I am at a loss, that's all I can say...

Well, I will start by saying that I am so p!ssed off, that I am beside myself, just to clarify why there might be a little irritation in my wording...
So, I purchased TI9 about a month ago, and finally got all of my machines up an running (fresh XP/Linux installs, etc.). I had MANY problems on my personal machine with TI9 2302, and MANY problems on my wife's machine with TI9 2302. Being delirious about how big of a piece of GARBAGE TI9 is, I am about ready to burn my disc (with a blowtorch, not a CD Burner), I decide to check for updates. I see that 2323 is available, so I download it and try it on both machines. TI9 has GOT to be the worst program I have ever used (and I used to use Symantec products, if that tells you anything). I still had errors on EVERY SINGLE IMAGE created on BOTH machines. Now, I start thinking... both of these machines are SATA driven discs, so maybe TI9 doesn't like SATA discs... WRONG. I brought TI9 2323 to my work machine, with standard IDE drives, and guess what? Out of 23 attempted runs, 22 were failures. Now, the odd thing is this... On both home machines, my error messages are scattered. Sometimes it fails at analysing the partitions, sometimes when switching to high priority, and other times when verifying the image created. On my work machine, it ALWAYS fails when analysing the partitions.
Something else I noticed that REALLY bothers me (as if not being able to do backups with a DISC IMAGING PROGRAM wasn't enough)...
This thing has a huge security hole. I have my TI9 set up to (attempt to) create the image when I shutdown the machine. So, when I click 'Shutdown', a dialog box opens and gives you the option to continue TI9's creation of the image, or cancel it, and shutdown the machine. Now, if you select 'OK', TI9 proceeds in (attempting to) creating the image. Problem is this... I have it set to run at shutdown, so that when I leave for the day, it will run the backup and cut the machine off. However, the ENTIRE time that TI9 is doing this, the user is STILL LOGGED ONTO THE MACHINE. So, after TI9 starts, and I leave, someone can come up to the computer and do whatever the want with it, until TI9 completes (fails). I decided to try locking the screen after TI9 started, and guess what? The screen locks, but when I came into work the next morning, the machine was still running. It never shut off. I checked the log, and the piece of garbage failed. The funny thing is, it failed when I locked the screen.
I'm telling you, it is a really good thing that Acronis doesn't have a local office, or somebody would be getting a ear full... For the love of god, is it too much to ask that a SOFTWARE COMPANY that makes SOFTWARE actually produce something that WORKS?!?
I went with Acronis because I am a huge fan of their DiskDirector Suite, but after TI, I will NEVER (I repeat, NEVER) purchase from Acronis again. In fact, I think I will add my experiences to my web site, and ensure that no one I know even considers this piece of crap.

 

Just a quick check. Did you uninstall build 2302 via the control panel before installing build 2323 ? There has been an installer problem with this later build so that an install on top of the previous build is not complete and some of the 2302 functions will remain.

Xpilot

 

Yeah, that was step one. Actually, I ended up uninstalling 2302, installing 2323, then when I received such horrible errors, I uninstalled 2323, used a registry cleaner to clear out any references to acronis (except those to diskdirector), then reinstalled 2323. Still a no go... I need to find a way to get a hold of TI8. I heard that TI8 was a little better. I have also heard that booting from the CD was good to go, but I am hesitant to do that, only because it isn't automated. It is nice to have a scheduled task, and you can just let it do it's thing. However, in my case, I guess it is WORTHLESS having a scheduled task, as it never works. Maybe a recovery CD would be the way to go for me...

 

You probably hit the nail on the head about the "scheduled" tasks not being handled properly. On your home machines, were they also scheduled tasks you tried to run or manual image creation?

Also if you have any usb devices like keyboard, mouse, hub, try removing the hub and replacing the others with standard types.

 

I have tried manual and scheduled, all with varying errors. Insane, this is... All of my accessories are USB (bluetooth keyboard, wireless mouse). I haven't tried disconnecting them and running the backup. That would be pretty sad if users are expected to use old school PS/2 equipement just to do the backup... I wouldn't be surprised though.

 

Just for the record and for the rest of the readership, use the ps2 keyboard and mouse and let us know if you get the same errors.

 

I have had problems with both 8 and 9. The last few versions of 8 worked fine for me. TI9 2302 had major problems but 2323 works fine. I should point out that I do not use the scheduler. I can image drives from within the OS and from the boot cd and restore images from the boot cd without problems. When backing up from within the OS there are so many variables that could cause problems that even if Acronis made the perfect program it will never work on all system configs. Acronis claims to have a way to backup files even if they are in use. That is a bold statement and this may be part of the problem you are having.

I would see if you can create an image from the boot cd if not try disconnecting all usb devices and retest. If it works after disconnecting usb devices you most likely found the problem. Try adding them back one at a time until you find the problem device. IMHO USB in general is a POS. I have seen way to many problems with them and wish they were never invented. USB hubs seem to cause the most problems and I recommend not using them. If you need more usb ports add a usb pci card.
If it still fails there is a conflict you can't fix and only Acronis can. On the other hand if it works with all your usb devices connected some process or program is causing the scheduled backup to fail. Or TI9 has problems that need fixing.

True Image works for what I use it for on my 3 PC's and several other people I know using it so it can and does work. I will schedule a backup task on one of my PC's and see if it works and report back.

Things that can cause problems with the image files and how to stop them.
Never move a image file. If you copy a file to a new location test it.
Never rename an image file.
Never defrag a hard drive partition that contains image files.
Making images on external drives or accross a network is flaky at best.
Always test each image after creation and before a restore.
Always restore from the boot cd.

 

Okay, I just tried this on my work machine, and it is still a no go. I can't vouch for my home machines right now, but I will try them when I get home tonight, if I can find the time.

I haven't used a hub yet, as my mobo has 4 ports on the rear, then headers for the front mounted case ports. I don't use the front mounted ports after having issues with a delayed write fail error for a year or so. I switched to using the mobo ports and the issue went away, so I stay away from case ports now...

It looks like I may just need to set a reminder in my calendar, and hope I have better luck with this by taking the scheduler out of the loop... We'll see.

 

Well I scheduled a backup to run once a day on shutdown. Proceeded to shutdown. TI imaged the OS partition to my back up partition then windows shut down. I the booted windows ran TI and the image checked out fine. I then booted from the boot cd and restored my boot partition without problems. So TI does work on my software/hardware config on one of my three PC's.

Can you give the hardware/software config on one of the pc's your having trouble with? Also do you have any hardware/software common to all pc's with the problem. This could lead to the problem/solution.

Also where are you saving the image files.

 

Do you think that it might be WHAT I am backing up? I have about 200Gb of pics, videos, music, programs... Some of the files are 1-3Gb, which wouldn't be an OS limitation, but I don't know about the software...

Home Machine:
AMD Athlon64 3800+
Asus A8V Deluxe Mobo
ATI AIW Radeon 9800 Pro
Creative Audigy2
1Gb DDR 3200 Dual Channel Crucial RAM
Logitech DiNovo Keyboard
Logitech MX700 Mouse
Viewsonic VP912B LCD
HDDs: (all JMaxtor MaxLine III SATA) 3x160Gb, 1x300Gb
Antec True550W
Sony DRU-710 (or 810, can't recall) DVD-RW/CD-ROM

Wife's Machine
Shuttle XPC
AMD Athlon64 3200+
ATI AIW Rage128 Pro
1Gb Crucial DDR3200 Dual Channel RAM
Viewsonic VP912B LCD
HDDs: (all Maxtor MaxLine III SATA) 1x120Gb, 1x300Gb
Microsoft Natural Multimedia Keyboard
Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer Mouse
Logitech Orbit cam
Sony 48x DVD-RW/CD-ROM

Work Machine
MSI mobo (can't recall the number)
AMD AthlonXP 2800+
1Gb DDR3200 Crucial RAM
17" Viewsonic CRT
ATI AIW Radeon 9200 Pro
NEC 3500G DVD-RW/CD-ROM
HDDs: (all Maxtor IDE) 1x60Gb, 1x95Gb, 1x40Gb

 

As a hardware check, download and run this <MD5 checksum calculator> on your largest file. After that, copy the same file to another disk and recalculate a checksum for it. If your hardware is stable the two checksums should be identical.

Regards

 

Hello vwgtiturbo,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please check each partition of your hard drives by Windows utility:

- For Windows 9x please use Windows menu Start\Run
then enter the command "scandskw" and test all drives;

- For Windows XP please use Windows menu Start\Run, then enter the command
"chkdsk c: /r" "chkdsk d: /r" for every partition of your hard drives.

Please note that you will need to reboot your computer in order to scan the system partition.

If that does not help then please download the latest version of Acronis drivers, install it with disabled logging and see whether the problem still persists.
If the problem still persists then enable logging by running the Acronis drivers installation package once again, reproduce the problem and collect the c:\snapapi.log file.

If that does not help, please clarify what location you have selected for the image archive?

Could you please also do the following?

- Download and run the application;
- Start the Command Prompt from Start -> Programs -> Accessories menu;
- Run the following command in the folder you saved the file to:

schedmgr get report > schedreport.txt

- Collect the created schedreport.txt file.

- Enable logging by using the following commands (please type these commands not from the Windows command prompt but from the command prompt which appears when starting schedmgr.exe program):

set logflags -1
set lf_registry off

After that, please reproduce the problem and collect the schedul2.log file which is placed to the same folder as the service file (program files\common files\acronis\schedule2).

It is recommended to turn off logging after troubleshooting by using the following command (from the schedmgr.exe command prompt):

set logflags 0
set lf_registry on

Please create Acronis Report and Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

Please create an account, then log in and submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will do our best in order to resolve the problem under consideration as soon as possible.

Thank you.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

I will get to all of this eventually... I am leaving the area for a couple of weeks tomorrow, and will have to do this when I return. I will keep you posted...