Corrupt/Can't Verify Corrupt Archives: Let's uncover the problem!

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by johnmeyer, Sep 11, 2007.

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  1. laserfan

    laserfan Registered Member

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    I have a request: To those who aren't having this problem--JUST STAY AWAY!

    Good grief. For those of us who have lost faith in TI11, and hear Nothing by way of ideas from Acronis, we certainly don't need to hear "too bad" and (effectively) "shut-up already" from the fanboys.
     
  2. mshe

    mshe Registered Member

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    So what are the alternatives? Is Ghost so much better these days?
     
  3. tuffshed

    tuffshed Registered Member

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    I'd like to see a class action type suite to get our money back... unfortunately I don't have time for such foolishness, I'm too busy making Windows Copies of my data...:mad: But actually, to be true to the thread, that question deserves it's own thread.

    Seriously, There are at least two major "flaws" that I see on this thread. I would be happy to see this thread split if Acronis would step up and address them in this public forum. Lots of people, like the original author have started up Acronis tickets, only to see no real answers. Perhaps in this public thread we can warn others about this product and maybe shock Acronis into addressing these issues in a public forum. Merely reporting the problem to a trouble ticket, as many in this forum have done, does not seem to get their attention.

    The two "flaws" that I see are :
    1. Backups refuse to verify correctly for no apparent reason on certain disk types (I believe USB has the most problems).
    2. You can NOT do a partial restore from a corrupted backup. All data is lost.

    Is that a fair description? As for the size of this thread...well that only tells me that this is an important issue for Acronis users. I would think the sheer size of the thread on a public forum would make any customer responsive company take notice and solve.... We can only hope and keep backing up by other means.
     
  4. laserfan

    laserfan Registered Member

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    I think this might be right--in my case the USB drive that I use most often is a FreeAgent Pro, though I do also have an older Seagate which frankly I haven't tried it on.

    It's just one of those problems that would take a long time to try to nail down, and then with no confidence that Acronis will pay attention, well it's hard to get psyched-up to work the problem when (in my case) I already have ATI7 and it works every time, all the time.
     
  5. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    I think what's going into this this thread is what's getting buried. Any further discussion would be seen by more folks if in newer and shorter threads, each in an appropirate topic. Nobody but diehards are reading this thread anymore. Thus the suggestion to clsoe this thread. Which doesn't remove anyting in this thread and doesn't prevent new posts being added to the forum. It jsut stop s new posts in this ball of yarn.



     
  6. laserfan

    laserfan Registered Member

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    And your basis for making this statement is... what? You have a way to break-down the almost 16,000 views of this 281 post thread?

    OK, I will admit and agree that no doubt some significant number of those views are from folks who have nothing better to do but hang around here and offer their unsolicited "expertise" in order to give their lives meaning and to feel important! :p
     
  7. Rongeohar

    Rongeohar Registered Member

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    I'm running ATI 11 most recent version and have been for a long time. Suddenly and without rhyme or reason I'm getting corrupt archives no matter if I copy to internal or external drives. Note that until this recent change, I could copy anywhere in my system without this error occurring. I have been through the entire list of Acronis suggestions: checked the primary disk both with chkdsk /f/r and with the disk manufacturer's own tool (hitachi); checked my memory extensively with memtest 86+; validated from the recovery disk; created image and validated from the recovery disk; downloaded an Acronis provided ISO recovery disk and again validated, created and validated. Nothing has fixed the bloody problem!


    There have been no hardware or software changes to my system other than a few Vista updates. I dual boot into Vista 32 bit and XP Pro and have tried the same procedures using ATI 11 from both OS's. same dismal result.

    Now, the only thing I can think of is that the problem resides with the 780i SLI NVidia chipset and, in particular, the newly issued drive controller drivers contained in nForce 15.23. These drivers have been giving all sorts of other problems and the most recent ones appear to have resolved those. Could it be that the SATA drivers are somehow the culprits? Not being a guru in geek-knowledge, I'm stumped to know what next to do.
     
  8. thecreator

    thecreator Registered Member

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    Hi Rongeohar,

    What do you mean by copy to Internal or External Hard Drives?

    The Initial place that you created a partition image to. Does it verify the Archive in that place?

    Why not create an Archive to where you want to restore the Archive from, if need be? Are you creating the Archive with your background Anti-Virus disabled or running?
     
  9. Rongeohar

    Rongeohar Registered Member

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    Hi the creator

    Internal drive is any one of the SATA drives I choose to create the image of my C: drive that I'll want to restore. I restore it from the drive on which I've placed the image (or at least I was able to and I'd like to be able to again). By external I mean either of 2 USB storage drives. I guess copy was a bad choice of words, I don't copy the image once made, I just create an image to disk and have restored from either internal/external drives in the past.

    I've tried imaging with and without av software running, it makes no difference.
     
  10. MrMorse

    MrMorse Registered Member

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    Hi,
    yes, controller driver may be the culprit (remember the decade of nForce2-chipset with the IDE drivers :rolleyes: ).
    Are these drivers installed in your PC? Then try to install the default controller drivers and try Ti again.

    I see you have done many things to discover the error.
    You create the backup under Win, right?
    Try to start with Ti-rescue-CD to clarify whether it gives valid TIB-files...
    I assume that these TIBs will be ok.

    Question:
    What kind of backup did you create:
    - whole disk (all partitions)
    - one partition
    - folders
     
  11. thecreator

    thecreator Registered Member

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    Hi Rongeohar,

    I know this may sound strange, but did you Custom-built your computer or add the SATA Hard Drives, yourself? I ask, because I Custom-built my own computer and added a SATA Hard Drive to the mix with IDE Hard Drives.

    I was getting problems booting up with the Acronis Bootable Rescue CD and working with Acronis on it. Bottom Line: It was the SATA Hard Drive Cable that plugs between the Hard Drive and the motherboard. I reversed the Cable. Whether it was a loose Cable Connector or Reversing the Cable fixed the problem, I don't know.

    Try reversing the SATA Hard drive Cable on the Hard Drives to the motherboard. See if it makes a difference. Just like, you are suppose to plug the IDE Cable to IDE Connectors in one direction from the Hard Drive to the motherboard.

    You can only plug the SATA Hard Drive into the back of the Hard Drive, one way, but either end of the Cable can plug into the Hard Drive, so try flipping the Cable and see if it makes any difference on your end.

    That's all I did and it worked for me.
     
  12. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    I don't have that motherboard but I can understand your diagnosis. My only trouble with TI validation was corrected by changing the SATA cables. The PC appeared to work normally although there were a couple of entries in the Event Viewer recommending a cable change - parity errors, IIRC. This did fix my problem although after about 18 months or so, I had a non-TI problem on the same machine. Reseating the SATA cables fixed it.

    IMO, the SATA connectors are scary-flimsy in appearance. A spec I saw said they were only rated for 50 insertions.
     
  13. Rongeohar

    Rongeohar Registered Member

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    Hi MrMorse,

    My backups have been whole disk. The ATI rescue disk also finds corrupt archive files, as does the iso recue disk from Acronis obtained through chat with support services. Image files created with the ATI rescue disks and then validated also show corrupt archive errors.

    Given the nightmare of BSOD's with the previous controller drivers, I'm reluctant to replace the current ones that are stable especially without a trustworthy full-disk image to fall back on. If I feel especially like risk-taking I might just see if there are default MS drivers that will do the job.
     
  14. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    In case you are unaware, the environment on the TI rescue CD is not Windows but Linux so it is not using the Windows drivers. Can you validate your archive from within Windows? If you can, that would put problem into the not uncommon category of inadequate Linux drivers and nothing to do with Windows.
     
  15. Rongeohar

    Rongeohar Registered Member

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    Hi thecreator,

    I did indeed build my system. All my internal hard-drives are SATA and the only IDE connections are made to the 2 cd/dvd drives that I have. I don't have trouble booting with the ATI rescue disk or making it work. I Just have trouble getting a valid image from it or from the Windows based version. Recall that there were no problems until recently. I will check the SATA cable to the boot drive for secure seating although I can't imagine why it should be a problem since I don't move my machine around and passive devices like a SATA cable shouldn't just start to play funny (but Murphy might say otherwise).
     
  16. Rongeohar

    Rongeohar Registered Member

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    All environments produce corrupt archive errors. I was aware that the ATI rescue disks are Linux baesd but I'm not sure whether this means that the SATA controllers are derived from the rescue disk. Are they?
     
  17. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    The linux rescue CD is a system independent, memory-resident version of Linux which is why you can remove the CD and put in your archive optical disk if necessary. It does not use anything from your HD. When in Windows the Windows environment is used exclusively. TI does put in a pseudo-device to facilitate its Windows operation and it shows up in Device Manager.

    I did indeed have a SATA cable needing reseating to clean the contacts; it was still firmly in place on the motherboard.

    Do you have anything in your Windows Event Viewer?

    Do you have any overclocking or aggessive memory timings set on your machine?

    Since it was working and then stopped working it sounds like a hardware problem especially since it does it with the TI rescue CD which hasn't changed (?) unlike Windows.

    Have you got enough memory to pull some of it out? Memtest86+ is good but it isn't real life. Try a stick at a time or whatever you have to do to try validating in case there is a marginal problem with one stick.

    Are your voltages good? When TI is running it puts a good load on the CPU and the drives; probably more than other applications.
     
  18. Jake_Speed

    Jake_Speed Registered Member

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    I just posted this on another website/forum, I figured I'd give it another shot before getting other software. My original post here is #241.

    Here's the test I just did two weeks ago. On my desktop, I wanted a new larger c: drive. Went from 250 to 500 and faster 7200 rpm. I wanted to see if the imagining backup would work, and not the clone from disk(image not clone disk), with True Image 10. I did the image of the c: drive on a second internal hard drive. Took out the c: drive, put in the new c: drive and used a boot cd I made with True Image, formatted partitions, 2@250, and restored the image. Worked without any problem. The C: drive still would not boot up, until I did a repair with the Windows Vista disk, it took like a split second to repair, something probably to just tell it was a new drive. I'ts been going ok for 2 weeks now and all my programs and data seem fine.

    I think the problem True Image 10 has is with external hard drives, when I did it with the laptop, it was on an external. I had it verify the backup when it was making the image, but upon restore it could not open it. I don't think they fixed it on Version 11, from the forums at Acronis, some people, not all have problems with it.

    Another note, I bought Seagate drives, the cloning and imaging software they provide with the drive, is Acronis True Image without all the bells and whistles.
     
  19. johnmeyer

    johnmeyer Registered Member

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    I was the one who started this thread.

    Has anyone who has "corrupt" archives that will not validate tried the new version, and if so, has it solved your problems? I could download and try, but quite frankly I don't want to be a guinea pig.

    BTW, I haven't posted in this thread for awhile. The problem continues to get worse in that I get corrupt images almost all the time. However, the one thing that works every time is if I put the image backup on a separate partition of the same drive that I am backing up. I have two internal IDE drives. One is a master, the other the slave, both on the Primary IDE cable (I have my DVD writer and DVD/CD reader as master/slave on the secondary). The master hard drive is partitioned into C: and D:. If I do an image backup of the C: drive to any external USB or Firewire drive, or if I do it to the other internal hard drive (which is configured as E:), about 80% of the time, I get a "corrupt image" message when I validate. However, if I do the backup to the D: drive, which is a separate partition on the primary drive, I get a valid backup every time.

    Near as I can tell, the only thing different is that when reading AND writing from the same physical drive, the data transfer speed is much slower because you cannot read and write from the same drive at the same time. My strong suspicion has been that for most people this problem has nothing to do with memory (see my dozens of rants and posts about this red herring earlier in this thread), and instead is probably a bug relating to the Windows call Trueimage is using to write to or read from the drive.

    If anyone has a suggestion as to how I can slow down the speed with which reading and writing takes place on my external drives, I'd be happy to do some tests with the writing slowed down.

    [edit] In the hours since I posted this, I tried slowing down the archive speed using the control within Trueimage (11) and the validation still failed. In almost all cases, validation fails within about ten seconds of the validation process starting. I have never seen it get 90% of the way through validation and THEN have it fail.

    Also, I downloaded the 2009 TI and tried to install, but it insists that I first uninstall my existing Trueimage. I have this sinking feeling that everything could completely unravel if I do this, so I'm going to wait until I hear from others as to whether this version solves the corrupt validation problem.
     
    Last edited: Oct 9, 2008
  20. foghorne

    foghorne Registered Member

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    I have run TI on many machines covering lots of hardware configurations over the last six years. Whilst there are plenty of bugs in this software I don't share your view that there is one in this area - or I would have expected to have seen it.

    Forgive me for not checking all your posts in this long thread, but if you haven't already I would replace your IDE cables and reset your BIOS settings to some non-optimised defaults.

    As I have posted, I have come across the verify/corruption issue a number of times, and in every case I traced it to a hardware problem.

    F.
     
  21. johnmeyer

    johnmeyer Registered Member

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    You are joking, right? Have you seen the number of views of this thread? It is 100x the normal view, maybe 1000x. Have you seen the number of posts? This is a problem than MANY people are having. It IS a bug. To deny that is to deny 17,000+ views, and several hundred posts.
     
  22. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    Sorry, I am in foghorne's camp on corrupt images. I and my friends have run TI on various systems since TI9 and either have had no corrupt images or as in my case, was a SATA cable issue.

    There may be lot of interest in this thread but it also has been strung out over 13 months now instead of the typical few days. Yes, people do get corrupt images but I'm not convinced it is because of a TI bug especially since a corrupt image has little to do with an exotic process but a relatively simple task of reading a file and re-creating checksums. Certainly a large number of checksums but the process is not fundamentally complex.

    One concession I will perhaps make is that TI does seem to push some hardware to its limit. This could well be the cause of the corruption for problematic systems with no determinable cause and if you want to call that a bug then so be it.
     
  23. dbknox

    dbknox Registered Member

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    I have used TI from version 8 to 11 ( skipped version 10, the one everybody says is the best, darn it) on 3 different operating systems. ( win 98, XP and Vista) and on three different computers over the years. I have not ever had a corrupt file. For this reason I have followed this post to see if
    johnmeyer would find a fix as it peaks my interest.
    I very seldom did a "validate" until this post was started and now I do one every time and they all have been fine.
     
  24. Xpilot

    Xpilot Registered Member

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    johnmeyer, This thread has dragged on for a long long time. The number of times it has been viewed is a function of time rather than an indication of the number of people with who are suffering with unresolvled validations.
    I myself read any additions to this thread every time one appears. I do not suffer from any validation problems. I did have a clutch of failed restores and this prompted me to investigate to find the cause. It was plain and simple to find,not an Acronis bug but a poor low voltage supply connection to my main hard drive.

    With the sheer volume of this thread if there really was a validation bug surely by now somebody would have come up with some hard evidence of its existence.
    On the other hand there is hard evidence in this thread and many others that a whole slew of hardware problems can and do result in validation failures.
    The only example I have come across where there really was a validation bug was in one of the early builds of Version 9. The rescue CD created under this particular build had a real bug which meant that ALL validations run failed. This was soon correct be Acronis with the very next emergency build.

    Way back I put forward a short list of some checks you could try. I wonder if you ever did follow them through.

    As you have a second hard drive in your computer I suggest you create a backup image to it and see if it will validate or not.

    Just to clarify where I am coming from. I have confined my comments to the existence or otherwise of bugs in the image creation and validation processes in True Image home from versions 8 to 10 and a short test with version 11.
    From what I have read so far I have no intention of wasting any time in trialing the current build of the 2009 Version. Version10 is more than enough for my requirements.

    Xpilot
     
  25. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    I'm not sure if it's a "bug" exactly, but there is something different about how TI interfaces with devices (USB, in particular) that is different from Windows.

    I will state that I haven't had any problems so far with either USB hard drives or internal drives on any of the computers I've tested and used with the exception of one hard drive that had a bad sector and caused a corrupt image.

    However, in extensive testing with USB flashdrives, I did get some very odd results that seem to indicate that TI does not access them normally or in the same way as Windows or Linux in general.

    In testing setting up an auto-restore from flashdrive setup, I ran dozens (if not hundreds) of tests and ran into several "corruption" problems that are not easy to explain.

    Here is an example:

    TI is installed in Windows and an image is saved to an internal drive and to a USB flashdrive. Both images validate successfully. Both images have the same MD5 value. Image file sizes ranged from just under 2GB to just over 4GB in size. The internal drive was NTFS and the flashdrive was FAT32.

    Booting to TI's Full Mode (Linux-based), the image on the internal drive will validate successfully. For the larger images (2GB and over), the image on the flashdrive is reported with the not last volume... error the instant you click on it -- no validation can be run. For the smaller image files, a validation could be started, but it would fail at different points. For example: First attempt would fail three bars in, second with 6 minutes left, third with 5 minutes left, fourth with 2 minutes left, and so on (and this oddity was repeated on a completely different computer).

    In the end, I found two ways to get an image onto the flashdrive that would validate successfully. One, the easiest, was to save the image file directly to the flashdrive using TI's Full Mode. The second was to split the image into smaller chunks. I ended up at 200MB splits after testing ranges from 2GB down to 50MB.

    When using TI Full to save the image file directly to the flashdrive, it worked okay without needing to split the image. However, if that image was copied to an internal drive and then copied back to the flashdrive in Windows, TI Full would throw the not last volume... error (MD5 values still the same and Windows validates it successfully).

    Using the 200MB splits, the image could be copied from the internal drive to the flashdrive and validate successfully using TI Echo Full and, in most cases, TI 11 Full (11 failed on some tests).

    In another odd twist, one time I was able to copy a 3+GB image created in Windows to the flashdrive using Ubuntu and have it validate successfully with TI Full. My theory was that maybe Linux was copying the file differently than Windows was. However, I couldn't get repeat attempts to succeed.

    Ubuntu and Windows all gave the same MD5 value to the image file on the internal hard drive and the flashdrive, both before and after the copies were made. All images validated correctly using TI in Windows.

    Muliple flashdrives, sizes and brands were used.

    While this problem may or may not extend to USB hard drives, in my opinion, it does indicate that there is something either with the drivers being used or with how TI Full accesses/reads USB devices.

    I tested this on several different computers (two with different Intel chipsets and two with different NVidia chipsets), though most of the tests were performed on my current test computer using the Intel P945GC Express chipset.

    Both TI 11 (8,053) and TI Echo Workstation (8,076) were used. Echo seemed to have less problems than TI 11. TI 11 also seem to work better using Echo's images than its own. I have not repeated any of these tests using the current builds (8,101 and 8,163).
     
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