True Image Won't Restore

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by 4ln75Z5a, Apr 7, 2009.

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  1. 4ln75Z5a

    4ln75Z5a Registered Member

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    I am running True Image Home 2009. I run regular nightly backups to a Seagate 800 gig external firewire drive and validate them and then have True Image email me the results. I've never had to restore before. All emails said the backups were successful and validated. After using it for awhile, I decided to test it as other acronis products I've used tend to be buggy and unreliable.

    I've had the bootable CD lying around and waiting for the day when/if I had to restore. I booted from the CD, True Image started. So far so good. True Image saw the external firewire drive AT FIRST. I chose the last incremental backup to restore. Going through all the steps, it said it couldn't restore the backup unless the destination drive was empty and to press ok to delete all partitions. I was hesitant to do so because I wasn't sure the restore was going to work, but I did press ok. It gave me an invalid media error. (The destination drive C: is an SATA drive, btw.) When I went to look for the backup again, the firewire drive had disappeared from True Image. I'm assuming that is why the error popped up. However, after clicking back a few screens, it saw the drive again and allowed me to choose an earlier backup. Again, it gave me an invalid media error. All backups were validated after they were created. Again, the drive is missing. I rebooted and True Image recognized the drive again, but as before, I get the same errors.

    What is the problem? This will be the last Acronis product I use. I've had too many issues, and I know other people that have abandoned Acronis products too for being too buggy and bloated.

    I am in the process of transferring the backups to another external drive--a USB drive to see if the issue is with firewire. I'll post the results of that test when I finish.

    Any ideas?

    Thanks
     
  2. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    4ln75Z5a,

    Did you validate the images before you tried to restore? Validation is really only good for the day it is done. Tomorrow is another day. If you develop memory, processor, mainboard caches, data cable, IDE/SATA/USB/IEEE 1394 controller or hard drive issues since the last Validate, all bets are off.
     
  3. 4ln75Z5a

    4ln75Z5a Registered Member

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    Yes, I did validate before restore and there are no issues on my PC.
     
  4. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Thanks for the reply. You did everything correctly but it still failed. That's sad. It should have succeeded. Acronis TI is a concern.
     
  5. 4ln75Z5a

    4ln75Z5a Registered Member

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    I'm just glad that I didn't NEED to restore or I would have been in trouble. Looks like I'm off to try Norton Ghost 14.0 and see if I can get my money back after I try the USB drive.
     
  6. 4ln75Z5a

    4ln75Z5a Registered Member

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    UPDATE:

    After moving the backups to my external USB drive, True Image successfully restored it. Why doesn't it restore from firewire drives? I connected an identical external firewire drive also, moved the backups there and tried again and TI errors out as before. This eliminates the drive or hardware as being the culprit. Norton Ghost sees both drives and restores from the firewire with no problems. What is the issue with TI that is preventing this?
     
  7. bbarry

    bbarry Registered Member

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    Brian, am I missing something here? If I create/validate a backup image on Monday, and then on Tuesday I need to do a restore from that image......are you saying that the image may now be bad? How can a user be expected to quickly generate/validate a new image on the day he needs to do a restore? Doesn't this sorta defeat the purpose of creating a backup image from which you can later restore?
     
  8. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    You must remember:
    The TI boot CD environment is Linux. Even if you start a restore of the active partition (typically C) in Windows the Linux environment is loaded from HD.

    Linux may not have good drivers for your system. This can cause R/W errors, devices not seen and other issues.

    Validating in Windows uses the Windows environment and it does not mean that the Linux enviroment can read the archive.

    You must test your system to ensure that the Linux environment can properly read the archive and deal with your hardware. The validation means reading the archive off the media and into RAM where numerous checksums are recalculated and compared to the original ones stored in the archive. One bad bit in one checksum and the archive is declared corrupt. The best way to test a system is to do a test restore to a spare HD but an archive creation and validation using the TI CD is a reasonable second choice.

    Once you have demonstrated the TI CD works well on your system a Windows validation of the archive is fine and TI should continue to work just fine barring hardware failures. If you make a change to your hardware, particularly RAM or parts of the disk subsystem you should retest the TI CD program.
     
  9. bbarry

    bbarry Registered Member

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    Thanks for the excellent explanation. I now better understand what goes on in the wacky world of Acronis.

    However, I'm still a little bitter at Acronis. After using TI 10 for several years to do my Vista backups, when it came time to do a critical restore, TI 10 would not perform. I had to download the trial version of TI 2009 to actually do the restore. The explanation given was that TI 10 was not designed to work with Vista (even though it was advertised to do so).

    I'm still using Acronis because I don't like Norton products, but my confidence factor has been diminished. Scared.

    Thanks again for your logical explanation.
     
  10. 4ln75Z5a

    4ln75Z5a Registered Member

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    Wow. Another reason to NOT use Acronis TI. You would think that a 2009 backup program would be able to see/use an external firewire drive without issues. The fact that TI sees the firewire drive AT FIRST shows that the drivers ARE loaded. It's obviously a bug causing the drive to disappear which doesn't surprise me. I've had nothing but problems with Acronis products. Everyone I've used have had BIG bugs. It's scary to think that you are being safe by using this software to backup your system only to find when it comes time to restore, you can't.

    Since most people are using TI for Windows, you would think that TI would be programmed in something other than Linux.

    What a shame. Does Acronis plan on fixing this? How about adding a feature in TI allowing the user to create a customized bootable CD with the needed drivers added like Norton Ghost does?
     
  11. 4ln75Z5a

    4ln75Z5a Registered Member

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    Have you actually tried Norton Ghosto_O I've never had an issue with it but I chose to go with TI recently because it has a couple of features that I like--which actually work. But Norton Ghost works great. At least it restores with confidence no matter where the backups are located.
     
  12. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    bbarry,

    Well of course a failed Validation is a rare event. I've never seen it so I've been fortunate with hardware. Validation is a check as to whether the image will restore. It's more a check of your hardware than how good is your imaging app. Doing Validate at "regular" intervals on your stored images can pick up things like failing RAM which may subsequently cause a Restore failure. Better to find that out early.
     
  13. 4ln75Z5a

    4ln75Z5a Registered Member

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    I think this thread is getting off topic. The issue is why is TI not restoring from the external firewire hard drive NOT validation. Validation is important but not as important as being able to restore from your source. Hardware problems can be fixed but not being able to restore CANNOT. Again, why is this not working? I haven't heard anything yet from someone who knows.
     
  14. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    Nobody should ever think they can restore their data until they have tested a restore. This doesn't just apply to TI but to every backup program ever written.

    I wish they would use something like VistaPE which is Windows based but they don't. It would cost more to implement since it would have to be licensed from MS. OTOH, TI does provide a plugin that can be built into a BartPE CD which is also a Windows environment and one that special drives can added to if necessary.
     
  15. 4ln75Z5a

    4ln75Z5a Registered Member

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    You shouldn't have to use a third-party software to get TI to work. The product claims to backup and restore your system. Period. What drivers are needed to get TI to recognize an external firewire hard drive? That is the issue here. It does recognize the drive at first, so I doubt it's a driver issue. It's a bug.

    And if you read my original post, I WAS testing it and was sorely disappointed that yet another Acronis product failed to deliver. MANY external drives are firewire.
     
  16. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Do Acronis have a BartPE plugin for True Image Home 2009? It would be interesting to see if you could do a TI firewire restore from BartPE. After all, BartPE and Ghost both use a WinPE recovery CD.
     
  17. bbarry

    bbarry Registered Member

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    I totally agree that one shouldn't have to use third-party software to get TI to work. Nor should one have to download and later purchase the next version of Acronis to get a restore to work. I used TI 10 for several years to do my backups......paid hard-earned dollars for the product. But then when it came time to do a restore, Acronis required me to obtain the latest TI 2009 version. I mean if TI won't work as advertised (and it WAS advertised to backup and restore Vista images), then shouldn't we be elgible for a full refund? I hate to keep supporting their lousy R&D.

    Now, when I got ready to do my restore after first needing to download TI 2009, I too was using an external combo firewire/USB drive. TI would not recognize the firewire, so I switched to USB. USB didn't work either. My workaround was to first partiton my new internal drive, then "copy" my image file to one of the partitons, and then restore from there. I received a lot of help from members of this board, but absolutely none from Acronis support staff. Not that I expected any.....they already had my money. My thought is to fire all the Acronis staff members and turn TI R&D and customer support over to select members of this board (and yes I can provide names of some excellent candidates).

    And on the subject of validation and hardware changes, I did a validation after every backup. And the ONLY hardware change that I had since the last backup/validation was to change out my crashed hard drive for a new one. So as far as I am concerned, Acronis should ABSOLUTELY have worked under those conditions. Why did it require me to download/utilize TI 2009 for it to just suddenly and magically work? Why wouldn't it read from an external drive? Just where am I suppose to store my backups if I only have one internal drive?

    And yes I am bitter....Acronis TI scared the crap out of me.
     
  18. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    bbarry,

    Do you still use Acronis TI? Just interested.
     
  19. 4ln75Z5a

    4ln75Z5a Registered Member

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    Still no response from support I see. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
     
  20. 4ln75Z5a

    4ln75Z5a Registered Member

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    UPDATE:

    I'm not sure why this worked but it did.

    I have two DVD drives in my PC. One is a serial drive the other is an older EIDE drive. I usually use the serial drive, and I was using it to boot the TI CD. When I booted from the serial drive and restored from the USB external drive, it restored fine. When I booted from the serial drive and restored from the external firewire drive, it failed. However, when booting from the older EIDE DVD drive, TI restored fine from the firewire drive. I'm going to try again using the newer serial DVD drive to see if I can finally get TI to restore, but why would it restore by booting from an older DVD drive?
     
  21. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    Assuming it wasn't a fluke, it could be because Linux seems to load drivers differently depending on which device is the booting device, which devices are being used and/or are connected.

    You might also try resetting the computer (use the reset button) instead of rebooting when trying different scenarios. On my test computer, this is necessary when switching between TI versions/builds and sometimes even when using the same build because of the state in which Linux leaves the hardware. A reset seems to let it work correctly again when a standard reboot doesn't.
     
  22. 4ln75Z5a

    4ln75Z5a Registered Member

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    I tried a reset and a power down, but TI will only successfully restore from the external firewire drive if I boot from the EIDE DVD drive.

    It seems TI is missing drivers for serial DVD drives. The serial DVD drive is an LG drive that is about 2 months old. My motherboard has two serial ports. The C: drive is connected to one and the LG is connected to the other.
     
  23. bbarry

    bbarry Registered Member

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    No. I am now backing up only using the capability provided by Vista Ultimate. I still have most of my older TI 10 backup images scattered around, but unless I decide to now actually buy TI 2009, I will never try to restore any of them. And before I give Acronis any more of my money, I will need to read more positive reviews.

    I never had a problem (to my knowledge) backing up and validating with TI 10....only when it was time to perform a critical restore. If it hadn't been for MudCrab, I would still be floundering (no pun intended). And of course, thanks to GroverH for all his excellent documentation....something else Acronis does poorly IMHO.
     
  24. 4ln75Z5a

    4ln75Z5a Registered Member

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    Have you tried Norton Ghost? I believe you can download a trial version to try it out. It doesn't have as many features as TI but it has never let me down and I know many many companies that use it. I work in the PC field so I can validate this claim. I had many problems with Acronis Disk Director and now problems with TI. It will definitely be the last time I use an Acronis product. It's a shame too because their products had promise. I now no longer recommend Acronis products to my customers since I've had so many problems. You would think that it could successfully restore a backup when booting from a serial DVD drive from an image stored on a firewire external drive since all new DVD drives are serial.

    And I agree that Acronis' tech support is horrible.
     
  25. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello 4ln75Z5a,

    Thank you for your interesting in Acronis True Image

    Can you please provide me your serial number for Acronis True Image so I can send you ISO image of Acronis True Image bootable disc which should solve the issue?

    Send us the serial number via PM.

    Best regards,
    --
    Dmitry Nikolaev
     
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