Lost access to recovery files on D: update and other woes

Well I'm about to give up on Acronis True Image Home 9 for entire disk backup. I was real thrilled with it at first, when the clone disk went off very smoothly, and that was the main thing I was wanting it to do. And as far as the main partition ( C: ) with my operating system and data, that still appears to have come off perfectly on the first attempt. Of course I soon discovered a problem with the recovery partition ( D: ). Although it appeared to be there in the exact same form as on the old hard drive, it was now inaccessible for recovery purposes, as I spelled out in my original post. Finally after consulting back and forth with Acronis support, and reinstalling the old hard drive in order to find out that the recovery partition still worked correctly, and making an "Acronis Report" on that old hard drive, reinstalling the new cloned hard drive and making an "Acronis Report" on that hard drive, and taking various digital snapshots of boot up screens and sending all of this to Acronis, the problem was finalized with a single line response from support: "this problem is not with the Acronis software, please contact Microsoft for a solution". In other words, cloning of a recovery partition can not be done without some special intervention from Microsoft. In other words, it sounds like it is probably what I was suspicious of in the first place. What ever function that prohibited me from making more than one copy to CDs of the recovery console, apparently keeps it from being used after it is cloned. So apparently not everything that is on a disk can actually be cloned, or at least not necessarily be functional after it is cloned. I had already found apparent confirmation for this theory at these links: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=55317 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314058 "Important If you are using software mirroring, see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 229077 </kb/229077/> (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/229077/) Mirroring prevents pre-installing the Recovery Console"
I guess this refers possibly to the problem I'm having with the recovery console? I guess Acronis qualifies as mirroring software? Anyway, I think I'll just give up on that. And that might be a warning that Acronis should make known, that these recovery partitions can not be cloned in working order. Which appears to be the case.

But I can live with that. I still have a functional recovery console on the old hard drive, at least until I decide I want to use it as a second hard drive and formatt it. And after all, if I have a perfect image of my perfectly (apparently) functioning hard drive, operating system and programs, then what really do I need the recovery console for? Will not what Acronis offers supposedly effectively be a recovery console? Unfortunately, I have been having nothing but problems trying to use Acronis for trying to back up the entire disk. Is there anybody here actually successfully disk imaging to and recovering from DVDs? I thought I had been successfully able to do this in 3567 build, though now that I think about it I just backed up individual files (although very large ones in total) to the DVD. But I have been trying to back up (image?) an entire disk partition ( C: ) recently. First I tried, using InCD, in build 3567 ( 57? ). Nothing but messages about low quality media. So I uninstalled this version and installed 3633. At first no luck, same messages about low quality media. So I used in CD to "erase" several DVDs, rendering them blank supposedly. I cannot remember at the moment if I reformated them with InCD after the erase, but anyway it started working. It seemed to be going pretty smooth and about 35 to 45 minutes later and three DVDs later, it was to the "validate" stage, and I believe it asked me to insert "volume 1", which I did. I then got the message that this was the wrong volume, please insert volume 1! Even though when I looked at this disc in Windows Explorer it was clearly labeled "1". And it didn't matter which of the three disc I put in, it just kept telling me that it was the wrong volume, and finally the old "low quality media" message came up, and finally a message about things being corrupted. Even though I could see plainly each of these disk had the correct amount of data on them, and were labeled (when examining under Windows Explorer) volume 1, volume 2, etc.. Quite infuriating, and a huge waste of a lot of time. But I was just getting started on time wasting.

So I decided to try the old two-step method which had already been a failure for me on the original build from a week ago. No problem making the C: partition image to another part of the hard drive. It was about 18 GB before compression, and I think it took about 30 to 45 minutes. I "split" everything up into 2 GB sections, using otherwise pretty much default settings. Then I attempted a simple copy of the first file of 2 GB to the DVD. It repeated what happened with the older build. Everything starts copying in a normal fashion, and then I watch as my memory counter, which is showing about 700 MB available (out of 1 GB total memory) as it starts deteriorating and goes right down from the number 700 to the number 1! And then it will oscillate between 1 and 4! And there it remained for a good hour or so. What in the world is up with that? Then I gave up and left for about 30 minutes, and came back and the screen was showing that it had about 10 seconds left before finishing. Unfortunately, the computer was locked up tight, I couldn't do a thing except hold down the power button until it finally turned off. When I started back up, I looked at the DVD that I had been copying to under Windows Explorer, and it said something about "unallocated space" with a size of zero bytes. I have no idea what is going on. What am I doing wrong (very likely), or is there just something wrong with this software?

By the way, since I started writing this post, I have experimented with backing up individual files to DVD. No apparent problems. It seems to back them up pretty quick, and test restores seem to be working okay. It seems to be working whether or not the disk has been erased and is blank or even if I have formatted it with InCD. It's just when I try to back up the entire disk (is this the same thing as "image the disk"?) that I run into major problems. Or, if I tried the " two-step" approach, my computer's memory becomes overwhelmed by trying to move an Acronis Backup 2 GB file to the DVD, and it just never finishes.

By the way, I did a test of a straight copy of 500 MB of data from My Documents to the same DVD that I have been backing up some of the smaller test files to. It only took four minutes, with no bogging down of my computer memory. Now 500 MB is one half of a gigabyte, correct? So I can't imagine why one of the 2 GB of Acronis backup files from the system back up to the hard drive, struggles for an hour and a half to be copied to the DVD, while driving my available memory down to near zero, with the end result of failing to copy, if a half a gig copy of non- Acronis files only took four minutes? For a final test, I backed up (with Acronis) about a gigabyte from My Documents, to the same DVD that already had other Acronis test backups stored on it. It seems to have worked just fine, and took less than 10 minutes. It seems to restore just fine from this backup. The only hitch was had about 50% finished, I got the terrifying "low quality media" message, with several choices, one of which was "retry". I clicked retry, and for the first time ever, retry worked it actually proceeded right on with the backup and finished it up without apparent problems!

So backing up even large amounts of individual files seems to be working just fine. So I guess the bottom line to this long report that I've just given is to ask: what am I doing wrong, why can't I back up the entire disk to DVD or at least use the two-step method to back up (disk image?) to the hard drive and then copy to DVD? Or is it a problem with the software or some problem with my hardware? By the way, I'm doing all of this DVD backing up to a Memorex external USB DVD writer which came with the Nero and InCD. Though I don't know if InCD has even been in use with the backups and version 3633. My apologies that this was such a long post.
Thanks In Advance,
Bill

 

Bill, I know you said you wanted the Clone feature but since you've invested all this time and money into the TI product, wouldn't the Backup feature, which is usually more successful for many of us, work for you too. It only requires the Restore step to transform a drive into what would have been a Clone.
I don't know how the Backup feature handles those hidden recovery partitions put there by manufacturers though, since none of my drives have that, but I'm sure someone else can chime in on this.

 

If you have a TI image file you should be able to copy it to DVD if your system is working properly. There is nothing that makes a TI image file different from any other file other than they tend to be big and big can cause problems with some USB devices.

When you copy I am not clear if you are using packet-writing or a "regular" DVD burn.

Make another image of your disk or partition. Set the split at 1492 MB (this I think will get converted to 1.457GB). This size will definitely not use the UDF file system.

After the image is created, use your burning software to burn the DVD. You will be able to put 3 of the above split files per DVD with not much left over. To increase your confidence set the "Verify after burning or whatever it's called" feature in your burning software.

 

Thanks Chutsman and Seekforever:
Yes, I would indeed love to use the backup features, particularly disk imaging, if I could just get it to work. I may soon buy an ext. HD, from what I read here from you guys that might solve my problems. But in the mean time it's DVDs!

I'm trying the 1492 MB approach now, making a new image to the HD, will try to copy to DVD again later. I ran into a new twist, it would not let me copy anywhere to the C drive(MyComputer). Previously, it had just warned me not to and to move the files ASAP if I did. I don't have room in D: recovery, and even though I moved "Recovery" to C, the 5GBs still show in the properties. I tried to image to D: anyway, and when almost done, got the message "drive full" as usual. Tried again on C:, and it let me with the usual warning!!!! Crazy!
I wish it would give me the option to write over data on D: .

SeekForever, I think it was you told someone else to use 1492, and that they WERE NOT making a bootable DVD. Does that mean I should not select the option to include Acronis media full/safe versions in the image? Will that mess things up somehow?

Should I disable InCD if I'm going to use Nero to burn with?

does the DVD need to be formatted or erased 1st, or can I use a disk with data which will simply be written over?

Thanks again. You guys are a great help.
Bill

 

Well,Seekforever, so far, so good! I have two of the 1.5 GB files copied to DVD, 3rd one in progress. And my available memory is staying above 660, and CPU is barely being used. I have not tried any restor yet, but it looks promising. So I guess the 2GB file size was the deal breaker for my machine, eh? Since I was copying copying thru a USB2 port?

I wrote the 1st one at 4x, then I remembered some advice on this forum to write at 2x for greater copy accuracy, so the last two are at 2x. Strangely, that change only increased the write time from about 10mins to 12mins. But the machine is much quieter at that speed.

I did get a "data not verified " message on the last (3rd) file. I'll try to deal with that later. The disk was filled with 0 bytes left unused! I'm also going to experiment and see if I can copy 3 of the smaller files at once. Would that bring in the "UDF" thing? Regardless, it might bogg down my computer like a 2GB file did, but I know now what to do if that happens. Things are looking better! This might actually end up working out for imaging to DVD, untill I can get an ext.HD. Thanks, Chutsman, for encouraging me to hang in there!
Bill

 

Copying files which are each under 2Gb, even if the total of them is over 2GB does not trigger the UDF system. It is the size of the individual files.


Just to clarify (you may be doing this but it wasn't clear to me in your post):
You should be copying the number of files to fill the DVD at one time or you will end up with a multi-session DVD or it will only let you have the first file or files on the DVD if it closes it to further writing.

If you are using the 1492 MB size and the backup creates 7 tib files for the archive. Copy files1,2,3 to the first DVD, files4,5,6 to the second DVD and file7 to the last DVD.

 

Thanks for clarifying that. I went back and copies the first three files at once, seems to have worked just fine. It did not faze my computer's memory or CPU - only a small % of which was used. I did this without disabling InCD, and actually formatted the disk with inCD for reuse. So I guess that was OK, since it seemed to work fine as far as copying.

One somewhat related question. This recovery D: partition which is nonfunctional. If I rt.click on D: and select "properties" it will indicate 5 GB are used, 11 GB available. The 5 GB is the correct size from the recovery partition cloned from the old HD, though non-functional. But when I look into the new D: partition, there are no files showing that I can delete. I would like to clear this out and make my initial disk images to drive partition D. There is not enough room now to hold an image of C:, which is 12.9 GB after compression, including the Acronis media I optioned for inclusion in the back up. So I'm wondering, can I format this drive partition D: without causing problems?
Thanks,
Bill

 

Is what you are calling the recovery partition a Secure Zone that you created from within TI? If so, you should use TI to delete the Secure Zone. I don't use the Secure Zone but I think it will return the space OK.