TI 9.0 (2337) and DVDs

I purchased this specifically for backup and bootable system restore to/from removeable media (ie CD/DVD). Mostly CDs are too small, though, so really, it's DVDs. DVD-RWs in this case, formatted by InCD 4. The DVD writer is a Philips DVDR1648P1.

Whilst I've got it work, it has thown up some issues that worry me (backup absolutely must be reliable. Hopefully people can comment on them to allay my concerns.

The process is:
- Boot from a specially created boot partition H: (contains W2K, SP4, InCD 4 and TI 9.0 only). This is partly because of not trusting backup of live boot partitions on the fly, and partly because TI crashes the the whole PC when trying to write to DVD when booted from from C:.
- Format DVDs (2) and backup main installation partition on disk 1 (C to DVDs. No special options. No problems. DVD 1 has three files (2GB + 2GB + ~300MB), DVD 2 another two (2GB + ~1GB).
- Check the archive. No problems.
- Boot from the TI recovery boot CD (thus simulating a full system failure), and recover the archive to spare space (logical partition) on hard disk 2. Did not assign a drive letter.

All this basically works, but:
1) When recovering, it asks for the DVD with vol 1 on (vol means file, not DVD), as normal, then later asks for the DVD with vol 2 on it. Well, it's on the same DVD, so click 'retry' and it's happy. It finds vol 3 on its own. It asks for DVD with vol 4 on it. OK, as that is on DVD 2. It then asks for DVD with vol 5 on it. Odd - again it's the same DVD, but click retry and it's OK. The restore finishes.
2) Whe rebooted into the main installation, I discover it did assign a drive letter, despite being asked not to. At a later test, I find that if you specify it to assign a letter that is not it's own choice, it still assigns its own choice, but the letter you asked for is no longer available as a free letter. Something gone wrong there.
3) If I copy the files from the DVD back onto the hard disk, and then try to check archive there, the check fails - "image is corrupted".

What am I worried about? Well, reliability and trust basically. When you really need a system backup in anger, you cannot afford it not to work. I am worried therefore that
- sometimes the restore process could automatically find the DVD file volume, sometimes not. Is it possible that the onbe time I really need it, I won't be able to persuade it to find it at all?
- What's it doing to my driver letters?
- How come I cannot check the archive successfully when it is copied onto the hard disk - surely it is either corrupted or it isn't, (and it wasn't)?
- Finally, if I try to backup two partitions in one archive, it never works - I can never check the archive successfully.

I should point out that all disk partitions are error free, and also that there are no unlogged bad sectors on the hard disks.

Perhaps others can comment on these points and set my mind at rest? At the moment I'm not sure whether to trust TI 9.0 or not. It is certainly a lot friendlier than Symantec Ghost 10.0, but ....

 

Backup directly to DVDs is "iffy" at best. If you want to feel comfortable with your backups, it's better to get an usb external hard drive to hold your backup images. Then for extra security, burn that image to dvd media.

 

Yes, well, you may be right, but it is a pity then that TI 9.0 quotes this ability.