TI won't backup to an external eSATA drive on a different networked compuer
I have an external eSATA docking station with a SHARED HDD, on a different computer on my LAN, to which I've been successfully creating Windows 7 Backups from my laptop for two years. I purchased TI because of it's capability to restore to a new computer in the even of a disaster such as my laptop getting stolen, lost or destroyed.
I've downloaded and read the 2014 User Guide, and have created my Rescue CD, and now I'm trying RATHER UNSUCCESSFULLY to create an Acronis backup. I think that I've jumped through all the hoops specified in the "Disk and Partition" backup section, and was able to browse to, and select, the target disk in the "Destination" setting. I then click "Backup Now" and after about two or three minutes I get the following error message:
\\?\UNC\Tower-PC\TB-BAckup\SystemBAckupFor_LAPTOPM6600_On_2014-03-03_full_b1_s1_v11.tib
I've tried selecting the target disk both as a mapped drive on my computer, and by browsing to the actual drive. It seems to me that if the target disk can be selected, it should be able to take the backup.
I hope the problem is due to something I'm not doing correctly or something that I am doing but incorrectly, AND NOT the inability of Acronis TI to target a shared external eSATA drive on another computer on the same network.
Any and all help in this matter w/be greatly appreciated.


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"Try replacing the ? symbol in the path with the IP address of the device": The \\?\UNC\... ARE NOT included in the selection path in the settings, nor is it included in the "Location" line of the backup set, which simply shows \\Tower-PC\TB-Backup. Tower-PC is the name of the networked computer, and TB-Backup is the name of the external drive. The \\?\UNC\ are added by TI.
I just tried again, and this time when the error message came up, I hit enter - which apparently defaults to the Browse button - and it opened another selection window. So I re-selected the target drive on the other computer, re-entered the backup file name and ok'd it. This time, after a few minutes I got a different error message, as follows:
"Error occurred while creating the File", and beneath that was "To specify another location, click Browse". there were three buttons: Retry, Browse and Cancel.
In the first attempt the "Location" showed \\Tower-PC\TB-Backup\, and the "Backing up" showed \\Tower-PC\SystemBAckupFor_LAPTOPM6600_On_2014-03-03_full_b1_s1_v11.tib In the reselect/retry, the location was the same, but the "Backing up" showed G:\SystemBAckupFor_LAPTOPM6600_On_2014-03-03_full_b1_s1_v11.tib. G: is the drive letter of the target disk as I have it mapped to my computer. In any case, neither attempt worked.
Now here's a puzzler. The target computer - i.e. Tower-PC - has a second external eSATA 2-bay Raid 1 drive. Just for kicks, I selected that drive as the target - Drive Z: this time - and the backup started to run. Now both external drives are plugged into the same eSATA card on the Tower-PC, so why would one work and not the other. I can't use the Raid drive for backup because it stays connected to the Tower-PC as part of its configuration, whereas the G: drive is a docking station; I only mount the disk in the docking station for the backup and then remove it offsite to a fire resistant safe.
I can access the G: drive (when the disk is in it) with Windows explorer. I can create folders on it and copy files to it, and Windows Backup has been backing up to it for over a year. Why would TI barf when trying to back up to it????
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Do you intend on only making. manual. non. sceduled backups with.the app? I ask because the Forum is filled with users baving issues because they disconnect drives that scheduled backups are set for.
I think the app might have become confused about. the destination path. Not sure why exactly. Maybe because one backup task was created yet two routes were specified for the task?
I would try again by creating a new backup task and browsing to your G drive for destination. It worked for Z should work for G.
A final thought would be that disk G has a problem, might run chkdsk on it just to make sure.
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Make sure the credentials for that share are correct: test the connection in ATI as you setup the task, and make sure that that user has read/write access to the share.
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Thanks Bob and Pat for your kind responses. I do appreciate the help.
Bob, I do intend to schedule the backups. Since I've just installed ATI for the first time, I was doing a manual backup to test the program and to make sure I was doing it correctly. Also, there was only one path each time. When ATI failed on the mapped drive letter, I changed the settings to the actual networked connection. In both cases I browsed to the drive in the ATI setup.
Pat, I'm not sure what you mean by "Test the connection in ATI as you set up the task". I browsed to the drive with ATI, and had tested the connection with Windows Explorer. It's actually the same connection that I've been using for over a year with Windows Backup.
I found the problem. While I was pondering why the backup would work on the Raid drive and not on the docked drive, it occurred to me that the disk that I mounted in the dock was a spare 80GB disk that I was using just for testing, but the Raid drive is 1TB. So I replaced the 80GB drive with my regular 1TB backup disk, and Voila! it worked; the backup went without incident.
Now I would have thought that the Acronis backup would have fit on the empty 80GB disk since the user's guide indicates that TI compresses the data, and since my Windows backup - both the system image and the file backup combined - is only 50GB. It seems to me that if TI calculated the space requirement for the backup - the final result is 64.5GB, well within the 80GB available space - and found it to be insufficient, I would have expected a more meaningful error message. I'm really quite surprised by that.
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I believe your situation with the 80GB drive is that the app is looking at doing backups in this manner, you want a full backup that total 65GB, total disk size if 80GB, the app says well, in order to make a backup of 65GB I need at least 135GB because when I make an additional backup it will need to be done in the same location and I cannot delete the first backup until the second one completes. Result, insufficient backup space on drive.
Sounds like now your issue is solved?
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Thanks Bob, and I agree that must have been what happened. My only complaint is that the error message led us down a garden path, instead of simply saying, "Insufficient disk space" or something to that effect. Instead it alluded to not being able to CONTACT the drive. If ATI know that there was sufficient disk space, it should have said so.
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