restore question

I have a big, full backup. Archive size is about 30gb. I have several additional incremental backups. Their size is generally about 1gb.

To restore to Windows XP, should I use the full backup first, then the incrementals?

Not sure it matters which combo of which to go first with matters.

 

If you want to get back to the state of the system when the last incremental was made you have to start the restore with the last incremental. The software will then find all previous incs including the full backuup.

 

Aha. So, I'd better use the latest first. Thanks for that.

It's interesting that it will find the others.

 

When I have done restores I start with the full one and the program finds the others. Seems to me I read in the user guide that it has to be done this way.

 

You should say which product and version you have, and which operating system.

Anyway, with incrementals or differentials, you do need to choose the .tib with the date/time to which you wish to restore. If you choose the last incremental, your partition/files will be restored to the condition as of the last incremental/differential. If you choose an intermediate one, the restore will be to the state when that one was taken.

Note: You should check the help documentation, and be sure to get the User Guide .pdf file for your version of software.

I am using TI Home 2009, build 9709 on WinXP Pro/SP3 with latest MS updates (checked with Belarc Advisor).

 

Just checked my documentation and I was wrong, you start with the last incremental first. What I was thinking of was not restoring from an series of images but from a full image (no incrementals). About 6 weeks ago I began having serious PC problems (frequent BSOD) and I had begun doing daily full images as my PC began experiencing problems since I was not sure if any backup would be corrupted. Once the PCs problem was diagnosed (bad ram and the necessity to have OS reinstalled) I simply used the last full backup I had made. This full backup was made up of a series of files (19 to be exact) and I recall that I selected the first one when selecting the archive I was restoring from. Guess I was just lucky that it worked out OK and I am glad to have had this made clear to me.

Still, I seem to have a clear recollection of reading somewhere that if you have a large number of incremental backups in a series you would need to start with the first backup (full) and then add the subsequent (incremental) ones. I am unable to locate the reference at this time though.

EDIT: just went through the entire Help file and cannot find the reference to selecting the first or full backup to start the restore. Perhaps the reference was for another program as I have been looking at a number of rollback programs over the past few weeks. As noted above I am very glad to have gotten the correct procedure straight before I have a problem and find out the hard way. It would be rather tedious to have to manually select and restore each incremental in order to get the PC to its last backup state.

I do have a question. When reading through the help files I noticed that all incrementals need to be in the same folder as the initial full image. Does this mean that I MUST have each series of backups in separate folders? What I have been doing is just creating a new initial image using the following name protocol,,, Feb A, where Feb A is the series of backups for the first week of Feb,,,,, at the end of the first week of Feb I will create a full image and call it Feb B,,,,etc. Of course after each initial full image I am setting up a schedule to do incrementals from that initial full image for the following week. Currently all my weekly full backups and their subsequent incremental backups are on the same drive and none of them are in folders. Will this be a problem when I need to restore?

Sorry for such a wordy question.

 

Hello bgoodman4,

Thank you for using Acronis True Image Home 2009!

As you have already found you can just choose the latest incremental backup and restore the full chain of backups at once. You can also choose to restore to the older state if you need it.

Regarding the backups and folders question - there is no strict rule to keep different series of backups in the different folders. All the backup parts from backup set must be located at the same folder because Acronis True Image 2009 will check the contents of the folder and pick up the appropriate backup parts for the restoration process. All the other images (from different backup set) would not affect this process and can be located at the same folder. Please note that it's a good idea to move old backup sets to a different folder in order to have simple structure of backups.

Thank you,
Michael Levchenko

 

Thank you for the clarification Michael.

 

Yours is a slightly different scenario ... your FULL backup was split into several files because your destination drive is formatted as Fat 32 and not Ntfs. In this case selecting any of the pieces to restore, True Image will know to restore the full backup.

rbig was talking about incrementals.

 

I realised this after I posted which is why I tried to explain my confusion (which is legendary,,,,my confusion that is).

 

Hummmm, would I be well advised to reformat the external drive to NFTS or is it 6 of 1 or 1/2 dozen of the other in this case. Mind you all my images are on the drive so that would mean trashing a months worth of backup/restore points.

 

The word is that Ntfs is a more "robust" file system. But there is another advantage which has to do with cluster size. With a Fat 32 system, the cluster size could be 4k, 16k, or 32k (not sure if there is a 64k size but it doesn't matter). The size depends on the size of the hard drive - I forget now where the changeover is, but yours is probably in the 32k cluster size. Now why does this matter? If you have a file that is 130k, it will occupy 5 clusters with the fifth one having only 2k in it. The rest of that cluster, 30k, is wasted.

With an NTFS system, the cluster size is 4k so that same 130k file will occupy 33 clusters. The last cluster also has 2k in it but only 2k is wasted.

So you can see how, with a Fat 32 system, the wasted space can add up.

You can change to NTFS non-destructively with Partition Magic. I'm sure there are other programs out there that can do it also but I'm a die hard PM fan. Your previous Images would not be wasted at all. If you can, transfer them temporarily to another drive and use Windows to reformat the drive to NTFS. After the change you can put the Images back on the drive. Any future Images will then be one file.

 

Excellent DwnNdrty, thanks for the info/comments.

 

I do not agree.

FAT32 causes ZERO waste of space with jumbo Gigabyte image files
(where zero is 32k divided by an almost infinite number)

NTFS causes a waste of time when restoring the system drive.
This is why two years ago I abandoned NTFS and chose FAT32 to hold my images.

Today Acronis advise that they are working to improve the situation. See the end of
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=231959

N.B. I do agree with NOT using FAT32 for general storage of small files.
My very first P.C. ran DOS 3.?? and had a 20 MB drive with 32 KByte clusters.
It ran much better than a 5.25 inch floppy, but 600 off single line *.BAT command files would fill the whole drive ! !

 

Just use the CONVERT command to move from FAT32 to NTFS. I have used this many times and never lost any data.

To convert a volume to NTFS from the command prompt
Open Command Prompt. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.

In the command prompt window, type: convert drive_letter: /fs:ntfs

For example, typing convert D: /fs:ntfs would format drive D: with the ntfs format. You can convert FAT or FAT32 volumes to NTFS with this command.

One caveate though this method will use the small default 512 Cluster size. See article below.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/140365

 

THank you, that makes a lot of sense, since I am only storing larger files (images and incrementals).

Also thanks for the suggestions re converting. Its good information to have in the back of my mind.