True Image Home 2009 build 9.709 Hangs And Freezes System.

Hello,
I have been using TIH 2009 without problems so far.
I run Vista Home Premium SP1 on a Core 2 Duo T7300 laptop 2GB Ram and the product build is 9.709.

I used it just to make images of my entire disk, which is 200 GB split in 4 partitions (2 visible and 2 hidden), from time to time.
The back-ups are made on an external USB 2.0 HD of 1 TB (400 GB free).

I tried to make a new incremental update but the program hanged at 2% and froze my system forcing me to hard-shut it.
After several attempts I deleted the old archives and decided to start from scratch with a new archive but the result is the same.
The program hangs at 2% and my system freezes.
The last operation I can read in the logs is "locking image".

I tried running the backup disabling Eset Nod 32, I run a scandisk and memory tests all without positive results.

I really need to make a back up to install SP2 so many thanks to whomever will be able to help.

 

Does TI lock-up if you start a Full image backup instead of an Incremental?

Does the Full validate successfully?

Does TI work okay from the TI CD?

---

It's a good idea to create a backup before updating to Vista SP2. I just did that update on my main computer and it took almost a dozen attempts and just about as many restores before it was successful and I has happy with it.

 

Hello MudCrab and thanks for the help.

Incremental or full backup sort the same results: system freeze and backup stops at 2%.
It creates tib files of approx 4 GB and if I try to validate or delete them I get the error message "This is not the last volume in the archive" despite the fact that that is the only file present.

I didn't try running TI from cd.

I agree on having a system backup before a major service pack but it's 3 days that I try to create one without success.
If I keep hard shutting the system I am going to break it for good.

 

Do you have any previous backups located on another drive that validate successfully? Ones that don't give an error message?

Have you previously done a successful restore?

Have you run chkdsk /f on the drive to check for any file errors? As I'm sure you know, doing a hard shutdown can cause corruption. However, sometimes there's nothing else you can do. I usually recommend creating a backup image before running chkdsk because sometimes the fixes can cause further problems.

Try the TI CD and see if it does any better. While you're booted to it also check if you can successfully validate and access your existing images (or, at least, the most current one) if you still have any.

Another thing you can try is to update to the most current build of TI. The build number will be different depending on which language version you have. The current build for the English version is 9,796. It may work better on your computer.

 

Hi Mudcrab,

At present I do not have any good back up.
When I first encountered the problem I was doing an incremental which failed.
Than I tried to delete it through manage and restore but, although I am positive I selected the proper archive's number, the application deleted the previous backup so after 2 tries I ended up with no backups at all!

In the past I have done a successful restore of the C drive.
Since i have no archive, after I launch the TI cd, what do I do?
I only used it once a while ago so I do not remember the options available.

As i wrote I have done several checkdisk of my laptop's drive.
Where you referring to that or to the usb drive?
I have never conducted a checkdisk on a usb drive and don't even know if it is possible.
Is it?
I can see the option in the properties tab but I have actually never done that.
If you suggest that I can run checkdisk on the usb drive too.

 

I was suggesting running chkdsk on the internal drive since that would be the drive getting locked. You've already done this, though.

TI from the CD looks and works the same as in Windows. The main difference is to make sure you select the correct partition(s). The drive letter assignments may be different than in Windows so go by the partition's label and size to tell them apart.

 

Hello Again,

I have run Acronis disk utility and looked into chkdsk reports and there are 8kb of bad blocks on the data partition D:.
Acronis report gives this error:

Disk 1 Partition 3
FS: NTFS
File system error: 22 (Block bitmap corrupted)
FSSize: 238098121 (114G)
BlockSize: 8 (4K)
BlockCount: 29762265 (114G)
FreeBlockCount: 491099 (1.9G)
ReservedSectors: 16 (8K)
FATSize: 0 (0b)
FATCount: 0 (0b)
RootEntries: 0 (0b)
UsedRootEntries: 0 (0b)
InodeSize: 1024 (1K)
InodeCount: 87744 (86M)
BytesPerInode: 0 (0b)
VolumeLabel: DATA............................
SerialNumber: F1 74 6F 32 B1 6F 32 B6 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
CheckPerformed: 0
UsefulInformation: 0 (0b)
BadBlockCount: 2 (8K)
FreeInodeCount: 0 (0b)
FilesCount: 0
DirectoriesCount: 1
HardLinkCount: 0
SymLinkCount: 0
BlockDeviceCount: 0
CharDeviceCount: 0
SocketCount: 0
FifoCount: 0
JournalSize: 16384 (64M)

I guess this is the cause of the problem but I don't know how to repair or exclude this blocks since chkdsk doesn't seem able to repair them.

I tried to create a full back up from boot and I managed although I had to choose to ignore all errors.
While the system was on though I did not receive error warnigs and the system just locked.

I would like to see how many errors were overlooked but can't find a log.
When the system rebooted I verified the archive and the operation completed so I hope it means the backup is valid.

Many thanks.

 

If you only ran chkdsk /f on the partition, you should run chkdsk /r on it to scan for bad sectors and mark any new ones found.

Since the image validated, it's probably okay but it will have corrupted data in the sectors it couldn't read. You may want to create another backup after you run chkdsk /r and see if it completes without errors. I would recommend you keep the current backup image for now.

Keep an eye on the drive. If it has a lot more bad sectors or more start appearing, it would be better to replace the drive.

 

Hello all,

Thank you for using Acronis True Image

Threshold,

If you decide to replace the old hard drive with a new one, you will get these bad sectors on the new location. The sectors will not be actually bad, but they will be marked as bad in the file system (because it has been restored without any changes).

To avoid transferring bad sectors to the new location, you should restore the image archive resizing the partition(s). Considering that it is impossible to resize partitions when restoring an image of a whole hard disk, there is no way to avoid restoring bad sectors in such a case. It is only possible to eliminate the bad sectors by restoring the partitions separately with resizing.

Thank you.

--
Oleg Lee

 

When using Vista, you can use the /B option with chkdsk to force it to recheck clusters currently marked as bad.

Code:

/B              NTFS only: Re-evaluates bad clusters on the volume
                (implies /R)

For example:

Code:

chkdsk d: /b

 

Hello MudCrab,

Thank you for your input, I've failed to take it into account.

Thank you.

--
Oleg Lee

 

Hello Mr. Lee,

Thank you for your help.

I have decided to send the laptop for warranty repair asking to change the drive.

I would like to at least save the os and all sw installed on C since the data on the D drive I can easily just copy and paste.
I do not understand though what it means "restoring the partitions separately with resizing."
Could you please explain it to me easily so I can ship the laptop?

Again on the disk there is a C partition and a D data partition.
There are also 2 hidden partitions with the os but if I will get a new drive they will be already present.

Also in ATI under "Error Handling" there is a "Ignore Bad Sectors" option.
Wouldn't this option exclude such sectors being copied in the image?

Many thanks.

 

Hello Mudcrab,

As for your previous inquiry I always use the \r for checkdisk.
I can try this new option you suggest but what would it accomplish?
Is it related to creating a "clean" back up or what Mr. Lee suggested?

Many thanks for all your help.

 

If the sectors are really bad on the source drive, then using the /b option won't help. It has more to do with fixing the drive after you restore an image that contains bad sectors.

If you restore your image with resize (as suggested), TI will remove any existing bad sectors. This can be good or bad depending on the situation. If you're restoring to a new/good drive, then it's good. If you're restoring to a drive which you know has bad sectors, those sectors may be used and will not be marked bad. In that case, running chkdsk /r on the drive is needed to remark the sectors bad.

If you restore a partition image that contains bad sectors and don't resize it (you keep the original partition size), any bad sectors will be marked as bad in the restored image even if they now fall on good sectors (on a different drive, for example). In this case, running chkdsk /b on the newly restored drive will recover those sectors (unmark them as bad) since they are actually good.

 

Hello again Mudcrab,

I got all your explanation thanks a lot.

I do not know what warranty people will do.
I will ask them to replace the drive but they might just low level formatting it or any other cosmetic repair.
In any case, reformatted drive or new drive, I will get a drive with a bigger C partition since on my current hard disk I shrank it in favour of the D data partition.

I will now create an image of just the C partition.
Considering the situation (bad sectors) should I use the "sector by sector" option or it makes no difference?
In the Error Handling panel should I select the "ignore bad sectors"?
I don't understand if this option actually skips the bad sectors or copies them anyway without stopping the imaging process.

What I still don't know is how to do this resizing and what parameters should I use for when I get the drive back.
How do I do it?

Many thanks

 

I don't think you would need to use the Sector-by-Sector option.

If you use the Ignore bad sectors option, TI will continue the backup if it runs into a sector it can't read instead of aborting. If the backup can't complete with this option disabled, enable it and give it a try. Any data in the sectors unable to be read will not be included in the backup. After a restore, some files may be corrupted. If at all possible, I think it's better to get a valid backup without needing to use this option.

Is chkdsk /r finding additional bad sectors or is the count remaining constant and TI is just still having problems?

 

Hiya,

Bad sectors' count remains stable according to the last checkdisk and Activesmart.

I haven't done any further backup besides the full disk image I run from boot per your suggestions.
I have just finished a defrag which freed loads of space and will try tonight an image of just the C partition and backup data on D, folder by folder instead and see how it goes.
The problem is any time ATI hangs I have to run checkdisk again
Anyway the system hangs in a lot of other occasions when ATI is not involved so I think this confirms disk problems.

Regarding the resizing?

Many thanks

 

When you do the restore, select just one partition (not the whole drive) and TI will let you resize the partition smaller or larger.

You would select the C: partition and restore it to the size you want (the default size is usually the size saved in the image file). C: would be restored as the Active partition. Then select the D: partition and restore it to the size you want (restore D: as the partition type it is, either Primary or Logical).

These restores can be from two different image backups if you didn't create one of the entire disk.

While it's probably a good idea to have "data" copies of your files & folders, this type of backup can't be restored to create a booting/working Windows partition (an image backup is needed for that).

When TI hangs on a sector read error, is it always the same sector or does it change?

 

Hello MudCrab,

Re the resizing, in order to avoid bad sectors, I still don't understand (I'm a bit tick) what size I should use when you say "restore it to the size you want".
For example my C drive is 50 GB 14 of which are free.
Assuming I will get a new disk with a C partition of the same size of 50 GB what should I do?

Tonight I did an image of just the C drive and it went smoothly without any errors!
I am assuming the bad sectors are on the D partition or in one of the 2 hidden ones.
I honestly don't know how to find out where the errors are but I could post a txt result of the last checkdisk I got from the event manager.

If I understood what you are saying though, I won't be able to restore the C image to create a booting/working Windows partition?
I don't understand why since the D partition is just data files (it does include though all my users folders like Documents, Music etc since i changed their default location).

Anyway if that is the case I will delete the C image and try again a full image backup.

Please let me know and again many thanks for all your help.

 

You said you had four partitions (2 visible, 2 hidden) on the drive. If the combined sizes of these partitions take up all the space on the drive, any resizing to make a partition larger will mean another partition (or partitions) will need to be smaller.

Are you dual-booting or are the hidden partitions non-OS partitions? Since you're saying the hidden partitions will come on the new drive, I'm assuming they're recovery and diagnostic partitions and not OS/data partitions. You may want to (or need to) restore these if they're not on the new drive (it depends on how the booting is setup and the partition layout).

14GB of free space is getting close to what I consider the minimum (10GB). If you're not going to be installing new programs or large updates, give it at least 20GB of free space. If you may be adding new programs, consider the sizes needed by them and add it. The size is totally up to you and depends on your usage.

Good. Did it also validate successfully?

If the C: partition is the booting partition, then you should be able to restore it and have a booting system. However, since you've moved your user folders to another partition, it would be best to also have that partition restored.

If you have the room on your backup drive and can make valid separate partition backups, I would go ahead and do that and keep them. Then try again with the Entire Disk Image backup. This way, you know that the C: partition is valid in its separate image.

---

It may help if you posted a screenshot of what Disk Management shows for your drive.

 

Hiya,

The story goes as this:

I am not dual booting.

The drive structure is as follows

1) C: os primary partition
2) D: data
3) Hidden partition which contains the os in case you wish to reinstall os to factory settings.
4) Second hidden partition which contains Acer Arcade (sort of a Media Centre)
I just realized that this might be part of the os too since in disk management it is labeled as primary and although I never used this Acer Arcade I might have to back it up too in order to get a booting partition since some keys of this Acer Arcade are probably present in the registry.

Either I will get a new drive or this same drive after a low level formatting or similar they will reimage it as it came out originally with all the 4 partitions.
The only difference is that the size of the C and D partitions will be different since I changed their size and C will be bigger than it actually is now.

When I changed size of these partitions I got into loads of troubles and wonder if this didn't cause some of my current troubles although I don't know if resizing partitions can create bad sectors.
During one of these resizing I damaged all data on D and had to restore it from an image I had previously made.

I recently realized I was running out of space on C but the way space reallocated I was not able to resize the partitions again since there was no contiguous free space (the reason I damaged data on D in the first place).
I probably should have moved all data on D on an external drive and than tried resizing but it will be for when I will get the laptop back.

Anyway when I will get the laptop back, as I said, C will be bigger and D smaller so I will not be able to restore D as it is now.
That is why I was thinking of backing D data folder by folder so that I could move just the amount D new smaller size will allow.
I do not think that my pointing the user default's folders to D is going to be a problem since the user's default folders will be present again on C and D and it's just a question to check they point where I wish to.

Yes the current image validated successfully.
I will try to create separate images of the other partitions (excluding the backup one since I will get it for sure as it is now).
I don't think I have space for a further full image though since, to avoid troubles, I am not using any compression on backups.

http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii142/EventsHorizon/DiskManagement.png

 

Hello Mudcrab,

I wonder if you had the change to look at the picture I posted like you requested and the rest of my previous post.
In the meanwhile I managed to create images of the D and Unlabelled (the Acer Arcade one) partitions without any errors and passing validations.
Either the bad secs are on the installation partition or I don't know what to think.

Thanks

 

Since your new drive will have different sized partitions for C: and D:, I think you should be okay if you restore with resize and restore the smaller partition first. This should leave unallocated space between the partitions and allow you to then restore the larger partition (resized to use the unallocated space).

Why does your D: partition show two different sizes? In the listing at the top, it shows 113,53GB. In the graphic, it shows 116,76GB. This is about a 3GB difference. All the other partitions show the same values.

What sizes does TI show for your partitions? Can you post a screenshot of the TI screen where you select the partitions to backup?

You mentioned that you previously messed up the D: partition trying to resize it. Is it possible that something is still messed up?

Resizing partitions will not create bad sectors. However, if something is wrong with the partition's data or structure, that can cause errors and problems. Some of the TI errors may be more related to this than actual bad sectors.

 

Hello MudCrab,

Man you are very good!
I never noticed this difference in size and yes evidently something is still messed up.

ATI shows the proper size
http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii142/EventsHorizon/PC%20STUFF/ATI2009.png

I used Easeus partition Manager to resize partitions.

http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii142/EventsHorizon/PC%20STUFF/PARTITIONMANAGER.png

When I realised C was too small I tried to enlarge it over D which had free space.
This free space in EPM graph was at the far right of the D drive.
I assume than that the free space was not contiguous to C and this created the problem.

The evident problem was that all data on D was damaged and evidently I didn't notice this other issue you spotted.

As you can see EPM gives me 4.71 GB free space on D while I actually have
1.44 in explorer.

Any clue on where these missing GB might be and how to recover them?

Many, many thanks for your help

P.s. I don't know why I can't manage to embed images.

 

If you're confident that a restore will work, you could try restoring your D: partition image. It may fix the problem. You could also try deleting the D: partition and then restoring it so that the old one is gone before you start. If that doesn't work, you could restore it with a slight resize (just a little smaller) and see if that works (it will make TI redo the file system more completely).

It may also be possible to fix the problem by resizing the partition (with EPM) a little bit (shrink it from the right) and then resizing it back to its full size. I haven't used this program so I don't know how it does its processing.

I suspect the difference in the sizes is the difference between the actual number of sectors used by the partition and the number reported in the file system. It's odd that chkdsk isn't reporting any errors.

---

Because of these problems, it's all the more important to have multiple backups of any important files on the D: partition. You may want to make some copies in addition to your image backups. You don't want to lose anything if the repair attempts go wrong.