Missing system files in Backup (Acer V5-591G, Win 10 64-Bit, UEFI, SSD)

B A, welcome to these user forums.

You have presented an interesting / unusual problem that I do not recall having seen raised in these forums previously, and I would certainly have expected other users to be complaining very loudly if this was a common and persistant issue.

If I understand your description of this problem correctly, you are seeing this problem with different external disk drives & cables, with different versions of ATIH (2014, 2015 & 2016), on a different computer system of same hardware specs, when using other backup software (Paragon), and having replaced major hardware components (SSD & Motherboard)?

If the above is correct, then this doesn't sound to be just an Acronis issue with omitting important files from the backup images.

If this was limited to a single system and focussed only on just the one source disk drive, then I would start to suspect a drive issue perhaps, but you appear to have shown that this cannot be the case.  

Please download a copy of the Log File Viewer app and, assuming you still have these, look at the Service log files for the task(s) where you made the full system backups that show these 'missing important files' - please post copies of the logs to the forum too.

I would also request that you post an Acronis System Report to the forum as this may show a little more information that we can look at.  Note: check that the zip file is less than 20MB in size in order to post.

Thanks for the response.

Yes, you've understood me correctly. I've tried all of those things and still experience the same problem. For a whole system backup I usually use the rescue cd...just to make sure windows, anti-virus and so on don't interfer with the backup process.

I've also never expereinced something like that. On my older machines everything works without any trouble. Since I've the same issue with the second machine (same modell, same specs), there must be more user with the same problem.

I can't say I've seen this either.  If the backup is taken offline and a full disk image is taken, it is just backing up the content of the disk as 1's and 0's via whatever size blocks that Acronis is using by default.  Only issues I can think of for two fully functioning hard drives without bad sectors or hardware issues...

1) When the media was created, were any command line parameters used?

2) Is it possible that these specific folders may be junction points to another location instead?  If that is the case, they will get skipped because they don't actually live on the disk (assuming the junction is set to another disk - I do this for my itunes device backups and Outlook mail because I don't want them cluttering up every image with a couple hundred gb of extra space for files that don't have much importance and I don't really care if they get backed up).

3) Even though you've tried different SSD's run CHKDSK /F /R on both the source and destination drive ahead of time - just in case.

4) What is the make model of the system?  Is the drive formatted as NTFS - REFS formatted drives are not supported at this time.  I would think an offline image wouldnt' care either though, even if it was REFS formatted. (https://forum.acronis.com/forum/55480 and also check out the documentation http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2016/#36446.html)

5) As an additional test, try a sector-by-sector backup too - will be much slower since it will copy the unuesed portion of the source disk too, but will force the backup to copy exactly what's on the drive... no filters get applied on a sector by sector backup.

Thank you too for the quick responding.

Here are the answers to your question / the result : 

1) None. In fact I've just used the ISO-file to make the cd... I've also try to download the iso file many times and burned a new cd....seems that the cd is not the problem.

2) Tested it. No junction there.

3) Checked with no errors...as excepted. Changing the internal SSD, Mainboard, testing different external drives including the usb cable, even the test with a second machine did not solve the problem. But I figured out that no matter what I do, it seems that one file always to be effected  - the file I mentioned in the first comment. In Windows I am able to read that that file just fine. It looks correct, it's not empty and I don't get any error messages what so ever. But if I try to read the file in the backup it is empty (using the built in "explorer" in TI to ectract it first...try too open it directly within the acrois app doesn't work for this file...the app simply doesn't react in this case). An another weird thing here is that the builtin TI "explorer" shows that the file is 36KB. But if I "extract" this file frome the backup image, windows shows me that it is 0KB.

4) NTFS and FAT are used....Is ReFS even integrated in Win 10 ?

5) That is the last option I've got. I will test this and tell you if it's worked. But to be honest I rather would not like to do this on a regular basis, since it should work also in the "normal" mode. I mean actually that is not a solution....just a workaround.

1) None. In fact I've just used the ISO-file to make the cd... I've also try to download the iso file many times and burned a new cd....seems that the cd is not the problem.

BA, let's rule this out.  Why are we using the .iso and converting it to USB?  Acronis has a built in media creator that will burn directly to a USB drive.  Format the drive and then use the embedded media builder to burn directly to a USB flash drive and test again.   I also doubt this is the cause for this specific behavior, but hey, it's not going to make your bootable media worse, and may make it work better since this is the supported and "by design" method for creating your bootable UsB media. 

4) NTFS and FAT are used....Is ReFS even integrated in Win 10 ?

ReFS is supported in Win 10 now.  Never tried or used it outside of Server 201- don't see the advantage for daily PC use and it's primarily designed for servers for now so am staying away from it until it matures and more applications have compatibility.  Backing up ReFS essentially creates a full everytime anyway so for the purpose of daily PC backups, probably not ideal for most people anyway.

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Agree that a sector-by-sector backup would be a work-a-round.  However, if there is something corrupting this file or locking it, might be the only solution.  As you said, this is issue does not seem unique to Acronis in your setup and appears with other backup software too, so it seems to be localized, but not sure what would cause this.

After your restore, could you attach the restored drive externally from another system and copy that file to the restored drive and see if it then boots - just another work-a-round in this case, but curious if it would help.

Even though ckdsk is showing no dirty sectors, perhaps the file or other files in the OS have something corrupted - not sure.  Have you tried running SFC /Scannow from an elevated command prompt for an OS health check too?  

If nothing else works with software solutions, if you're willing to shell out some cash, you can try a hardware cloning device and test the results.  This will essentially also do a sector-by-sector clone too, but rules out any software in the process.  If you don't have one already, these can be very useful and for $35 they're nice to have for a variety of reasons:  A) They can do a physical clone of disks smaller to larger and of the same size (never smaller to larger though)  B)  They can do this completely indpenedent of a PC and don't need a computer or software to do this  C) They double as an external hard drive dock and can do either 1 or 2 drives at a time and support both 3.5" and 2.5" disks.  

If a physical clone ends up with similar issues, then you absolutely know it's something with the disk or system that is preventing the clone from properly working.  If it works - problem solved, if not, you've identified an issue on the local system (which may still be a mystery).  There are a lot of clone dock options out there, but I've used and trust these and have one at home because it's been so useful.  

Do you really need one - probably not - a sector-by-sector backup in Acronis should be the same.  However, for the price and functionality of what the clone docks can provide, worth taking a stab with one.  Heck, if you have a Prime account and it doesn't work either, you can return it too.