how to do sector-by sector image

Hello

I have done this before but after I reinstalled true image 2009 I find I cannot get the following to happen.

I want to do a complet backup of my computer c: drive which is a 400GB partiton but with only 76GB of used data, the rest is free space.
I remember doing a backup of the whole thing with a sector-by-sector level, and selected FULL, it took a few hours but it did it on a seperate partiton of 90GB. I now have increased that to 102GB but after 1 hour it says not enough space to do the backup!!!
I selected NORMAL compression and it said it will take up 42GB of space, I take that refers to the backup I am attempting?
Why did it do it before on less but not now?
Or am doing something wrong, do I need to do some initial steps first?

krishan

 

Sector by sector backups take a lot longer and copy more data than non sector by sector backups. You really should not do it if you don't really have to. A a normal backup stores all of your data.

Also Acronis deletes the old backup only after it has successfully completed the new one. If you didn't delete the old one then it is possible you don't have enough space for both.

 

Does Acronis TI do a sector based image/restore using the normal backup choice? When you restore the image to a new HD are the restored sectors in the same LBA position as they were on the old HD?

 

Making and restoring a normal image does not necessarily put the sector content back into the same "address" that it came from.

 

seekforever,

My question was badly worded. I should have said the same relative sector positions. I was thinking of Ghost 2003 where it's a file type restore. The restored image is defragmented and shifted to the start of the partition.

 

sorry
but I don't understand, why can't I do a sector by sector back up now? when I have even more space, is something wrong?

krishan

PS. I use perfectdisk and have down serveral defrags, does this impact sector by sector backup?

 

I can't really give the specifics but I think you will find that doing a defrag before creating the archive will help but you will not end up with the nicely defragged disk after a restore. There have been posts saying that the restored image is always placed at the same location in the partition after the restore but I don't know if it is at the start.

 

Have you added a lot of files, particularly already compressed ones to the partition since you last did it?

Also, I am speculating that if you did several defrags that there may be left-over junk in more of the un-used sectors now and you are not obtaining the same compression level with TI. One might think that the last time you did it there were a more sectors that were just fill of say, zeros, and they compressed very well.

TI's initial estimate of compression is a guess based on a typical HD and the more you deviate from what it thinks is typical the less accurate it is - it doesn't go out and rigorously assess your disk contents for the estimate.

Are you are doing sector-by-sector backups to get around the defragging issue creating large incrementals?

 

I thought that too but I wasn't sure. However it's not true as I just found. I did an "analyze" in PerfectDisk of my WinXP partition and took a screenshot. From an Acronis 9 boot CD I imaged and restored the partition. An "analyze" in PerfectDisk then showed a completely defragged partition with the coloured image blocks in completely different positions than before the image was taken. So TI 9 does a file based image/restore rather than sector based. I'd be interested if someone could repeat this test with a more current TI.

The results were unexpected to me. A restore just like Ghost 2003. It's unlike IFW/IFD which do a sector based restore. I'm not suggesting one method is better than the other but it is interesting to know how it works.

 

Brian:

I can confirm that TI 10 works that way. After restoration, all of the files in the file system are defragmented perfectly. However, the MFT, the MFT reserved zone, and the Metadata files are incorrectly located on the disk; they seem to end up in random locations. But a boot-time defrag with PerfectDisk will put these files back in their optimum locations.

 

k0lo,

Thanks for the info.

 

krishcanag,

A Sector by sector backup includes both used and unused sectors. So you are backing up 400 GB of sectors, not 76 GB. Do you really want to do this?

 

I think, thanks, I have used eraser on the drive and maybe left random 1's and 0's on it, hence it is also coping all of this.
Also I now formated the backup area of my disk as a FAT32 not as NTFS, this may also help. I may have done this before but only now done it again. I also increase my backup area to 190GB, reducing my unused disk space on my C drive from 350GB to 250GB.

krishan

 

Ok, I think this is a waste after all, I thought only doing a sector by sector backup will produce a total copy of the disk with files, not waste its timing coping unused space or space with files on it that have not been erased from the disk