Pile of Problems with TI8

Previously used Instant Recovery. Bought this program a couple of days ago to take advantage of its support for dvd but it is starting to remind me of take two.

Problem 1: I tried to create an image on another partition of the same drive to burn to dvd+r later using Nero. If I specify any other size for the file split besides those on the pull down menu, TI8 says it will take 13 hours to create the image. I left it on overnight and that grew to 3 days and still showed zero percent progress. If i use the pull down to specify size or let it write the whole image automatically it says 13 minutes and seems to work. I did not complete the image this way since i want 4 gb files for dvd. Tried booting to the disc and got the same results

Problem 2: I tried to burn the image directly to dvd+r. TI8 writes 300 to 400 mb then it gives me a disc write error and suggests it is due to faulty media. Tried 3 different media but it managed to ruin all the disc brands I have. All of which work fine using Nero. I am starting to think from reading the manual that TI* does not support dvd+/-r but only rw. If so the company made a poor effort to point this out in the features. I do not want to use rw.

Problem 3: Created an image on cd-r using minimal compression. TI8 said it would require 9 discs. It took 12 and when I tried to verify the files TI8 said the disc is corrupted.

Problem 4: Along the way TI8 got to where it would lockup and windows would shut it down and once it stopped the system from shutting down so I had to pull the plug. Uninstall and reinstall seemed to fix this.

I guess I could try spliting 700 mb files to hd and writing them with nero, but that is not what I purchased this program for. So far the only difference I have seen between this program and that horrid Take Two is that this program ruins discs at a much faster rate. Eventually I did get take two to work ocassionally, but the jury is still out on this one.

Any help or suggestions are appreciated.

athlon 3200
biostar m7ncd pro (nforce ide drivers not installed)
wd 120 gb(11 of 25 gb used on system partition)
liteon dvd
liteon cdrw
liteon dvdrw
windows xp pro
nero ultra 6

 

Suggestions:
1 boot and run ti from the cd (nothing extra loaded)
2 do a complete drive image to another hdrive if possible slitting the tib files to 650mb
3 if possible test the image with a restore to a third hdrive from a ti cd boot (hdrives are dirt cheap these days)
4 if it works, copy your tib files to dvd/rw's using a drag and drop method (NOT incremental writing, this can be problematic no matter what the software used)
Ti is far from perfect, but this should work for you
Good luck

 

Woody I am having the exact same problem you described in problem#1. I have emailed tech support twice now and recived nothing but automated responses. Can't update to latest build to see if this fixes it because it not available for download on website. Had to dump it and go back to 7.0. Can't get a response about getting my money back either.

 

Some update to the problems.



When I specified a size to split the files to, TI8 wrote thousands of files to the folder on the hard drive. After closing TI8, I was trying to delete the mess it had made but new files were written as fast as I could delete them. I think it hit the file limit of windows and kept making new files as I deleted the old ones even though I had canceled the image creation and closed the program. I went to task manager and found 2 trueimage processes still running. The file creations stopped after ending the processes.

Windows started closing the program again and I had to reinstall it again to fix it.

I was able to create a backup image using the 700mb size in the pulldown and TI8 verified the files.


I think I could probably burn these files to dvd using Nero, but instead of strapping another crutch to this program trying to get it to work I am thinking that I will try to use the backitup utility in Nero that I did not realize has disaster recovery capabilities.

I will wait a couple of weeks til I get my next credit card statement to see if acronis fixes any of the problems. If not I can just dispute the charge and make my own refund that way. It may be a little rude but I did not sign up to be a beta tester, I have other things to spend my time on.

 

Woody: The 1kb file size is a known bug and is fixed in build 768 of ATI8
I assume Acronis will have the download link fixed sometime on Monday.
Alternatively, you could try specifiying a file size of under 2GB. (2000MB worked for me)

 

Thanks, I'll try it out.

I was trying to come up with a safe way to try a restore with my 1 hard drive. I can restore to the larger partition on the drive which contains a lot of files I have copied to dvd/cdr for backup. Will xp have a problem with 2 copies of the operating system on the drive? and will it allow me to boot to the other partition and/or could I choose in the board bios? Or am I just asking for more trouble?

 

I'm not sure about how to test out your restore of XP. I guess if when you restore the image you make the partition active (I believe it's an option during the restore sequence), it will attempt to boot from that partition. But then again, your boot.ini file on that partition will be pointing to the original partition so who knows...

When I tested ATI, I made an image of my C: drive with a known working program (Ghost) as a failsafe and also with TrueImage. The restore using TrueImage worked fine, so I was happy with that. The reason for the other backup option was so that in the case that ATI did not work properly I would have not painted myself into a corner.

Perhaps somebody else here will have a better idea for you...

 

Woody Lane

I hope some one at Acronis with any decision making attributes reads these type of Quotes.



The SAFEST test of your image is ALWAYS to another drive
Xp likes to be alone on a boot drive. There are boot managers etc for other os's but more than 1 xp is problematic. You are asking for trouble.
Don't forget Acronis Ti is a disk imager, not a piece of magic, even though some experienced users have been able to accomplish extra with it. It will restore to a hard drive. Wisely, you shouldn't pick your 1 and only for testing.
If you still feel you must use 1 drive then follow wdormann's suggestion and have multiple image sources.

 

I edited this post and deleted most of it because I thought I had this program working, but not.

Got the new update to TI8. Problems 1 and 4 fixed. I was able to create an image on the hard drive using maximum compression and a 4.2 GB file split. Windows did not try to close the program anymore. TI verified the files, I burned to dvds with nero using udf format and verify after write. Nero failed to verify on the second of 2 discs and TI8 says both files are corrupted. Thats it. This program is crap. I have now wasted enough time and effort that I could have finished rebuilding the engine I have on a stand in my garage. This program is just like take two was. It promises a lot and delivers nothing.

Thanks to those on this forum that tried to help.

 

Hey ACRONIS need a refund

I tried 1 more time. Imaged 2gb files to hard drive. Burned a couple of them onto dvd+r in iso format with nero. Corrupted, will not verify. Final count on wasted discs 13 cdr and 11 dvd+r. This software is wholly unsuitable for backing up to removeable media.

Sent an email to acronis asking for a refund. No reply as yet, but only 1 day has gone by.

I picked up a 160gb wd drive, ata133 pci card, 2 round ide cables, and a removeable rack mount for just under $120. I am going to use western digital's free drive copy utility to copy the entire drive once a week. Withn the falling cost of hard drive storage I can't believe I wasted all the time I did on backup imaging software, especially true image. True image may actually work for imaging to another drive but why would the average pc user want to pay for it when every drive manufacturer gives away a utility to copy drive to drive or partition to partition.

See ya.