TI 10 and Restore Reliability

I just had an issue where I backed up my laptop HDD (as I've done countless times before) and when I went to validate the backup (under Windows) I was immediately greeted with a "corrupted archive " message. I tried again several times with the same result.

I then went and did a CHKDSK on my backup drive (a USB2 Seagate 160GB drive) and found that the drive had file system errors. It took several tries, but CHKDSK /F finally fixed the file structure. A subsequent backup and validation was successful.

My question is this:

While investigating the drive problem, I found that I could doubleclick (Windows Explorer) on my previous saves and the TI "slice' would show up and allow access to the saved drive contents (much like mounting the archive). I could not do this with the "corrupted archive". So, if one can mount a saved image and also access files via the "slice", does this give a high probability that a restore would work?

Thanks,
Harvey

 

Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it. Doing an actual restore to a hard drive is the ONLY true test. Or if you do 100 backups and you're able to mount each one and then you successfully restore each one of those 100, then perhaps you can probably say that being able to mount the Images is a good test.

 

I've got a post in now about corrupt archive. I could mount a corrupt archive and the files that were corrupt were retreiveable. Go figure.

 

Hi Harvey,

The only fly in the ointment is that the restore of the boot partition, C, is done under the Linux recovery environment even if you start it from Windows. So, if you can validate the backup from the Recovery CD, there's a very, very good chance the image can be restored. OK, you have to actually restore to be 100% sure, but I've never had a failure if I could validate the archive from the Recovery CD.

Of course, the slice and mount features are not available from the Recovery CD, so that makes that point moot.

All that aside, I'd be happier if I could view the files in a slice or mount as proof the archive is good.

 

Well, as it turns out my external HDD just went belly-up. Ironic, isn't it, the important backup external drive dies after 3.5 years of minimal use while the internal laptop drive keeps chugging along after almost 5 years of heavy use.

Harvey

 

That's the time you wish you wish you had an offsite (i.e., on a diff drive that the regular backup drive and preferrably in a diff buidling), extra copy of a backup ;-)

 

Well the good news is that the original, the laptop, is still running ... so get another backup drive asap.

 

I don't bother to verify backups as this is no guarantee that they will work when you need them weeks later ("corrupt file" arrrgh).
However, I have found that if I can mount an image, generally it will restore.

1ondon

 

Hello hgratt and everyone interested,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

Please note that a corrupted backup archive can sometimes be mounted as a virtual drive by means of the Mount Image tool. In this case, you will most likely be able to copy the files and folders which are not affected by the corruption. However, we cannot guarantee the success. Please see the first part of this previous post for further details.

In addition, I would recommend that you have a look at this post <One more corrupted archive....>

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

Who knows why it failed but one difference is that laptop drives tend to be mounted to absorb shock given their portable use. External drives may be more susceptable to shock and should be handled with extreme care - treat it like it was the bare drive. I won't get into the observation that electronic stuff that runs a lot tends to last longer.

I have 2 external HDs which I alternate for storing selected backups from my internal HDs. If one fails, I have the previous one.

 

For new visitors to this forum, I wish to present the other side of the validate or not validate argument.

There are others who agree with 1ondon but I am not one of them. Validating the image means that it can be read and the data inside it agrees with the data placed in the file when it was created. It also provides a level of confidence that your computer's hardware is working properly.

One caveat is that if you are using TI for the first few times on a machine you must not rely solely on the validation run within Windows, you have to boot up the rescue CD and validate with it because its Linux program and environment is not the same as Windows. As always, the best test is a restore to a spare drive.

If you can validate an archive and then later find you cannot validate it then something has changed with your hardware or the archive file itself and that is the issue to be resolved - not ignoring the test that says the archive can't be read properly.

There certainly are cases where a corrupt archive can be mounted and files extracted. This does not mean the archive is OK it just means that if there is any corruption it is not affecting the Mount function. There are also cases of corrupt archives that won't mount and permit any file recovery. It depends on where the problem is.

While I am preaching, another good thing to do is to run chkdsk prior to creating your archive. This means that the file structure you are backing up is in good condition and reduces the Garbage In, Garbage Out problem.