Salvaging a corrrupt .tib file

... an end user made a True Image backup of his failing hard drive, which had the good graces to fail 80% of the way through. So, now we have a 50 gig .tib file, which has been declared by True Image to be corrupt. Surprise, surprise.

Is there any practical way of salvaging the contents of this file?

Thanks!

 

Hi, awacs

Welcome to Wilders and Acronis Forums.

If corrupt there is no way of accessing the Image, but the content will still be on the HDD as it is only an Image, the data on the HDD is not altered in any way when a Image is created.

Take Care,
TheQuest

 

Is the drive totally dead, or is it still readable if you boot from the TI recovery CD? If so, you can make another image which should allow recovery of some or all of the data.

 

I don't think the structure of an TIB file has ever been made public, so unless Acronis has some special tools for extracting the good pieces of the image, I am afraid that there is not much to do.

I might have some luck in re-surrecting the drive using an utility called SpinRite. It bypasses the OS and works directly with the controller and is sometimes able to re-surrect/repair sectors that is otherwise deemed bad and dead. After such a repair you might be able to make a valid TIB image from the disk.

 

Somewhere else on this forum there is a thread about the compression algorithm used in .tib files which is apparently publicly available. Do some searching and you might find something.

 

But the hard disk is toast.

You're telling me that the 50 gig of 'data' is useless? No way to extract any usable information from the file? This is ... well, hard to believe.

 

Ah! Thanks, I see it.

Maybe I'll have some luck.

 

Hello awacs,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Emergency Backup Software .

In case you have a corrupt image you may try to restore some particular data using "Explore Image" wizard. If you are able to explore the image you will be able to copy most of the data from it.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

Hi, awacs

No I am not saying that, if Ti says the Image is corrupt and can not open it, then it is in fact Ti saying the data in the Image is useless because it is the only program that can restore or explore data in a Ti tib file Image.

Sorry for the confusion.

Take Care,
TheQuest