Restoring from DVD's is buggy

I've been evaluating TrueImage 9.0 by doing a backup on DVD's. Lot's of problems. The image is split into multiple files on two DVD's.

There are three files on the first DVD and two on the second DVD.

During the backup, the program instructs one to mark the first DVD as 'Volume 1". There is no instruction for marking the second. I've deduced that the first DVD contains volume 1, volume 2, and volume 3 and the second contains volume 4 and volume 5. The so-called 'volumes' are logical descriptors which are simply associated with the files on the DVD's.

During a 'check archive' operation therefore when the program asks one to insert volume 4, one must know that volume 4 is resident on DVD #2. A bit confusing at the onset and this should be fixed in the program. It should inform the user to either label the first DVD disk "volumes 1,2,3" and label the second DVD disk "volume 4 and 5" or use the physical DVD number when it asks one to insert one or the other.

During a restore operation for a single file, it is especially annoying because in addition to the above problem, where the program will ask the user to insert volume 3 or volume 2 or volume 5 which is ridiculous, one must constantly switch back and forth between physical DVD disks. I gave up after switching the DVD's a dozen times or more! This is just to retrieve one file!

Is this the way TrueImage is supposed to work? My impression is that it is poorly engineered and buggy if that is the case. Is there a patch?

Is there and acceptable tried and proven use model for DVD-based backup and restores?

Perhaps one should simply not do a direct backup and restore from DVD's.

So far this has absorbed far more time to do a simply operation that should be a no-brainer than a version 9.0 program should ever require.

 

Hello Bob_123,

Your TI is functioning correctly.

The point you make about the disk labelling protocol is a valid one. However, multiple disk changes are a fact of life when restoring from spanned CD or DVD images (particularly irksome when restoring individual files). If practicable, you could always copy all the volumes of the image back to a single folder on one of your hard drives first and then verify/restore the image/files from there.

Regards

 

Hi,
I've been evaluating ATI too, and must agree with Bob_123. Ok, so a packet-writing software is necessary, which is a drag, as progs like InCD don't have very good reputation for reliability etc and are widely disliked on Nero official forums. But even once you get over that you get problems like Bob_123 described. In my case writing to dvds went ok, but verification process was just ridiculous: ATI asked to to insert volume 1, as soon as I did it said it wasn't the last volume of the backup, so I put in the dvd with the last one, then it asked to put the volume 1 in, which I did, and then again it said that it wasn't the last volume. It carried like that until I lost patience after 10 or so swaps and abandoned verification altogether.
I then tried a file/folder restore just to see what'd happen. Well, it froze in the process.
Ok, so some say, backup to HD, verify and then burn to dvds, but I'd think that most people who want to image to dvds do so because they don't have enough space on their only HD to put image there and don't have a second HD, otherwise with all these problems and workarounds who would bother with imaging to dvds in the first place?
It is a bit dishonest of Acronis to say, yeah, you can backup to dvds and then ok, but you need this to do it ( packet-writing) and even then maybe don't to it straight to dvds, but do all the tricky stuff using HD backup and then if you must, burn your dvds with other software, oh, and by the way, if you want to restore something from your dvds, prepare for juggling act with them and pray nothing is corrupted or ATI doesn't freeze or gets unhappy.

 

Save yourselves a lot of frustration and invest in a second hard drive for backups - an external hard drive if it is a laptop you want to backup. Then after making the backup images, for extra insurance, burn the images to DVD. But use the hard drive to backup to and restore from otherwise you will be tearing your hair out using CDs or DVDs.

 

That's good TI advice - but not always practical... as in the case of notebook users who travel quite a bit and really should backup 'on the road'. Obviously, using the notebook's DVD burner (assuming it has one!) makes a lot more sense than lugging an external hard drive along with your notebook. So in that situation, investing in a second backup program (better 'geared' to DVD burning than TI) is definitely worth considering.

 

"Au contraire, mon ami" I respectfully beg to differ on the practical aspect for a "road warrior" with laptop. Granted, in most cases when on the road, it is likely that only data needs to be backed up. In which case it can be burned to CD or DVD media or copied to flash drive.

If the laptop contents are that critical where it is necessary to backup the entire drive, one can carry a 2.5 inch drive (like what is in the laptop) in a 2.5 inch usb case, to do so. This drive and case will easily go into a shirt pocket. And the cost is not all that much, if your drive and its contents are that important - I recently bought two such devices for clients (40 gig laptop drive and case) for $63 each. Of course I charged them just a "tad" more than that.

 

Exactly my point - but rather than simply copying/burning valuable files to optical disk (or flash-drive) for safekeeping, I'm suggesting that structured backup management provided by a dedicated (CD/DVD) backup program, is a better solution!

 

Okay, I know the mods don't like anyone mentioning competing products, but I would like to know what that product is. PM me please, thanks.

 

You've got mail...

 

Not only you but also I am complaining about the excessively-redundant swapping of two DVD's. You might want to look at my thread.
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=114427

 

I'd be good to hear from mods/Acronis people on this board re.dvd writing problems as they might have some valuable advice/workarounds to suggest

 

I am having difficulty restoring as well. My back-up volume names were assigned by the program and look like this: MyBackup1, MyBackup2, etc.
I can't restore because the software keeps asking for volume 1 to start restoring, any further suggestions? Thanks.

 

Chutsman,

If you don’t mind would you tell me what laptop HDD and case you bought for your client?

You can send by private message if you prefer.

Becky

 

Dear Chutsman

Sorry, but what good is a backup program if you have to rely on the hardware of the very computer you are doing the backup of...

I believe that a serious backup strategy for important data would be to do a full back-up on _different_ media (DVD, CD, Streamer, whatsoever), lock it in a safe place, do incremental backups afterwards, do a second full backup and start all over with incremental backups, then overwrite the first full backup and so forth.

This (plus reliable, easy restore) is a basic requirement for any backup program. If it fails, dump it.

Paquette
(also struggling with TI9's strange behaviour regarding DVD-RW backups)

 

I write the image to my D drive and copy it to another partition on the sytem drive as well. Both drives aren't going to fail at the same time.

I also split 6 GB images with Winrar sometimes and burn them to 2 DVDs. They can be extracted and reassembled on a hard drive prior to restoring.

 

You always end up using the hardware of the computer you are backing up unless you are using an "enterprise" version which costs a lot more money and even then you are still using hardware of the machine you are backing up but to a lesser extent.

By far, the most common failure mode for HDs is the HD itself and having your backup on a second hard-drive is a good solution. I don't quibble with having backups on DVD, USB drives stored away from the original computer. I image to HD and then write a copy of some images to DVD. The image is left on the second HD.

Chutsman stated a simple fact, fool with optical disks spanned over multi-volumes and you'll drive yourself nuts. It is much faster when doing a restore to copy the DVDs to a HD and then do the image restore from there.

By the way, and some will disagree with me, but I don't consider RW disks to be the most reliable backup media.