Macrium aborted in middle of backup.

Hi all,

I ran Macrium free edition for the 1st time this morning. I've been really well impressed with it until it crashed.

The crash was my fault. Now I need help to resume.

I was backing up my HDD to DVD. Had 80% finished, which was 8 DVDs.

It was going perfectly. Only 2 more DVD's and it be happily, finished.

The program, as usual when it was ready for a new DVD, beeped.

I put in the new DVD. Except, evidently, I made a mix up and put one in that had already been written to.

The program logged several attempts at trying to get it to go but came back with the same error of "disk full." After, I think, four tiries, it aborted.

Is there a way to put in an empty DVD and have Macrium resume from where it left off?

Or did I just make 8 DVD coasters?

The ideal would be to get it to resume.

Possibly another way would be to look at the last complete DVD, see the cluster it last completed and instruct the program to start a new instance of backup, but at that cluster?

Of course I'd have to rename the starting point for that DVD the next number in the sequence of backup DVDs.

I'd think either way would work, with a "resume," being best.

But I don't know how to do either nor if it is even possible.

I really hope it's not DVD coaster time--ruined 8 DVDs.

Hope someone can help.

Thanks.

 

I am using "Clonezilla-live" and have had NO problems with it.
It is free of course.
I use it to back up a triple boot system of Vista, XP PRO and PcLinuxOS.

Download the ISO Image and create a CD of the Image and follow
instructions. I am sure you will be pleased, as I got rid of the buggy Acronis
TI and have not had a problem since.
Here is where to download it: clonezilla.org/download.sourceforge

Have done 1 restore with it and that worked also.
Good luck

 

Thanks, I'll try yours.
The software I'm trying to use actually had lots of good reviews in cnet, unlike, as you said Acronis. So, I went with this one. The interface and all seems to be quite nice. Hope I can get it to work as well as the one you offer.
btw, do you know how in clonezilla, if it can resume after a failure like I had--working perfectly, I put in the wrong disk, & program aborts.
I've been up all night trying to make backups & may make the same mistake again, although I hope not.

And if anyone knows more about Macrium "reflect" free vrs., I'd still like to know of your experience. & if there's a work around my problem.

 

I also heard that Macrium was a good package but maybe the problem is with the free version and not the pay one.
About Clonezilla aborting, it has never happened to me so I do not have an answer
for you. It does warn about having enough disk space to copy the image to.
My approach for Clonezilla aborting would be to start it over again after I made
sure the disk I was coping the image to had enough space on it.
It only takes about a half hour to back up my 36 or so Gs, so I am happy.
Caution, don't pull the CD out until the program tells you to do it. That will make
the program fail. Even though it looks like its doing nothing.
The first time using the program can be a little daunting but just go slow and carefully read the instructions. If you are not completely new to Puters you should be able to figure it out. I power down the Puter and put in the CD of Clonezilla
and reboot and I am off running Clonezilla.
It does a lot of referring to Hda and Sda which refer to the Eide and the Sata drives. Check which one you have before you start.
Good luck

 

With all due respect, I think this issue has more to do with the target media than with the software. The difference between MR paid and free is definitely not in the "guts" of the program and, in this instance, we know the OP did something out of the ordinary (put a DVD with data in the drive instead of a blank DVD). Thus, it appears to me that changing software packages might be far less important than changing the target media. Just my $.02....

Well, it appears that in the OP's case it would be neither since the target is optical media, wouldn't it? Again, considering we're talking about needing *10* DVDs to hold one image, an investment in an external HDD would be a wise decision, IMHO.

 

@ stars1234

Hi, macrium does have a support forum
http://www.macrium.com/support.asp
nick the owner is very helpful and quick to respond to issues.
hope this helps.

 

Thanks for all the help. that support forum may be where I'm headed next.

I haven't tried Clonezilla yet. I have Ghost, but it's old & I need something that can let me see and get to individual files in the backup. I think I read the macrium will let you do that.

And while I agree that this is where I "should" be using an external drive, it's a matter of what's on hand (dvds or cash) and time constraints. Otherwise, I wouldn't waste the DVD's.

I think what I'll do next is try the DVDs again on Macrium but use RWs and see how that goes--wish I had thought of that 1st. If that doesn't work, over to the forum. If that doesn't work, order an external HDD from Newegg, tonight.

If only there were a way for the program to resume the backup...

Thanks again for the help. These are useful suggestions. And thanks for the forums support page. I had googled for one, but couldn't find it.

 

I just hopped over to the forum. FWIW, there's a big header on the forum that questions can only come from registered members & that's only open to those who have paid for the program...

 

To finish this thread. Went back to the forum and someone asked the same question I had--is there a way to resume?

The answer is No. Yes, the disks are now coasters.

The suggestions for a large file is to either use an external drive or make images to an internal, setting the size to 4GB for each, then make DVDs from those.

So, now we know.

 

Sorry I forgot to mention that I back up to a SATA external Hard drive.
I wouldn't even try to back up to CDs or DVDs.
Go up on Office depot or Newegg etc. and shop prices on external sata HDs.
You should be able to get one for less than $100. I have 2 WD external HDs
of 320G and 1 terrabyte. Both work very well for me.
I remember having a lot of trouble with Optical media with Acronis TI.
That all disappears with an external HD.

 

I agree.With such a large image size it's not efficient to save to DVD especially since you'd need to burn 10 disks every time you wish to update it (or use DVDRW very slowly) On top of that there's a far greater chance of data corruption and failed recoveries using optical media.

External drives are very cheap now from discount sites such as http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Components/cat/Hard-Drives (they have a 1.5 tb for less than £100).