Any way to force continuation of incremental backups in Acrons TIH 2011?
I've had this happen a couple of times. My weekly incremental backup is missed because of some minor problem (I'm not using my computer enough to justify more frequent backups now). When I discover it, I'd like to just fix the problem and run the incremental backup again. What happens is that the incremental backup process starts over again, which means I get two full backups before getting back into the incremental mode. That means I end up missing another backup because I didn't notice the need for the extra space. I just keep ending up with full backups instead of incrementals until I wipe out a bunch of full backups so I have enough space. This is hardly the data security I had in mind when I got the Acronis software.
Is there a way to get TIH 2011 to just continue incrementally backing up without restarting the whole process (two fulls, followed by incrementals)? Or do I have to simply ignore that week's incremental and hope that I don't lose two weeks' work before the next backup? Thanks for your help!
James -- Thanks for the info, but it isn't the task that's the problem. The problem is that when the task is missed, I can't catch up until I delete enough previous backups to allow for a re-start that requires space for two full backups. All I'd like to do is simply find a way to have the task to continue adding the much smaller incremental backups instead of restarting with two full backups each time a task is missed.
I use a 2 TB external drive that is dedicated only to my backup. When the backup runs, it works fine. The problem is that sometimes, I forget to have the drive ready when the backup is scheduled. If I use the Backup Now button when I do get the drive up, TIH starts a full backup instead of continuing with the earlier scheduled incremental. If I want to return to a mode where incremental backups are used, I have to wait until after the next backup -- another full -- before this happens. If I just wait another week, TIH will continue incremental backups but incorrectly identify when the backup took place. i.e -- it now thinks that the backup in week 6 happened in the week that was missed -- week 5. If you try to explore the ersatz week 5 backup, TIH gets lost, because the file date doesn't match the TIH backup date. That effectively trashes the backup set and you have to restart with two full backups again anyway.
I was hoping that someone might have a way to force TIH to simply continue in the incremental mode instead of me blowing away one or more of my backup sets. Something like setting a flag in an INI file or the registry so that when I hit Backup Now, it simply continued as if everything was normal instead of a total backup set restart. Or, maybe something that allowed TIH to figure out how to correctly use the following week's backup so I could just let things catch up that way. Judging from the lack of response, I guess that was too much to hope for...
As MVP James F has indicated above, there is a good chance a chance of settings in the backup scheme could help. Please post a screen capture of your backup scheme being used for that task; link #5 below can help.
Having too many incrmental backups can be a safety risk. Keep the number of incrementals to a reasonable number (who knows what is reasonable). Read this link for more information about why.
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/40810
Use Drive Notify as a help in reminding about when the backup is due. Information can be found at link #1, item 4-A, or use Windows Scheduler to put a reminder on your screen just prior to the backup time, or use your daily scheduler for assistance.
Look at link #2 and review the illustration 11-Inc. Some variations of this example could help.
The functiion of the "Backup Now" button is to initiate or create a backup. The type of backup created (full or inc) is controlled by how the task is configured within the "backup scheme". If the wrong thing occurs, it can be due to a prior editing of the backup task or the database is corrupt needing a new task.
GroverH: Thank you for your help, but I simply don't have the time to get into all of the TIH settings right now. I was hoping for a quick fix and I guess that's not going to happen. When I do find the time, if I can't figure things out from the manual, I'll try this route again. Best Regards, David.