Incremental backup verification query

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by nexstar, Sep 28, 2004.

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  1. nexstar

    nexstar Registered Member

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    I have TI8 and I was wondering if the check of incremental backups verifies the whole backup (whichever part you select) or, the image up to and including the part you select or, just the part you select?

    Also, if one 'increment' of the backup is corrupt does that make the whole backup corrupt or is it able to use the backup up to the point of corruption?

    Just thought I should know this before I need to know this :)
     
  2. brachd

    brachd Registered Member

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    Sorry I don't know the answer but wondered if you have successfully carried out a restore? I have wanted to restore only some files on a partition and I don't seem to be able to select a file. The system does not give me an option for a file but always wants to restore the whole partition.
    Also I wanted to restore to another partition to check the restore.
    Any expreience you have had would be helpful
    Blair
     
  3. wauiler

    wauiler Guest

    If you want to restore individual files from an image. You do so by mounting the image as a drive letter. You accomplish this my selecting 'explore image', ti will then mount the image and assign a drive letter for you use. You then access this drive as you would any other drive and navigate to the file/ files that you would like to restore and copy them from this drive to where ever you wish.
     
  4. wauiler

    wauiler Registered Member

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    I missed the other part of the question about restoring to another partition. During the restore process you will be asked which partitiion to restore to. YOu can select the original or any other partition. :)
     
  5. wauiler

    wauiler Registered Member

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    with reference to 'does the check of incr.. include the whole back up set or just the incremental... I'm not sure of the answer but you could experiment and find out. Just do a full image followed by an incremental image, then do a check pointing at the full image file and time it followed by a check pointing at the incremental file. My guess is the check of the incremental includes the original full image copy. I have experimented with various combinations of images but I have not attempted to create the condition of a corrupted incremental image. I see no reason that a restore to the previous incremental would not be successfull. I am only commenting with these guesses to offer some help because it appears (from other entries on this forum) that the support people are very busy
     
  6. nexstar

    nexstar Registered Member

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    brachd, waulier has given an excellent answer to your question and you will see from the following that it is not a problem restoring to another partition to test out the process.


    wauiler, thanks for the feedback. I have taken up your suggestion and have just finished doing some testing.

    I was using a complete backup with 5 incremental backup files. I tried your timing suggestion for the verification process and discovered that, no matter which part I selected, the verification always took the same period of time. The conclusion being, I guess, that it always verifies the whole file.

    I then decided to corrupt one of the incremental backups and so I wrote some zeros into file number 4 of the 6 (I kept a backup of the backup :) ).

    This time the verification failed, unsurprisingly, no matter which file I selected to verify. It would be helpful if TI told you which file was corrupt. Something for the to-do list :) .

    I then tried restoring the backup. I restored from the file before the corrupt one and it restored fine provided I didn't select 'Verify Image' prior to the restore. I selected the corrupt file next and, to my surprise and some concern, TI restored that one as well :eek:

    The only thing I could/can think of is that the section of the file I'd corrupted was not crucial to the restoration process and so it was allowed to go ahead.

    I subsequently corrupted a larger section of the file and then TI would not restore from the corrupt file onwards. It was still ok up to that point though.

    So, I guess a couple of items for the wish-list would be:

    1) An option to verify an individual file to save time assuming that previous backups had all been verified.

    2) Some feedback as to which increment is corrupt, although if the previous suggestion were implemented then it would be easier to find out where you could restore to.

    Out of interest, I created a small test partition on a USB drive and TI8 restored the images fine except as noted above.

    I hope this may be of some help to someone else!
     
  7. wauiler

    wauiler Registered Member

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    That is an excellent job of testing various conditions, and probably more fun than waiting for an expert response. The part about the corrupted incremental restoring okay I found very interesting. Makes me wonder if a corrupted file indication has much bearing on recoverability. Mounting a image via 'explore image' may be sufficient to verify the image/s are usable duriing recovery. Thats one for the experts when they have time.
     
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