronis found the correst size of free space that was in my computer (including the 40 Gig I lost, and then deleted it when I deleted the secure zone. Unfortunately, my C: drive shows that I've still lost 40Gig of space on c: drive even though Acronis showed that it deleted a secure zone of the total free space I had before I got into this mess.

Any other suggestions?

 

I don't think you followed the procedure quite correctly. Look at the following thread: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=816816#post816816.

 

I under stand that the C partition is smaller, but what other space is shown for that drive. Is there now unallocated space on that hard drive?

You are a glutton for punishment. But reproducing the problem is very valuable. I can't explain why this is happening since I've never had the problem, but it sure sounds like an odd bug.

If the reduction in the size of C is accompanied by the appearance of unallocated space, there is a way to re-attach that to the C partition. If you have a drive partition program, you could do that. If not, create a Secure Zone in the free space using all of it. Then delete the Secure Zone, and when you are asked what partition to add the SZ space to, choose the C partition.

 

Hi guys,

I'd like to thank both Tom and John for their replies and help; it's very much appreciated.

I went back and did exactly what Tom's link explains (which is what I had done before) and I've had no luck. Everything looks like it's doing what it's supposed to be doing...

When I create the secure zone it finds 38 gig of space (I should have 78 gig), it creates the secure zone and then I delete it but am still left with only 38 gig of free space instead of 78 gig. Then I redid the secure zone creation but used the small box on the bottom (instead of the slider) to raise the secure zone size to 78 Gig.

If I look at Disk Manager I see an Acronis drive has been created in my C: drive with a size of 78 gig but when I have acronis delete the secure zone I still show only 38 gig of free space in disk manager. BTW after I delete the secure zone with acronis my c: drive looks normal in disk manager meaning that there is no unallocated space or other partitions inside of it.

I've tried creating and deleting the secure zones about 10 times now trying different variations and the bottom line is that my c: drive continues to show only 38 gig available no matter what I do. I haven't heard back from Acronis support yet so it looks like I'll be recloning my original hard drive to get back to where I was unless someone else has any other ideas...

Thanks again for all your help!

 

Let's separate drives from partitions. C is a partition on Disk 0 as shown by Disk Management (lower portion of the righthand panel of Disk Manager). If there is no unallocated space shown for Disk 0, then the C partition is the entire drive. In that case, that's the size of the drive. Nothing is lost.

You can confirm the size of your first hard drive (Drive 0) by going into the BIOS Setup when you boot your computer. The size of the hard disk(s) will be shown. This should agree with the total size shown by Disk Management.

If it does, that's how big your drive is, and nothing has been lost.

 

Hi John,

Disk Manager is reporting the correct drive "capacity" as 140 Gig (It's advertised as a 150 Gig SATA drive). The capacity of the drive has never been an issue. It's the "free space" that's giving me the problem. I started with 78 Gig of free space before I ran Acronis Backup and now I'm left with only 38 Gig even after creating and deleting a 78 Gig secure zone which I created on my c: drive.

BTW, my c: is the entire hard drive; I have no other partitions on it.

I suppose the free space may actually be there and it's just being reported wrong by windows but I'm not sure.

Nick

 

I think I might have seen the light. Disk Management shows Drive 0 to be 140GB (that's the size Windows reports counting in binary for a 150GB disk counting with the base 10 which is how drives are sold).

Does Disk Management show any unalocated space on Disk 0? My guess is that the answer is No.

Then the C partition (C is a partition on Drive 0), is shown as 140GB, give or take one or two GB.

When you use Windows Explorer, the size of the C drive (each partition gets a drive letter), is 140GB, but the free space had been reduced from the original 78GB to 38GB. Is this correct?

If so, the problem is probably that there are some large files stored on your C partition that weren't there before you ran Acronis.

Let me guess again that you had originally planned to save the backup of the C partition on the C partition, so the large files are TrueImage image files which somehow didn't get deleted when you canceled the operation.

TrueImage files have a .tib extension, so you can search for them, but I'll bet they are in the root directory of your C partition. You can look there with Windows Explorer, but first you need to have extensions shown which is not the default setting for Windows Explorer.

Start Windows Explorer (Start button, All Programs, Accessories and click on Windows Explorer).
In Windows Explorer, click on Tools on the menu line.
On the Tools drop down menu, click on Folder Options.
In Folder Options, click on the View tab.
Uncheck the box for "Hide extensions for known file types."
Click OK.

Still inIn Windows Explorer, click on the + sign next to My Computer.
Click on the C drive.
Look in the right hand pane for any files ending in .tib.
Note the size and then delete them.
Empty the Recycle Bin.
Recheck the free space on C.

If you can't see the .tib files, click the Search button on the tool bar. Enter *.tib as what you are searching for and choose the Local Disk C as where to look. Note the size of the .tib files and delete them. Empty the Recycle bin and check the free space on C.

If there are no .tib files, then there may be some sectors that are not correctly identified as a result of the canceled backup.
Still in Windows Explorer, right click on the C drive.
Click on Properties.
Click on the Tools tab.
In the Error Checking box, click Check Now.
Don't check either box at this time, and click Start.
If you don't receive a "Disk Check Complete" message, repeat this and check both boxes.
The error checking will run when you reboot.
Finally, check the free space on C.

Let me know if I did see the light or only a mirage.

 

Hi John,

Thank you again for all your effort! Everything you assumed is correct and I have already done everything you suggested except for the last portion (error checking). I did not add anything other files to the computer once I tried to use backup so I'm quite confident it was Acronis eating up my free space. There were no .tib files anywhere on my computer and I never feel comfortable unless I can see all of my files, including the hidden ones so I always have "show hidden files on".

I do have some news as Acronis support got back to me with a link to the latest update for my software. I always check for updates before I run new software but Acronis's web site came back with "you have the latest updates" so I thought I was all set. Turns out there is an update after all and I downloaded it last night and tried to make another secure zone as was discussed earlier by Tom in the thread. This time during the secure zone creation Acronis had an error as it was rebooting and when my system came up again there had been a secure zone created but Acronis could not see it when I went back to delete it. So basically there was no way to get the 78Gig of unallocated space off my C: drive. What a mess...

That was pretty much it for me. So I've gone ahead and reformatted and recloned my drive which is really the only reason I bought the software for in the first place. Acronis always does that flawlessly. Everything is back to normal now.

No more backups for me..

Thanks again John!

Nick