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Wrong advice on data size, and validation problem

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Hi,

Can someone shed some light on 2 things that happen when I back up.

1: I back up to 2 different external hard drives. A 1TB 3.5" powered hard drive and a 1TB 2.5" portable hard drive, using USB3 in both cases. My PC hard drive is also 1TB. I do a complete back up each time and True Image is set to delete the previous back up when the new one has completed. When I back up to the portable hard drive True Image tells me correctly that the data size on my entire PC is 322.3GB. However when I back up to the 3.5" hard drive True Image tells me that the data size on my entire PC is 906.0GB (todays's figures). When the back up to the 3.5" hard drive is completed it has of course only received the 322.3GB. Why is True Image telling me that there is 906GB to back up?

2: I also would like to validate the back up each time. This works perfectly when I am backing up to the portable hard drive. However, if I try and validate the back up to the 3.5" hard drive True Image will validate a few GB, and then my PC locks up. There is nothing I can do to unlock it and I cannot turn the PC off at the PC. My only avenue is to turn the power off at the power source, and then turn the PC on again. I always find that the back up has been fully done. I now only validate the back up to the portable hard drive. Why can True Image validate to the portable hard drive, but not to the 3.5" one?

Barry

 

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Barry, it is going to be difficult to explain the difference in behaviour between your two backup drives without knowing more information, ideally with the Service Logs for the backup & validation tasks where you see this behaviour.

Please download a copy of the Log File Viewer app (link in my signature below).  You can use this to look through the service log files and this may offer an explanation of why the 3.5" drive works differently to your portable drive.

I would also recommend running a CHKDSK /F /R against the 3.5" drive in case there are some bad sectors on that drive that is contributing to the PC lock up when you try to validate your backup task.  

Agree with Steve.  If you have bad sectors on your main disk, it may be defaulting to sector-by-sector which will backup the entire thing.  With compression, it should be smaller than 1TB so this might be why it is saying it's going to be 906Gb.

Running chkdsk /f /r agains the primary OS drive may resolve/repair these bad sectors and allow the backup to complete without needing to do a sector-by-sector backup.

Acronis logs will help shed more light on the issue though.  YOu may want to check your Windows system event logs for signs of disk trouble as well.   A third party tool like hard disk sentinel (the free version is good too), may help identify the remaining life of your disk and/or bad sectors as well - here's a sample screenshot of a failing disk

Thanks Steve. Sorry for the delay in replying to you but I spent hours running CHKDSK /F /R for both my 3.5" external hard drive and my C drive. I then tried another backup to the 3.5" hard drive, this time setting True Image to validate the backup.

Sorry to say that nothing changed. True image still showed the data size on my entire PC as 900 odd GB, and my PC still locked up after it started validating.

I also ran the log file viewer prior to checking the 2 hard drives and have attached the results. Strange to say, although the portable hard drive was the one that worked as expected, it was the only one that showed any errors. I am not competent enough to analyse the log file viewer results, but have attached copies of the results for both external hard drives.

Barry

Attachment Size
382518-132364.log 2.95 KB
382518-132367.log 6.7 KB

Barry, thank you for the two log files, I see the following:

task_name=Acronis full backup to toshiba
Cannot access the path: G:\Acronis full backup to toshiba_full_b16_s1_v1.tib
The initial full backup version is not accessible at the moment.
The specified file path does not exist.;  
The system cannot find the path
Writing full version to file: Acronis full backup to toshiba_full_b17_s1_v1.tib
Deleting backup file with path G:\Acronis full backup to toshiba_full_b16_s1_v1.tib

task_name=Acronis full backup to Astone
Writing full version to file: Acronis full backup to Astone_full_b15_s1_v1.tib
Deleting backup file with path H:\Acronis full backup to Astone_full_b14_s1_v1.tib

The error messages in the first task log would suggest that previous backups may have been deleted manually, hence cannot be found.  You should run a manual Validation for that task to try to reconcile the Acronis Database with the status of available backup files (.TIB).  
Note: Please ensure that you are not switching backup drives, i.e. using two drives with the same drive letter, as this can give similar errors.

Thanks for the reply Steve. No, I am not switching backup drives. The Toshiba (the portable) is Drive G and the Astone (the 3.5") is Drive H.

Of course, when I ran the log files the backup for the 3.5" hard drive was one where I had stipulated no validation, so I decided today to run the log files again, as I ran the backup to the 3.5" again yesterday with validation stipulated, and wondered whether the new report for that drive would show anything else. As I told you yesterday, that validation didn't happen though, as my PC locked up again.

I have attached the new log file for the Astone hard drive, although I can see nothing strange in it.

If that report shows you nothing, I have decided to stop being concerned by what is happening, as in both instances a full correct backup ends up on both external hard drives and the backup on the portable is validated, so I can trust it.

In case you are wondering; the reason I do 2 backups. The 3.5" is sitting at my PC, so if I lose or accidently delete something I can just rectify the situation immediately. The portable is stored in my fireproof safe, so if have a fire and my PC is destroyed I have lost nothing and can install the data on a new PC.

Barry

Attachment Size
382775-132400.log 3.35 KB

Barry, the latest log file only shows that the Validation task was started but then the log ends, so I guess that is when your PC locked up and you forced a shutdown / restart.  Have you left the PC in the 'locked state' for a couple of hours to see if it frees up again later?

No, I never tried that deliberately Steve, although I did leave the machine to itself for about 2.1/2 hours after I started that last backup, while I did something else. I had looked at it after about an hour and True Image was only about 30GB from finishing the 320 odd GB backup and showed that it was only about an hour from finishing completely, so it had been probably been locked up for over an hour when I did go back to it.

Anyway, please don't worry about it any more. As I said earlier, I am still happy that True Image is backing up both hard drives correctly and have no trouble living with it as it is now. I thought it might just be a simple fix, but as it isn't I'm not going to let it concern me any more.

Thanks though for trying to help.

Barry