True Image and USB external drives

I'm considering purchasing one of the new USB external HDDs but I have some questions concerning compatibility/functionality with True Image.

I'm playing around with a neighbor's unit and found that I could create a backup image to it without any problems. However,

1) I can't seem to find a way to create a "Secure Zone" on this drive. When I click on the "Manage Acronis Secure Zone", there is no option to choose the drive I want to create it on. It automatically defaults to my main drive. Can this be done? Or do you have to manually create a partition to store the backup images?

2) Can you boot and/or restore an image from one of these USB external drives? With my current setup, should I not be able to boot into windows, all that I need to do is press "F11" and True Image runs, etc. How would this work with a backup image on this type of drive?

Thanks,

Jeff

 

Hello Jeff,

The Acronis SZ can lead to compatability issues with certain partition management software and is really best used by people without access to a second HD. In addition, I wouldn't recommend that you create a SZ on removable media as it will lead to problems if the Startup Recovery Manager is fired up with the external drive disconnected.

Whether or not TI in boot recovery (Linux) mode will be able to detect the USB HD depends on the actual make/model of your motherboard and the external drive. If it doesn't, then it's worth creating a "Safe" version of the bootable rescue CD and trying that. The "Safe" version CD utilises DOS functions and your motherboard's BIOS routines to access the hardware.

Regards

 

Colvin,

Did you run a "check image" function after creating the image on the external USB hard drive? Just curious if it verified OK and was "corrupt". I am fighting this problem now and haven't got it solved yet.

 

Hello Colvin,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis True Image (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/).

We are really sorry for the inconveniences.

Could you please send Acronis Report to support@acronis.com along with the link to this thread and indicate in the subject of the letter that you want to contact Ilya Toytman (please see https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=55317 for details). I will do my best in order to solve your problem.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

I am running a pruchased version of Tue Image 8.0 bld 791 that I just downloaded and installed yesterday.

I created an image to a network drive and one to a USB-attached external drive (the USB 2.0 drive took about half the time as the one over the 100mbit network link). Each seemed to complete okay and consisted of three partitions on the XP laptop's C drive. When I use the option to check the image, it comes back shortly and says it is corrupt. This happened on either image (network or external drive based).

When I try to explore the images, the process to assign a drive letter reported an error for the large (30gig) main partition, but succeeds for the much smaller one. The larger partition however appears assigned to the letter. Trying to access the large partition with Windows Explorer says it couldn't be performed due to an IO device error. I can see the small partitions contents. Any attempts to use this drive in the past for other operations has been flawless.

Is there something I have to do to create the image correctly? Like getting into DOS mode? I don't have any major apps running when I create the image, but I am still not sure how your software can create an image while Windows XP is running.

 

Hello gkreis,

Thank you for choosing Acronis True Image (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/).

Please accept our apologies for your inconvenience.

Please create the image onto your internal hard drive and check whether it is corrupted or not. If it is not please copy this image file to the external drive. After that please download the follwoing file:

http://download.acronis.com/support/md5sum.exe

Launch it and press the upper right button marked "...". Choose the image file on your internal drive and save the number in the "MD5" string. After that please perform the same procedure but choose the same image file on your external drive. Please com[are two MD5 numbers obtained and tell the results. If they are different you are likely to have some hardware problems.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

Unfortunately, my internal harddrive on the laptop is not large enough to also hold an image, so I can't do the experiment. I did however delete everything on the external drive and then created the image again. This time, Windows shows the image is 3 fragments instead of the earlier 4. (I am not sure why it would again be fragmented on an 80 gig drive since the image is less than 40gig.)

Anyway, this time I was able to verify the image with TI's tool to check the image. I can explore it as a mounted drive letter.

So... as noted in many of the posts, it is a flakey process. It doesn't leave me with a great deal of confidence in the software and I can't believe that all of us are having hardware problems with external drives. As some noted, they ran the MD5 check and there was no difference.

I look forward to a new release of TI that has determined the source of the error and put the process back to rock-solid status. I purchased TI specifically for the ability to create images on external drives and across networks since laptops don't have disk space to spare.

Best of luck in getting this solved. (Let me know if I can provide any other information to help.)

 

Hello gkreis,

Thank you for your readiness to help us to solve the problem.

I have sent you a response via e-mail, please check your e-mail box. I suppose this problem will be solved soon.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

FWIW
I have a Freecom 60GB USB hardrive which stores and restores the TI image fine. No problems at all.
John

 

I am using Acronis 8.0 with an Iomega 80 gig USB drive. I have not expirienced any problems and can create and restore images at will on both Notebooks and Workstations

 

Could these problems with USB drives be more to do with the USB controller on the motherboard than with the drive itself ?

 

Motherboard on mine is USB 1.1. I installed an add-on USB 2.0 card in a PCI slot. I'm not an expert in this area but I taken images using both USB 2.0 thru the PCI card and the original USB 1.1 and still get corrupt images. Would this still be pointing to a problem with the USB controller on the motherboard (Dell 4300)? I didn't think so but I'm not sure.

 

Hi Ed Y,

Out of interest, check whether your add-on USB 2.0 card can operate in "High-Speed" mode as opposed to "Full-Speed". It may require the manufacturer's special drivers (updated?) and even then not all USB 2.0 add-on cards are capable of operating in High-Speed mode.

Regards

 

To be honest, I can't determine that. It is a card marketed by Mercury (www.mercury-support.com) that uses a Via VJ6202 chipset (2 port). Can't find any other info on their web site. I did send them an email asking that question. The only thing mentioned on the package is speeds up to 480 Mbps, hardware ready for USB 2.0 EHCI standard, 32-bit, 33 MHz PCI interface compliant with PCI local bus specification revision 2.2. I am using the WinXP Home SP2 supplied driver.

Would there be some kind of hardware problem between the PCI USB card and motherboard or something else because of this?

 

Just heard back from Mercury/Manhattan and they say that the card is designed to work "high-speed" with Win XP drivers.

How much interplay happens between the PCI card and the motherboard. I've got a Dell 4300 and I know these cheaper mass-produced PC's tend to sometimes be quirky due to their own hardware specs.