How to connect orphan .tib image files?

I am having trouble recovering data from an image archive I created using the latest download of Acronis TI Home, from a hard drive that had begun to fail. Here are the details:

I was unable to boot from my laptop hard drive, so I took it out and installed it as a slave on my desktop system running XP. Directly copying the files I needed was okay for a bit, but I started to get copy failures, so I had the bright idea to trust Acronis to image the entire (error-ridden) drive. I downloaded the trial version from the website, loaded it onto the main drive of my desktop machine and created an image of the entire 80GB laptop drive (about 60B of which had data) with "normal" compression onto an attached 300GB USB drive that was formatted as FAT32. This took most of the night, and I woke up at one point and told an error message that had popped up (after maybe the third .tib file) to "skip" bad data. In the morning, TI had created 5 .tib files of maybe 5GB each (can't remember the exact size, since I'm away from that drive now). I did not tell TI to create separate files -- I'm thinking it must have done it automatically because of the FAT32 issue. I continued to try to get the data off my failed laptop drive in other (mostly unsuccessful) ways, but it has now completely frozen.

So now I'm trying to find data from the image archive I created and it isn't going well. I do not need most of the data in it, just certain files -- I was planning on rebuilding my system anyway. But when I attempt to recover it, TI doesn't seem to recognize that the 5 files constitute a series. I can ask it to recover one of them, but not the group. So far I have only tried the recover method for selected files and folders, but the only option for selecting a subset of them is (for some of the .tibs) a checkbox next to an entry for the E: drive, which was the name of the drive when I backed it up. When I verify any of the .tib files, it takes maybe 15 minutes and then tells me that the "operation has been completed successfully." When I restore the .tib in this manner, it takes about 5 seconds (after the verification, or without it), gives me the same "operation completed successfully" message and creates an empty folder labeled Drive (E. But I can only do this for one .tib file at a time. I've been restoring these files to the same 300GB USB the .tibs are stored on.

I did try to mount several of the .tib files, which goes fine, but when I try to explore the drive that gets created, Windows tells me that the virtual drive is corrupted.

I have not yet attempted a complete image restore, because I don't have a spare 80GB hard drive that I can restore it to, and the other data on my 300GB USB drive is too important to me now. I could buy one for about 40 bucks to try it, but didn't know if it would be worth it.

So here are my questions: Is there any way to get TI to connect the .tib files? Is there a way to repair some portion of them so they are recognized as a sequence? Is there a way to verify conclusively that the archives are either okay or irretrievably corrupt (so I can give up on them)? Is it worth trying to restore the entire image, or is the inability to do a restore of selective files or to mount it a good sign that that won't work?

(I own TI 8.0, which I used to back up my system back in May, and those archives are fine. All this new stuff was done with the latest trial version of TI 9, which I had to use since my own copy was toast!)

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

baago,

Your set of .tib files should appear as a Multivolume Archive. Try invoking the Validate tool, select the files one by one and the right pane should show Volume X of a Multivolume archive. If that works for all the .tib files, they are connected allright and you shoud regard this part of the problem resolved. Selecting any one file for validating (or to perform any other operation) should validate all the 5 files comprising the image.

A successfull validation of the image means the image was written correctly in is usable. But in your case, the correctly written image contains the errors that were present on the disk at the time of imaging. These errors, I would guess, are the reason for the unusable virtual disk when mounted and I would expect the same problems to arise after restoring the image to a new drive.

 

Thanks, but if the files validate individually but not as a multivolume archive, is there any way to tell TI that they are supposed to be part of a single archive or to reconnect them?

Also, your comments make me think I should give the full restore a try. Damage to the original disk might explain why the virtual disk wasn't browsable, but couldn't I use some recovery tools on a new disk once I restore the data to it?

Open to all suggestions . . .

 

TI does not verify individual volumes. If they are part of a mulitvolume set it verifies the entire archive (all the tib files). Your files are probably split at 4GB because of FAT32 and taking 15 minutes to verify 5 of them (~20GB) is about the right amount of time.

I like, bvolk, think your problem probably lies in the corrupt files and structure of your source drive.

I would try and run a recovery tool on the original drive if at all possible to try and get the data. Running it on what TI tries to put back may be asking a lot but if it is the only option then that's what you have to do.

TI does its validate by means of a checksum system when the archive is created. If it reads the archive and gets the same checksum as stored with the archive then it is happy. When it was skipping files or copying garbage it was computing the checksum to match the data it put into the archive so the archive validates OK but some of the data is still missing or bad.