No backup solution for 4 months, now struggling with TI 11

Hi Everyone,

I've been trying to get a backup with Acronis to work for at least 4 months and still can't do anything with it.

Now I'm on TI 11 build 8035. The latest problems were:

1. Data backup of folders on internal SATA HD. Backup location defined on removable USB2 hard drive, no limits on size, number of backups, etc. 150GB to backup. 465GB free on destination drive. Both NTFS file systems. System is Dell Dimension 8300 3.2 GHz 1GB RAM, OS is WinXP SP 2.

There were 3 errors that looked like this in the log:

event code="0" id="5" level="2" message="Failed to read from the sector 1,979,631 of the hard disk 1. Sector was skipped." module="100" time="1197634285"

Chkdsk reported NO errors on the disk. It would have been nice to know which files contained the bad sectors, but TI 11 put no such information in the log.

TI 11 also said "operation succeeded" and was able to validate the backup. Too bad there was missing data for those sectors in that valid backup.

I don't know what to do about the error. I don't know which file(s) raised the exceptions.

2. Same backup on another PC, same system, to a different removable USB2 drive, same capacities, 200GB to backup.

Errors:

Hung for 9 hrs (overnight) at 32% done. Status window displayed folder containing problem file(s) but not the names of the file(s). Folder contains JPG images, nothing unusual in size or quantity there.

I let it go for another few hours to make sure it was really hung. Then I cancelled the backup.

Like the first backup, I don't know what to do. I don't know which files are the problem or why TI 11 hung where it did. I don't have any problems reading the files in that folder with Lview (handy graphics file viewer I've been using for years)

I've been making WinRAR backups of the more important data files (with version histories) but I'd like to be able to make backups of all my data files. WinRAR is not a good solution for this because it's pretty slow for large backups. WinZIP is pretty much the same story.

So here I am, with no viable backup solution after 4 months and no clue as to what TI 11 is having problems with.

Why does it encounter sector read errors on SATA disks when chkdsk reports no problems?

Why does it hang for no apparent reason?

Why don't the logs and status windows include file information? Sector numbers are useless if chkdsk reports no errors. Folders narrow it down somewhat, but how do I know that's really the folder where it hangs?

I'm ready to give up. Anyone have any ideas what might be going wrong here?

Also, is it OK to ask for recommendations for alternate backup solutions in this forums? If it is, I'm asking. If it isn't, the jury will disregard the previous sentence.

Thanks for taking the time to read this,
Big Al Mintaka

 

With TI 11 you can tell TI to ignore bad sectors - it is under Tools\Options\Error Handling.

As far as checkdisk is concerned, did you run it with the /r switch, it will make a big difference if you do.

A skipped 'bad' sector may or may not hold valid data, invalid data might be from a deleted file that has screwed up it's cluster linking on being deleted for example. Have you tried defragging with something like O&O or Diskeeper (they are slightly more thorough than the built in version for XP certainly)?

Now the fact you get a similar problem on a second PC, could be TI has a problem with your particular chipset, especially as the BIOS will have been Dell'erised. Have you any of the Dell background utilities running whilst imaging, these might perhaps cause TI to go into a tail spin.

I suggest running chkdisk /r (system will need to reboot to run this) see if that solves the problem, if not switch off any Dell utilites that guard things like disk health, PC health, rootkit virus/malware checkers - these might be writing to the drive all the time, which might cause TI a read problem.

Whilst it shouldn't the hidden Dell diagnostic partition (if it lives at sector 1,979,xxxx might be the sticking point.)

The taking ages problem, sound very much like either a chipset problem or something else is running in the background - check TaskManager and see what is there.

As for the highly detailed error messages that TI produces, this is one of their system "features" . Think of it as a boolean version of Scrabble or Sukodo - an area that could definitely benefit from improvement.

Colin

 

Hi bodgy,
Thanks for that reply. It looks like you may have nailed it with that Dell Diagnostic Partition info. That's exactly the sector prefix I see in the log.

I'll be dipped. When I first got these Dimensions, I immediately trashed all the overhead services installed by Dell. I forgot about that partition, and later never noticed it because I never had to use the diagnostics.

However, that raises a question. Since I was doing a data backup of folders visible in Window File Explorer (and I excluded System Volume Information, MSOCache, pagefile.sys, and all the temp directory paths I could find), what was TI 11 doing in that partition?

I'm a little foggy on partitioning, but I thought that what I see in the Explorer for the C: drive was the active partition and nothing else. Are there files on the system drive that somehow have fragments in the Diagnostic Partition?

I hate these non-deterministic errors! Every time I run Acronis there's another puzzler like this. This is why I'm doubting that I'll ever converge on a working backup solution with this program.

Thanks again for your reply, and thanks also for taking the time to read my long messages! Have a good one,

Big Al Mintaka

 

Hello AlanMintaka,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for the delayed response.

Please notice that in case Acronis True Image fails to read a particular file, it will specify the file's name. If there is only a sector number specified, the problem might require additional investigation.

The following is for both computers where the problems were encountered:
Please download the latest version of Acronis drivers and install it with disabled logging.

If the issue persists, please collect some information to let us investigate it thoroughly:

- Reinstall Acronis drivers with enabled logging;
- Reproduce the issue and collect the log file without closing any application windows (including the error message windows if there are any). The log file will be created at C:\ . The name of the log file will be snapapi [date-time].log

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

Please collect the application log of the operation:
- run the program;
- select Show log on the toolbar or from the Tools menu;
- select the log with error messages;
- click "Save the log entry to file" (the diskette icon).

Please also clarify, were the option to not show errors during operation (silent mode) active?

Then submit a request for technical support with the subject indicating that you want to contact Marat Setdikov. 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 investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov