Corrupt image during restore

Dear All,
I have been using Acronis True Image version 9.1 and i can say i am very satisfied with the product. Now, i am facing the following problem for over a month (tested with acronis v. 11 also):

I have installed different linux distributions on a PC intended to act as a file server.

This server consists of the following hardware:
Intel core duo 6550 processor, asus "p5d deluxe" motherboard, adaptec raid 31205 controller, 2 gigs of RAM etc. It also has 10 SATA disks attached to the adaptec controller and two sata disks connected to the SATA controller situated on the motherboard, the latter ones intended to be used for system and system backup and the former ones for data (acronis images).

This server is intended to act mainly as a backup/restore server for acronis images. My wish was to backup every PC coming to oiur department and to restore it if necessary, while all images would be kept on that server.

So, when i connect a PC to the same LAN with this server and i try to backup files from the PC to the server, everything is working OK, ie the backup image is stored to the server.
This scenario was achieved both with FTP and SMB protocols. However, when i try to restore the PC with an image from the above server, then i get the message "corrupt archive" and of course the restore process is stopped, with both FTP and SMB protocolls.

I have tried other variations, such as use of XFS/EXT2/EXT3 on both the 10-disk array and the 2 system disks, but the results were the same. I am 100% sure that it has nothing to do with the filesystem selection also.
I have also tried to put the image on the system disks and on the array disks, but still the same. Actually, now i am 100% sure that the problem is irrelevant to the disks, ie i have removed the RAID controller and still the same!

So it doesn't seem to be an issue of filesystem, disks, controller hardware, architecture selection.

The only variation that had succesfull results was to put the image on a USB external disk, attach it and mount it to the server and then i managed to restore the other PC via network (SMB and FTP tested) without problems. So, it doesn't seem to be a networking issue other?

In Greece i have already been given a hint to check for compatibility issues between the chipset and kernel, but i am wondering, if that was is the problem, then why does the USB disk seen over the network with SMB and FTP functions perfectly?

If somebody has experienced something similar or has an idea, please let me know guys!

 

Hello 123456789,


Thank you for using Acronis Disk Backup software

Could you please explain the following sentence in details:

"The only variation that had succesfull results was to put the image on a USB external disk, attach it and mount it to the server and then i managed to restore the other PC via network (SMB and FTP tested) without problems."

Could you please provide information if said image was copied from 'server' to attached USB drive or it was new image created to USB drive attached to the imaged computer? If it was the new image created on USB drive directly then can you please try to copy it to hard drive on your server, try to restore it and inform us about results?

Please also try to validate the image at internal hard drives of your server, USB drive etc.

Could you please clarify if the 'corrupt archive' message is appearing at the very start of restoration operation?

Thank you.
--
Michael Levchenko

 

Hi 123456789.

I had a similar problem in restoring a partition on my computer from a Netgear SC-101 Storage Central Unit. I was restoring Windows ME partition from Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 operating system.

I could not restore from the Bootable Rescue CD, because the Acronis Bootable Rescue CD can't see SATA Hard Drives and can't see the Storage Central Unit.

In Windows XP HE SP2, I was able to restore from the Unit, by using msconfig and limited what starts up when I booted up the computer.

When restoring, boot up what you are using to restore with, with the barest minimum of actual Services needed. Sort of doing a Clean Install of a program. Once you do that, you won't get the corruption errors.

 

Hi Michael,
regarding the following:

What i'm trying to say is that that the image was stored in a drive attached to a usb port of the server and i was trying to restore a PC on the same network such as the server with that image (ie copy image from that disk to the PC via network and thus restore the PC). The image had either been initially created on the USB drive or on another disk-eitherways having been tested for integrity with acronis! However, this scenario was succesfull!

Regarding the following

It is appearing at the middle of the process.

Regarding the following

When i try to validate the image file on my office PC it seems OK, but when i try to validate it via TCP/IP on the server it does not seem OK. So, if i copy it via SMB or FTP or if i copy it on a USB disk and then to the SATA server disks (either RAID or normal-on board) then again it cannot validate.

 

Actually the CD is OK, as it works even with network based restore-but only from a remotely mounted USB disk.
Moreover, i always restore a clean formatted disk from a CD and not from within windows.

 

Hello 123456789,

Please notice that most likely network has problems transferring large data amounts in short periods of time. Since USB drive provides lower access speed, the issue doesn't appear when using it. Please test the network by copying large (several gigabytes) files between computers and comparing checksums (using for example http://www.irnis.net/files/xcsci.exe).

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

Hello,
i have already tested that and it is OK!
Moreover, the backup runs OK, only the restore fails.
Also, i have tested with both the server and the client back-to-back connected with crossover cable and i had exactly the same symptoms.

 

Hello 123456789,

It's possible that the computer has some hardware problems. We recommend you to make sure that the memory modules of your server machine are not corrupt. Please download one of the archives depending on what media type you are going to use:
- memtest for diskette
- memtest for USB Flash drive
- memtest for CD
Unpack the archive and create bootable media with the test. Instructions on how to do it can be found in README.txt in the same archive. After that boot your PC from the media, memtest will start automatically. Please leave it running for several hours (for example, overnight). There should be no errors reported.

If there are no errors reported, please submit a request for technical support with a detailed network structure description, 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.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

Re: Corrupt image during restore -- the backups should be using some sort of ECC code

I'm having similar problems with corrupted TIB files. I'm currently dead in the water with a corrupt backup and a formatted hard drive that I am attempting to recover. In my case, the backup validated when it was generated, and I extracted files from it several times successfully before formatting the drive to verify that it was a good backup. I then switched to an alternate windows installation on another drive so I could format the C"drive, formatted it and attempted to restore, only to find that the backup was now corrupt. It is also corrupt from the boot loader CD, as are my older backups. I can't mount any of them either. I suspect that Diskkeeper ran on the backup causing the corruption, as I have had problems in the past with Diskkeeper and TIB files, and not just on this machine.

The fact is the acronis backup file should be a lot more robust than it is so that one bad readback bit doesn't render the entire archive (143GB in my case, split into 4GB files) unusable. The backup apparently uses a CRC or checksum to determine validity. Why couldn't it have used some error correcting coding to make it more robust considering the sizes of these backups? The apparent high incidence of this type of corruption problem says that Acronis has a vulnerability to even small flaws in the file. For something as critical as a backup, this is inexcusable. Acronis, please consider adding ECC to your backup files so that they stand a better chance with flipped bits caused by disk errors, bad memory, or processor problems.