New User - Baffled

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by CarlWalters, Oct 4, 2004.

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  1. CarlWalters

    CarlWalters Registered Member

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    Hello - I've just recently purchased the full versions of TrueImage 8 and Disk Director Suite 9 - having been impressed with the demo versions.

    Now I am running Windows XP SP2 with two hard drives as follows

    Primary Master : Maxtor 80G
    Primary Slave : Quantum Fireball 40G

    I have burnt the boot disks for TrueImaage and DiskDirector. I booted from the TrueImage CD and used it to Clone the Quantum 40G (which was my original system drive) across to the Maxtor 80G. This worked fine and I re-installed the disks as above with the newly cloned Maxor as PM and the Quantum as PS.

    Then I ran Disk Director and Partitioned my drives as follows

    C: 40G NTFS on Primary Master (Maxtor)
    D: CD-RW
    E: 40G FAT32 on Primary Master (Maxtor)
    F: 20G FAT32 on Primary Slave (Quantum)
    G: 20G FAT32 on Primary Slave (Quantum)

    So far so good.

    Then I ran TrueImage (under Windows XP) and tried to make a full Image of my C: Partition (system) onto the F: Partition. But I got an error message saying that either the drive was in use or contained bas sectors. I ran chkdsk and all seemed fine. So I rebooted using the TrueImage CD and tried the same operation from there. This worked and created an image of the C: partition on the F: partition.

    But what I want to do is to schedule a regular backup (incremental) of my C: system partion across to my F: partion (a separate physical drive) for backup and recovery. But this option is not allowed when you boot from CD and I cannot seem to get Acronis to do it when running under Windows.

    Does anyone have any advice as to how I can do this?

    thanks in advance :)
     
  2. Scopacetic

    Scopacetic Registered Member

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    Forgive my asking the obvious, but have you tried doing an incremental backup (from within windows) to the CD initiated backup? I assume you didn't try to copy or clone your partition the first time, but to image it.
     
  3. CarlWalters

    CarlWalters Registered Member

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    No - I cloned my original 40G Quantum Fireball drive across to my new Maxtor 80G drive - using TrueImage 8. Since I wanted to switch to using my new 80G drive as my main drive.

    I didn't try an incremental backup because TrueImage recommended a full image first time around (and subsequently incremental images). But I could create an image if I booted from the CD and not while running Windows.

    It seems I can't do anything useful while running under Windows - but only when I boot from CD. This can't be right though can it? o_O
     
  4. CarlWalters

    CarlWalters Registered Member

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    Last night I downloaded the latest versions of TrueImage 8 and DiskDirector 9. Haven't had cahnce to try them as yet.

    Maybe these will solve the problem? Anyone?
     
  5. nexstar

    nexstar Registered Member

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    Did you reboot after partitioning and before trying to create the image from within Windows? If not then it may be that Disk Director locks the newly created partitions until the PC is reset (just guessing here).

    As Scopacetic suggests, try doing an incremental backup from within Windows onto your CD created image. I've done everything that you have from within Windows so, yes, it should work :)
     
  6. CarlWalters

    CarlWalters Registered Member

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    well still no luck. I've updated to the latest version of TI8 and tried to do an incremental backup (under Windows XP) and it still fails with the error message about logical drive containing bad sectors or being in use. :(

    The fact that I managed to make a full image when booting off the CD must mean that the problem can't be bad sectors mustn't it? If so then what is causing the logical drive to be in use?

    I tried turning off ZoneAlarm - which I'm not very happy doing - but still get the same result.
     
  7. paladin1369

    paladin1369 Guest

    are you using Alcohol 120% or DAEMON Tools if so unmount the created drives
     
  8. CarlWalters

    CarlWalters Registered Member

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    Sorry for my ignorance ;) but I don't know what Alcohol 120% is (unless it's
    lots of beer :D) also I've no idea what DAEMON tools are. So I don't think I am using them.
     
  9. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Hi

    A bit of a long shot but try these one at a time in the following order:

    1. Shut down all tasks (other than the clock) that may be running in the Task Bar, particularly AV progs and Roxio Drag-to-Disk.

    2. If you activated the Startup Recovery Manager or created a Secure Zone prior to cloning then select Manage Acronis Secure Zone and remove the SZ and deactivate the SRM.

    3. Uninstall TI, use Regedit to search and delete all True Image keys and then reinstall it.

    Regards
     
  10. SRBman

    SRBman Registered Member

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    TI8, as is clear from the many posts in this forum, is very buggy: it actually doesn't do what it says on the tin. I couldn't create a boot CD (but Acronis support sent me a boot cd image which works). Nor could I always run TI - it hung when analysing drive C (Acronis sent another version which solved this issue). I created an image but only after reducing file sizes to 650Mb. Then I verified the image but Aconis reported it corrupted. Not a lot working in TI8 is there?

    BUT, creating and verifying using the boot CD - and (as yet) no problems. (But I tried verifying the image which under the boot CD was checked OK, yet under Windows it was NOT verified. So, maybe Acronis should just give up running TI under Windows . . .
     
  11. beenthereb4

    beenthereb4 Registered Member

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    Just curious: do you suppose that any of these users have Spyware/Adware/Viruses on their computers? Would you guess that any have defective hardware? Is it possible that some are running other buggy software that interferes with Trueimage? Might a few have corrupted installations of Windows? No, I guess it is always TrueImage that is the root of all evil. Oh well.
     
    Last edited: Oct 9, 2004
  12. SRBman

    SRBman Registered Member

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    Well, yes, you could be right - but out of all the software I've installed on this PC I think TrueImage has got to be the buggiest by a long way (with the possible exception of various Norton products).

    But my main point is that it does work if you don't run it under Windows. Put this another way - it's not robust enough to cope successfully with the Windows environment (and all of the issues Windows throw up). So if you accept this then it's an OK piece of software.
     
  13. CarlWalters

    CarlWalters Registered Member

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    Hmmm sarcasm always helpful I find :)

    But in answer to your qestions

    • do you suppose that any of these users have Spyware/Adware/Viruses on their computers?

    I can't speak for others - but I'm fairly sure that I don't since I run Adaware on a very regular basis
     
  14. CarlWalters

    CarlWalters Registered Member

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    Hmmm sarcasm always helpful I find :)

    But to answer your qestions:

    do you suppose that any of these users have Spyware/Adware/Viruses on their computers?

    I can't speak for others - but I'm fairly sure that I don't since I run Adaware on a very regular basis

    Would you guess that any have defective hardware?

    I'm fairly sure that I don't - since everything else on my sysetm works - I can't thiink of a better test than that.

    Is it possible that some are running other buggy software that interferes with Trueimage?

    Again I'm fairly sure that I don't - everything else that I have installed works with a snag. But you're putting the cart before the horse I think. It's TrueImage that doesn't work. Everything else works. TrueImage doesn't.

    Might a few have corrupted installations of Windows?

    Some might. I don't believe that I have. It's a legitimate clean install of Windows XP Home.

    No, I guess it is always TrueImage that is the root of all evil. Oh well.

    Root of all evil is a bit strong :). It just doesn't work for me (and several others). It doesn't do what it says it can do (run under XP and make sheduled backups) and therfore to all intents and purposes it is pretty useless to me.

    I've spent good money - and much time which is even more valuable - on a piece of software that quite frankly doesn't work as advertised. I've done all of the suggested things - update to latest build, turn off all task bar processes, uninstall TI, clean the resistry and reinstall - all to no avail.

    If Acronis have a fix for this problem then I'll happily use it. If there is no fix and they will refund me that's fine too. But quite frankly they are using up my good-will rapidly.
     
  15. Aussie

    Aussie Guest

    How strange, I have no problem in Windows XP Pro & XP Home except for some USB issues. Its the Boot disk form that gives me the most trouble so far. The software seems to work very well if you work withen the rules. It's the rules that take a while to work out.

    Any one know how to install a better set of USB drivers into the boot disk?
     
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