Defragmenting Backup Location?

That's the second time today that I've read about bad USB cables. Can you describe what it was that made your cable bad? Thanks.

 

can only guess - something loose -- all I know is that another cable worked abd when I tried the same cable on the same pc and on another I had problems.
Given how cheap they are I just through it away. I also have an external USB drive which can be a little sensitive - works fine with one pc but not with others. again drives are becoming so cheap now that it is not important - just switch the drives until they work.

 

Since Long View apparently didn't see my last question directed at him, I went ahead and sent a request to support for a mouse fix. If they are typical of support services, I may have to wait a while.

 

You should get an automated reply quickly which will give you a incident number, then to shorten any delay supply the information asked for in this post https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=55317 more reading for you. Ignor the ref to TI Home 11 this has only just been changed from 10

 

Hi seekermeister - Sorry I missed your question.

Yes - when I bought a logitech mouse and keyboard the Acronis disk worked to the point where the mouse just moved up and down the screen.

You can manually intervene with the disk (usbmouse=off) but I sent an e-mail to Acronis and they relied fairly quickly with an iso for me to make a good disk.

Good luck.

 

Good question. Obviously, there can be the problem of broken wires, intermittent connections to the connector pins, dirty connector pins, or connectors that mate poorly because of poor components, excessive wear or marginal design.

The problem also can be in the realm of typical electrical issues with cables required to transfer high-frequency signals.

The frequency spectrum of disk data going down the cable reaches very high frequencies when all the harmonics are considered. Without the faithful reproduction of the harmonics the pulse edges become less crisp and this can cause errors. A good cable for this application is one that well meets the USB spec. Cables must match the high-frequency characteristics of the connectors such that signals do not reflect off the connector causing pulse deformation; in radio-frequency terminology this would be referred to as the characteristic impedance of the cable and connectors being mismatched.

The general rule is that a short cable is always better than a long cable. Note that some USB devices may require a cable shorter than other devices for proper operation. Another way of reducing cable length is to use the rear USB connectors on your PC since the front ones usually are connected by an extension cable.

Electrical noise and the capacitive effects of routing a cable near various objects can be a problem so a shielded cable is always better than an unshielded cable. Shielding and routing the internal extension cable near electrically noisy components inside your PC is also another factor favoring the use of the rear connectors - at least try the rear connectors if you are having problems.

Thicker cables made with heavier wire usually perform better than thin cables. The thin cables are usually the cheapest ones to buy. Never bet your life on this though but it is a guideline.

Why does the cable work fine for regular work but fail with TI? Most likely just probability. The TI case normally results in transferring several gigabytes of data at a time, not a few megabytes at most.

 

I had not noticed that they had a newer version than 10.0, until you posted. This is somewhat peeving, because I haven't even completed using 10.0 for the first time, and I would have to pay to upgrade to 11.0. I scanned quickly over the changes for the new version, but I didn't understand everything that I read. Is there some compelling reason for me to buy the upgrade, and abort what I'm doing with 10.0?

 

I will probably wait for the iso myself, but your comment about (usbmouse=off) caught my eye (would this simply disable the mouse altogether?) because the GUI that I booted to, didn't seem to have any provision for controlling switches, like this, or the one for pressing F11 when getting to a screen to select full, safe, or boot into Windows, as described in Mud Crab's "read before you post" link.

I admit that the mouse problem had me going in circles, so I may have missed it, but the GUI looked exactly like the one when starting TI in Windows. Could you elaborate a bit?

 

Hopefully someone else can remember the correct procedure but it is something like

boot from CD and press F11 when the Acronis screen comes up and enter usbmouse=off


Try it a few times - you may be too quick or too slow but it worked for me.

 

Long View,

Thanks, but since you didn't specifically say otherwise, I shall assume that means that disables the mouse altogether. If that is so, I can't really see how that would help much.

My mind is sort of rambling around. Your mention of this iso brought to mind another question...what do you do with them? Do they merge, replace or stand-alone when you add them to the rescue CD?

 

seekermeister,

You'd have to try the usbmouse=off to see if it works on your system. My understanding is that it disables the Linux support for the USB mouse and forces the program to access the USB mouse through the computer's BIOS. This may allow the mouse to work correctly. It may also depend on whether or not USB Legacy support is turned on in the BIOS.

A custom ISO is a regular CD ISO file. You need to use a program (like Nero) to burn the ISO image to a CD. This CD is then the one you use instead of your regular TI CD. It has just been modified to contain the right drivers or options to allow it work correctly on your system.

 

Mouse portion understood,iso portion...not. When you refer to the iso, is that simply one image that has been modified, or several? The reason that I'm asking is because I also downloaded an iso for mbrautowrite. I'm not sure if I need it or not, but it is obvious that it is too small to replace the entire TI CD, but then, when I tinkered with the rescue CD wizard, it only appearred to want to copy about 47MBs, so I'm confused.

 

You can only burn ONE ISO image to a CD.

If you have the mbrautowrite ISO then that has to be burned to ONE CD.

If you have other ISO files (a custom TI ISO, an ISO created by Acronis Media Builder, a Knoppix ISO, etc.) then each one would have to be burned its own CD.

The ISO file is a CD image file. Burning the ISO file to a CD allows the CD to be created in an exact state, such as a specific layout or format, booting setup, etc.

 

I guess that I shouldn't have waited for the iso, because I got an email from support, and they want me to try the usbmouse=off, before they will give me the iso. At least their email made one thing clearer, it said that the F11 menu was to be selected during the time that the "Acronis is loading" screen is visible. It may seem like a minor point, but I'm a very literal person and need thing clearly spelled out for me.

 

Speaking of spelling things out, this is a good example of what I mean. I realize that for you and most other people this would be abundantly clear, but I am the exception. I understand that there can be only one iso on the rescue CD, but since there are multiple isos available, and some, such as we have been discussing, are not complete programs, it would appear that these isos would have to be merged into one...true or false?

 

You can upgrade to TI 11 free within 30 days of the purchase of TI 10, if this applies to you I believe that you need to contact Acronis Sales with proof of purchase.

I have downloaded the trial of 11 and it allows commands to be added to the rescue disk prior to burning, however as of yesterday the links for the user guide for TI 11 were not working and so the commands are not documented but I assume they will be the same as before

 

On TI 10, you press F11 on the first menu screen. This is the menu that gives you the options of starting TI in Full mode or Safe mode or starting Windows, etc. When you press F11, a screen pops up and lets you type in the command options you need.

The instructions for pressing F11 on the "Acronis is loading" screen sounds more like the instructions for TI 8.

 

Each ISO contains a complete CD image. What is contained in the ISO can be data or data and booting information, etc. The size does not matter. The ISO can be 10MB or 699MB.

The mbrfix ISO just contains a small program that runs and repairs the MBR. That's all it does. It has a very small size.

The ISO created by Acronis Media Builder can vary in size depending on the options you select (Full Mode, Safe Mode, DD, OSS, etc.).

You can't "merge" bootable ISOs. There may be programs out there that will let you merge data ISOs.

 

That sounds simple enough, except for one thing. When I was attempting to restore the image to my spare drive for testing, the only thing that happened was that it said that it had written the MBR. I probably did something wrong, because this only took about a second, and it wasn't long enough for the restoration to happen. This leaves me wondering what did happen, and whether I need mbrautowrite or not? If so, do I use it before or after the TI CD?

 

The mbrfix CD will ONLY repair the MBR. You should only have to run it once (if at all), assuming your MBR is corrupted.

You'll have to use your TI CD to do a restore. The mbrautowrite cd won't do anything but repair the MBR.

Depending on what your particular problem is, you may have to run it either before or after the TI restore. Try running it before the restore first. If that doesn't work, then try after the restore.

 

I finally got around to trying the restore again, but this time when I tried to use the F11 key at the boot loader screen, it gave me the following error:

Acronis loader: Unable to load boot menu.

I also checked the bios to see that legacy USB was enabled. Any suggestions on what to do now?

 

No response...I guess that means that I'm on my own.

 

You need to press the F11 key when you see the screen that gives the option of booting into Trueimage or Windows, try reading the sticky posts at the top of the forum index page, particularly the one entitled PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU POST

 

I have read the sticky posts that you referred to, posts in this thread, as well as one response from support. It should have been clear that I did press the F11 key at the place indicated...at least as much as I understood. If I'm missing something, then it would be far better to point out exactly what, rather than telling me to read a sticky...again.

EDIT: There is no window with booting options, unless that is the one that is supposed to appear at the F11 key. It goes from a very short screen saying that the Acronis is loading, to an Acronis logo screen and then back to the Acronis loader and finally to TI. At no place in this sequence does a screen appear with booting options.

 

Then there is something wrong with your rescue cd as the stick states

I am going out now but will post a screen shot of what you should see when I return, in the meantime I would suggest that you contact support by email and describe your problems and give a link to this thread. They will most likely ask for some other information from you and eventually give you a link to a iso to enable you to burn a CD that works.