True Image errors when encountering ext3 partition

Hey everyone, I'm using the latest version of Acronis True Image and its having a problem on my PC with ext3 partitions.

I have my C: drive formatted in NFTS where Windows XP and True Image are installed and my external hdd that is half ntfs and half ext3. Both drives are made by Western Digital, one is SATA and the other IDE of a 1 TB and 250 GB size, respectively.

Whenever the drive is plugged in and turned on (and an ext3 partition is on it) and True Image is opened my computer flashes the blue screen for a second (a real split second and reboots). This works the same way with Acronis Disk Manager to actually. Also, it does the same thing with either external drive. If the partition is just NTFS, no problems. If its all ext3, same problem. Putting the 250 GB IDE drive inside of the tower and formatting it similarly results in the rebooting problem to. I use ext2IFS to access ext3 partitions with no problem. I've used the other one as well, can't remember the name though. Even with ext2IFS disabled the problem still occurs.

INTERESTINGLY, If I turn off the external hard drive, open True Image, and then turn back on the drive, the PC will not restart and no problems occur.

I spoke with tech support via Instant Message and they instructed me to install some kind of a driver from their website (sorry I forget the name) and also reinstall the program. None of the fixes worked.

Any possible fixes? I swear the previous incarnation of TI worked with no problems.

 

When you do this, do the partitions on the external drive show up properly in both TI and DD?

Do you know the I-node size used on the Ext3 partitions?

Were the partitions originally created with DD or another program?

 

Hey MudCrab,

1. Yes, the partitions do show up correctly if I open up TI and DD after the drive is on. It shows a little sequence bar saying its analyzing and everything pops up alright.

2. Sorry, I don't even know what an i-node is much less what size it is. But I can look and see. *Edit* I went searching in DD and I found I have an i-node size of 128 bytes with 8 KB (8192) between i-nodes when DD formatted it without me changing a thing. Will try a bit later to format in gparted and determine the i-node size again.

3. The ext3 partitions have been created from within Disk Director and also from Gparted (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/) at a different time.

I should mention the partitions I'm formatting now are just about 15 GB, but before were as large as 200 GB. I just hooked up my TB drive and to format that might take quite a while so I'd rather not erase it, format, erase, etc.

 

Hey I forgot I should add that if there is an ext3 partition on the drive and acronis is installed the computer won't completely start either. Once it hits the desktop it will load a bit and then reboot and it will do this continuously. Its the same problem as before as when remove Acronis TI the problem stops and I can boot the computer ok. Put it back on, and the same issue.

Driver conflict? It happens in safe mode to.

 

Hi again, I tried changing the inode size and I'm still being screwed here.

Anyone with some suggestions? Please?

 

Is there a difference if ext2IFS is uninstalled instead of just disabled?

Do you have TI or DD setup in a BartPE build? If so, does the reboot happen when running TI or DD in BartPE?

Was DD installed before TI 2009 or after? It may not matter in this case, but DD is quite a bit older than TI 2009 and it can cause problems with other parts of the program if it's installed afterwards.

 

Hi MudCrab, no, no difference between ext2IFS disabled or removed completely.

Dunno what Bart PE is, so no

Don't remember if it was installed before or after. But I will remove both, clean the registry, just install TI, and test again. Will report back asap.

Thanks for your help here!

 

Hi MudCrab, I uninstalled DD and got errors on the uninstall (forget the actual code) but pushed past it anyway. I also used Revo Uninstaller to clean up the registry crap it left behind (surprisingly not much) and tested it. TI still crashed. Then I removed TI using the same method and any/all traces of it on my system, restarted and put TI back on. Success! My computer no longer reboots when encountering an ext3 partition.

My final test will be making all the partitions the right size via gparted (since now I can't do it through windows anymore), and reinstalling ext2ifs or another one of the driver variants that will allow my ext3 partition to be read/written to.

I can hesitantly say that the problem was solved, and in the nick of time to.

Thanks a lot for the assistance here. I will post back later with success or failure messages of my final steps.

I also installed DD a little later on and so far everything is still running fine with my ext3 formatted hdd plugged in. I wonder if I can find a log..

Ok, found logs: This is apparently the error created when the DD failed to uinstall properly

and here is one from when True Image killed my PC, again, I think

It seems to be the right time (right after I uninstalled DD and then tried to see if it would force reboot my PC)

I also see a log of a fault with fox.dll (gui library) from a while back. I think I was having this problem around then to, just lived withot my external for a while.

 

Hello psych1610,

Thank you for your interesting in Acronis True Image

Contact Acronis support and submit technical request using this link or contact us via Live Chat attach the following info to your request:

Download Acronis Report utility available at http://download.acronis.com/support/AcronisReport.exe and run it, create a report and send it to us. Please compress the Acronis Report output file into an archive (e.g. with WinZip) and attach to your message by browsing for the archive. This would provide us with detailed information on the hard disk partition structure.

Best regards,
--
Dmitry Nikolaev