Too many problems-lost secure zone

I am running (was) TI9 latest version. I ran it on 3 boxes with assorted config. One kept telling me the famous invalid image msg. I could never get a good image on box a. I Installed Gx and it runs great, go figure. I even did a test restore worked great.
On box B I only used the TI boot disk - manual backup run out of windows.Works great. All image verified. So why so much problem with the win live?

On box B I was not doing well with std backups some OK some 'bad image'. I set up the secure zone process and it appeared to be working great. Each week it ran, I did check image all was OK. I used incremental backup process. Today I checked the results, the secure zone is empty? No error msg in the log nothing - says it ran. No problems noted at all. But my system had no backup.
I have done all the suggestions I find on this list, I cannot figure out why I am having all these problems with TI9. I have no noted issues with G9 or the old g2003. Guess I will just use what works. Maybe its just best to use a non live win image recovery process
I just cannot trust TI9 anymore

 

I hear you and can empathize... these same issues abound on the forum.

At this point, I'd recommend sending an email to the CEO of Acronis Max Tsypliaev, directing him to the forum and this thread...

My guess is that if more people get in touch with him directly, the more likely we will get all the issues resolved wth TI9. I'm not sure what the problem is with TI9, poorly architected, poorly coded, poor prioritization or all of the above and then some.

 

I really do not believe that would do much. I have just spent the past hour reading all the problems users are having. It plays like a broken record. I had this problem before, installed the latest fix. TI9 ran on ONE box. I could only get the TI Secure Zone to work reliability until today.
I deleted the whole thing re-installed --hour or more time, only to get the SAME problem.
It is not worth the effort any more AND the loss of the ability to restore a damaged system.
I have just backed up verified and restored all 3 boxes with another Gx product using the live method - with no problems. I also, based on a well know Gx web site, ran G2003 in local mode (Linux?) and backed up all three boxes including the Linux HD to DVD - validated and restored one for test. ALL worked .

So that ends my use of this program. I paid for it also, two times- I think.
There are other methods that work.
Per the G radified forum - I prefer to do the 'dos-Linux' local mode backup over the live method. Not real user friendly and you cannot do it in auto unattended mode, but it WORKS.

 

Hello tazdevl,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please be aware that it's prohibited to public personal e-mail addresses on this forum.

If you have any problems, please feel free to ask on this forum or submit a request for technical support. We will do our best in order to resolve the problem under consideration as soon as possible.

Thank you.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

LOL
I think this Max guy is related to Ken Ley
Product is No 1

 

Hello vmaxept,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please check each partition of your hard drives by Windows utility:

- For Windows 9x please use Windows menu Start\Run
then enter the command "scandskw" and test all drives;

- For Windows XP please use Windows menu Start\Run, then enter the command
"chkdsk c: /r" "chkdsk d: /r" for every partition of your hard drives.

Please note that you will need to reboot your computer in order to scan the system partition.

If the problem still persists, please create Acronis Report as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

Please create an account, then log in and submit a request for technical support. Attach the collected file and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Thank you.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

Technically Max's email address is not a personal email address, it's business, therefore I am within the rules.

Regardless, I'm not big on following the rules, especially considering the amount of time I have wasted with this app. Should I send Acronis a bill at my normal hourly consulting rate for that time? My guess is that it will start happening sooner rather than later since companies continue to intentionally release buggy software. I smell a new wave of class action lawsuits.

I commend you for your patience and efforts, but at this point, I think your ability to affect the development of this product and established lines of communication are insufficient for the task at hand. These issues need to be elevated to level much higher in the organization (executive, not support rep, your manager, a product manager or technical project manager) in the hopes that the software will get fixed.

I would also hope that the Acronis CEO rolls up his sleeves occasionally and surfs through forums to see what his customers are going through. If he isn't, that is a clear indication of the quality of the CEO. Above everyone else in the organization, the CEO needs to be in touch and understand the customer. Given the lack of progress with this app, my guess is that he doesn't.

The problem is that the app is still broken, months after it was released I might add. This is pretty evident when you see the same issues appearing again and again after users install updates.

You can cover a piece of dog crap with newspaper again and again in the hopes of hiding it, but in the end there is still a piece of crap stinking up the house under all that newspaper. The moral of the story is that TI needs to be rearchitected and recoded so Acronis quits covering it up in newspaper.

 

Hello tazdevl,

Please note that our Management Staff is aware of every serious problem of all currently available Acronis True Image versions. However, they have many things to do other than reviewing the forum or answering the customer's e-mails. Actually, that is what Support Team is supposed to do.

If you encounter any problems while using Acronis software then please submit a request for technical support or post any of them on this forum. By doing this you will ensure that this particular issue is known by Acronis and we'll do our best to analyze and fix it as soon as possible.

Could you please clarify what exact problems you have encountered?

If you have already contacted our Support Team via e-mail then just let us know your Acronis request # which was sent to you in autoreply to your letter. We will review the correspondence and see what more can be done regarding your issue.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Not to get into a big discussion about management theory... but... I'm an executive management consultant and work with execs at organizations whose market caps exceed $30 Billion. If anyone has a good feel for what execs are supposed to focus on in their job, I do. I also do operational consulting and work with organizations that have more than 2,000 reps.

If you think the following statement is true, your organization already has serious problems and you are misleading yourself.

Companies that are on the best track have execs that make a point of not disassociating themselves from the customer. Few examples, some top execs spend 8 hours a week/month listening to customer service calls, some actually sit in and take customer service calls, others respond to emails personally, others peruse forums. Please keep in mind, these are execs at companies that dwarf Acronis in size, resources and organizational complexity. They are actually many, many more steps away from the customer than the execs at Acronis, yet they make a point of staying in touch with the customer. Things that make you go hmmmm.

Another example, The CEO of Nero hops on the forums at CDRLabs and CDFreaks fairly often and posts as well.

The moment an exec thinks he is too busy and the customer is too unimportant for them to deal with directly, your organization has issues. Might not be sooner, most likely will be later.

Perhaps these issues are cultural in nature. Anyway, the advice is free, take it or leave it.

 

thatsa damn shame, ive been a customer for quite a while i have been waiting since ti 9 came out (purchased 7 & for a decent version to update to along with wanting to buy 2 other of their products i owns a computer company in the north (mich) and south (florida) i refuse to recommend acronis stuff to anyone because of (stooping to a new low here ) the stupid ass company running a good product into the ground. cant you afford programmers? what the hell is wrong with you. you have more then one great product that last year and the year before everyone touted now saying Acronis is the same as saying "lazy, no updates, Damn fools" and more..

hell im damn near dead, cant hardly see had polio, no ms ands maybe cancer can only use one arm and i can still update software i sold under my company namw what the hell is wrong wuth u guys?

yeah i said it dammit - ti started as a great product
lack of updates and real support destroyed it and your companies rep you damn fools

i have money to give u and you wont even fix yourshit and take my money.. that can only be a damn fool.. our the world backwards


idiots
Ronald T Shaw

 

It's very, very simple.

Acronis continues to operate the way they do because they can get away with it.

 

naw theres gotta be more. no one loses money and customers intentionally.
or do they?

im (and many many others) are trying 2 help them before another company does something similar and blows em away forever.
if i wasnt so physically messed up i'd write it myself and am considering it. hell i've written commercial software more intricate thenthis stuff in my younger years. i could probably get ack up 2 speed in a few weeks. i already program in ML (machine language for u youngstrs - sam e as assembly lang), C, and more maybe i'll brush up on myC++ and do my own i';m just lying here bitching, moaning and whinning anyway ha-ha-ha

i'm outta here...

Hi Yawll

 

I'm still having corrupt image issues (backing up to a WD USB 2.0 external and 250GB Caviar) and my Secure Zone disappears on occasion. Ghost works fine, TI doesn't. It isn't a hardware issue... Abit IC7 Max3 (ICH5R), 1GB RAM, 3.6GHZ P4 w/HT, 2 36GB Raptors in Raid 0, XP Pro SP2.

If you read the threads in the forum, they are consistent.

I do appreciate your help, however you have to realize that I and your other customers are willing to spend only so much time trying to get an app work. There are alternatives on the market that do work fine. Ideally I shouldn't have had to spend the time I have messing around with TI.

As I mentioned in a previous post, based on the lack of forward progress with the app, I think a new approach is required to resolve customer issues and the change the direction the app is headed.

 

Hello tazdevl and everyone interested,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

I'm sorry for not being accurate enough in my explanation. When I said that our Management Staff "have many things to do other than reviewing the forum or answering the customer's e-mails" I meant that they do not do it on a regular basis as for example Support Team does. Actually, they review the forums and the correspondence of course. They answer the important e-mails on their own as well. However, there is no point in sending any letters to their personal e-mail addresses, since if the issue is really important or you ask to forward your request straight to the respective manager then it will certainly be escalated. I would highly appreciate your consideration on this matter.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

I've owned TI v9 for less than a week and just encountered my first major problem which happens to involve Secure Zone. A couple hours ago, I decided to delete my two backup images (1 full, 1 incremental), delete Secure Zone, create a new, smaller Secure Zone then make a new full backup. Shortly after first installing TI, I'd created an 80 GB Secure Zone, made a full backup, tested the restore image process, then deleted that Secure Zone and made a new one using the default of 66 GB. I didn't encounter any difficulties.

Today, after using the TI Wizard to delete Secure Zone (and presumably its contents), I used the Wizard to make (or so I thought) a new 50 GB Secure Zone. I rebooted, the TI partition analyze, lock, check process ran, said it completed, then rebooted. In trying to make a new backup image to place in Secure Zone, the TI Wizard said there was no Secure Zone (which I verified). I tried six more times to create a Secure Zone to no avail.

Belarc Advisor states my C drive currently has a capacity of 157.96 GB with 145.51 GB free. TI states my C drive now has a capacity of 147.1 GB with 135.5 GB free. The size difference appears to be that of the two backup images I previously had in Secure Zone. I followed the exact procedures a couple hours ago as I did a few days ago when everything worked fine. I realize it's possible to resize an existing Secure Zone using the TI Wizard, but I also wanted to delete the two images, and the steps I used worked swell a few days ago.

After reading about all the problems with True Image (especially v9), I must be a masochist to buy the program. What's especially galling is that I was resizing Secure Zone because I intended buy FirstDefense-ISR as I was leary of relying solely on TI after reading of the problems detailed here. I wanted to free up more memory to accommodate the large snapshots made by FD-ISR. I submitted a support request to Acronis, but based on how long it previously took to get an answer to a simple question, I expect I could reformat my PC and reinstall everything before I get a response.

 

I'd drop back to verision 8. dig this I have 2 -300 gig drivs in the IChr intel controller, 2 160 gig IDE drives on the promise embedded controller along with a SATA raptor i was booting from and a 160 ggger IDE drive on the mobo regular IDE controllers 2nd port as slave (alog with 3 DVD burnrs). now all these drive have at least 2 partitions each and they are were in no particular order and I xperimnent alot with switching drives, usb externals, etc even hafve a SATA II druve running im experimentinmg with.
version 8 only messed the paritions up once and this i think was my fault; I'fd really go back to version 8 if i was you,...