Will Verify before Recover offer me hope?
So, hard drive failed :( Good news, I have a less than week old backup on external USB drive! :)
I boot from my bootable CD, browse for the backup and begin restoring to brand new hard drive.
Half hour in I get a message that unable to read from backup sector #92392003; retrying doesn't change the message. Both otions "ignore" and "ignore all" just cause the restore to quit.
What I didn't do was try the Verify Backup before doing the restore. i can't do it right this minute because (pure luck) I found a year old backup on the USB drive that was replaced by the one I'm using now so don't want to interrup that.
What I am asking/wondering: The Verify Backup - if it finds an error in the backup file, does it "fix" the backup file, in some fashion, so that the rest of recovery can occur? I mean, if only one single sector of up to 4k of data is bad, but the remaining 2 terrabytes are just fine - why can't I recover AROUND it??
If Verify Backup isn't the answer then my question becomes: What can I do to recover the other 1.999 TB of good data and skip the .0001 of bad data in the backup file?
Thank you!
Chkdsk will find the bad sector and replace it - but the data it replaces it with is unitialized... how will restore handle that when it hits a patch of scrambled data - can it skip over it?
The /R option of chkdsk will repeatedly attempt to read bad sectors in an attempt to recover the data from those sectors. In my experience it succeeds in recovering data more often than not, although it may take a long time. I had a really whacked-up disk on a server that I thought was hopeless but I let chkdsk run overnight and half the next day. When it was done, the disk was completely recovered.
Also, your problem may not be bad sectors but just file system errors, which the above command will also find and fix.
I will try - thank you.
Followup two questions:
Let's say ChkDsk doesn't fix the bad sector. Now I have a bad sector in the middle of my backup file - how can I have recovery continue around it?
Let's say no fix for question #1 and the restore I'm doing I'm doing now works (fingers crossed). Then I boot back up and load the recovery file I really want. I know I can go through and grab individual files and it will ignore areas of the backup file not needed so I can kinda work around it - is there an option to select "files modified after date xx/yy/zz" for restore?
Alex:
1. Unfortunately, when a .tib file is corrupted then restoring from it will fail. So far, Acronis has not released any utilities for repairing damage in .tib files.
2. If you can see individual files by exploring or mounting the backup file then you should be able to restore them. If you "mount" a backup file then you should be able to filter by date using Windows File Explorer: http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2017/#9149.html
In your backup script on the advanced tab, there is an option to ignore bad sectors. Acronis will skip past them and allow the backup to complete. However, depending on what is skipped, you may have different results with recovery. For instance, if the bad sectors are on the MBR, you may have to run startup repair... and all could be fine. However, other skipped files may have other negative consequences if attempting to restore an entire OS (services failing to launch, etc.) If a disk is failing and can't be repaired, if you can at least backup what's available, you may at least be able to restore/recover most of the data files, if nothing else.
In your backup script on the advanced tab, there is an option to ignore bad sectors. Acronis will skip past them and allow the backup to complete. However, depending on what is skipped, you may have different results with recovery. For instance, if the bad sectors are on the MBR, you may have to run startup repair... and all could be fine. However, other skipped files may have other negative consequences if attempting to restore an entire OS (services failing to launch, etc.) If a disk is failing and can't be repaired, if you can at least backup what's available, you may at least be able to restore/recover most of the data files, if nothing else.
Bobbo, I was not ignoring bad sectors during backups. It's during restore that I encontered one in the TIB file (if the error message was understood/reported accurately). Thanks for the input though.
Mark,
Let me describe what nearly gave me a heartattack just now and had me very briefly cursing reading your post (forgive me, knee-jerk reaction; you'll see why).
So, here's the story readers: Primary hard drive fails. Install new SATA drive, boot from Acronis CD and begin restore of a TIB backup file only a few days old - this is gonna be a cakewalk. One hour into restore am told the TIB is corrupt because a sector can't be read. THEN: Pure miracle - I discover a 13 month old backup on another external drive. I plug that one in and perform a full restore. I now have my system just as it was 13 months ago! But here is where it get's fun!
On a hunch I double click on the .TIB file andlo and behold, it opens! I surf around andI can see everything I want and need. I restore some smaller directories and absolutely critical docs and it's fine! WAHOO! So, run to store and buy another 2 TB drive so I can restore to that one while keeping my 31 month old around, just in case.
Then I read your post and think, duh, why didn't I try chkdsk? Cautiously I try it without specifying /f or /r and it reports that logical errors are found. Hello! So, I do a chkdsk /f and it says it found a block marked as unused that should be used and fixes it.
Hmm. Seems minor -- but before doing all the things needed to do a full restore I figure, lets grab a few more folders I really need to catch me up those 13 months (my photos, I'm a photographer) manually first. So I go and double click on the .TIB file, it shows me C: drive I double click again and ... nothing ... empty. No files no nothing.
<lets pause here so the memory of the yelling and hair pulling I did goes away for good>
Let me end on a better note: So, on a totaly desperate hunch I figure, how can it hurt? So, I decide to use the Right-Click option to Mount the TIB file. It takes FOREVER -- but it does. Guess what... there be all me files! YAHOO!
I'm presenting extracting them into the 13 month old restore before anything else happens.
I broke the cardinal rule when dealing with backups - always make copies of your backups before doing anything with them! I just didn't have a further 3rd 2 TB drive sitting around at 10 pm.
Just thought I'd share.
But let me also share this: I find it inexcusable that after all these years and versions, and countless people who've lost files because of this, that Acronis hasn't released SOME kind of TIB recovery tool. The data is in there, clearly, if one tiny itty bitty portion of it is inaccessible it is utterly unreasonable and illogical and just damned cruel that we can't get to the 99% of the data when <1% is bad. If they don't release a tool themselves, how about at least releasing the TIB spec. *I'LL* write the repair utility and I'm sure I'll find plenty of willing to pay big customers right here in this forum. I've written a ZIP file recovery utility in this similar vein once upon a time, because the ZIP spec was public. Please, Acronis, give us SOMETHING we can do with .TIB files that aren't 100% perfect (it's not a perfect world, or you wouldn't have a backup product to sell in the first place)
Alex:
Great story. Here's hoping for a happy ending. And I agree about the need for a method of dealing with damaged .tib files.
To others reading this post - our digital data has become more and more valuable with each passing year. Having a good backup regimen that you follow religiously (or automate) is necessary to protect it. Backing up on a regular schedule is mandatory but we often forget. Having the backups geographically dispersed in case of theft, fire, or flood is also necessary, as is using more than one backup method.
For those using Windows 10, set up File History and store its database on a disk other than the one that contains your personal data. Automate periodic backups of your OS and data with imaging software like TrueImage. Rotate backups periodically between more than one external disk or networked storage location or the cloud.
Alex,
That was a great story. So happy that it turned out good for you.
I, also, have a few recovery stories that turned out good because I had good "Differential" TIH backups.
Most important are the great Forum Members and Fantastic MVP's that helped me recover disks, partitions and files on several occassions.
It is comforting to know that they are here and so willing to hang in there with anyone needing help.
They need to know how much we appreciate them !
Have a great week, thanks for sharing your story !
Steve
I also thank you for sharing this story.
In the last two weeks I have had two ancient HDDs tell me they were about to fail. One is regularly backed up with Acronis but the other is not. I have now installed active monitoring software on my critical systems so I can keep an eye on the health of my HDDs.
On my "work" machine it found that one of the 5 years + old drives in my raid 5 (WD VelociRaptor 600 GB) was failing (just out of warranty) and that the system disk (SSD) is starting to fail (3.75 years old and nearly a .75 years out of warranty).
Ian
Ian,
You've actually received warnings of hard drive failures? I've worked in IT for 30 years+ and never, not once, have I had a hard drive give me any signs it was going to die.
The current drive; it was a 3 years old WD Black drive. Installed it into my main desktop machine 3 years ago, turned it on and I think it's only been off maybe 5 times in 3 years. I have a large UPS so go through power failures without going off and it's only off if I'm changing hardware. It has sat in it's protected and well ventilated case for those entire 3 years. The other day it was turned off nice and neatly; then, after sitting for a day, I tried to turn it back on.
The guys at DriveSavers are now telling me that it has suffered "massive and catestrophic electrical and physical failure and damange" -- BUT for $3900 they feel that they have a 50/50 chance of retriving some data. WHAT?! Putting the price aside; how did it fail so badly? Imagine you have a brand new car, drive it every single day, then one day you wake up and the engine and transmission are both broken without any warning of any kind and so badly that they need to be replace. No check engine lights, No low oil, no weird noises or strange performance. Just goes from 100% to 0% overnight sitting in the garage.
Storing data on the cloud is OK for some, I'm a photographer, I generate about 2-4 terrabytes of new data yearly. I've already got about 20 TB of data I need to keep. I can't trust backing up to DVDs, I can't trust backing up to external hard drives because even those have failed mysteriously. I backed up a TB to one of them, turned it off and put it away. Took it out 8 months later to grab a file and the entire drive was toast, completely dead. This drive had been used a total of maybe 5 times for less than 20 hours. I've got other drives that are, as I speak, running for 5 years 24/7.
What's worst - we DO our backups. I used Acronis Total TIH and did my full backup on this particular system weekly. I am sitting looking at a full backup that was completely successfully 3 days prior to this drive failing. 2 TB of my data, full backup including the OS so just have to restore to a new HD and I'm up and running!
Nope. Why? ONE single sector of data on the external drive that the backup is located on is bad. 4 kb of data out of 2,000,000,000 kb is good. 0.0000002% of the backup is bad, 99.9999998% of the backup is fine but I cannot restore it fully.
This makes me very angry!
What makes me angrier? The Restore functions in Acronis TIH will hit this bad sector, offer the option to ignore but that just causes it to cancel, same as hitting cancel. It will not proceed. HOWEVER, I can Mount this same image using TIH itself and then go into that image and access ALL but the ONE affected file (and I found it, ONE single JPG would be corrupted, out of 300,000+ I would lose one JPG and recover absolutely everything else on my system). However, I can't do what I want. Yes, I can get my photos and, for example, Outlook PST files or Quicken backup - but what I can't do is get ALL my other programs and passwords and settings and my entire OS restored because I can't use the normal recovery function - I can only do a very very VERY slow one by one file recovery. (backup takes approx 8 hours; I selected a range of approx 350 GB of files to be restored using the mounted image and it's taking over 19 hours to restore. yes I have a VERY fast system, USB 3 external to WD Black SATA internal). So, yes, I'll be getting back 99% of my photos and My Documents but now I have to rebuilding my OS, programs, patches, settings, passwords, tweaks and files I've missed. Why?
I'm angry because Acronis doesn't offer any kind of support for it's .TIB files - except for if they are perfect shape. They backup imperfect hard drives but they cannot handle the imperfect world their .TIB files reside in. They sell you on the backup but, OH WELL, on the recovery. You don't get your money back if it fails to recover. Hell, this forum relies on volunteers to help out, I don't see Acronis in here offering help.
Give me the ability to click "Skip the bad sector, Move along" in your recovery function. (Oh, and tell me the file that's affected when you do skip it, just so I know and don't have to guess, unlike when I'm doing a backup and it should encounter a bad sector reading the drive, sector #238749283 tells me NOTHING, how about saying, I was in the middle of file "criticaldata.stuff" and had an error, then I'd know!)
You guys have decent backup product but what good is it if it fails us when we need it MOST.
Mark,
Can we get Acronis to address this? I see there is a company out there that sells a product called MultiExtrator that claims it can read TIB files and skip bad data within the file. That means, which I already knew, that this can be done. If they can, why can't Acronis. What would it hurt Acronis to either a) release a "repair TIB file" tool, b) allow their software to "work around" a bad part of a TIB file and/or c) release the file format so that others can write this type of utility of Acronis doesn't want to. If Acronis had a "fix my TIB file" utility that cost $200 I would have paid for it in an instant on my credit card to download and use it that moment.
How can we get an official response to this glaring omission - what good are great backups if you have unreliabilty in the recovery chain?
Thanks for putting up with my rants,
Alex
Yes, I was surprised when I got the warning. The message said that the HDD was about to fail and I should back up the data immediately. It was a 3 year old WD Green 3TB - I managed to recover almost all of the files before if crashed completely. To recover some of them I needed to use UFS Explorer Standard Recovery.
The System is running the latest build of Windows 10 Pro and does not, as far as I am aware have any HDD monitoring software. I think the error message may have been as the result of Windows thinking there was a problem when it was trying to start up. The PC has a UPS but has not always had one.
A UPS will not safeguard against a faulty power supply causing HDD to fail - I had a faulty power supply that killed over about a year 3 SSD drives. Not sure how I worked out the problem was the power supply. This may explain why that sustem now has a WD WD6000HLHX VelociRaptor 600 GB that is in the process of dying - I cannot complain I suppose as it is beyond its 5 year warranty. I think it was constant raid rebuilds that got me to look at the power supply. Replaced the power supply and have not had a rebuild since.
This is a user forum (provided by Acronis), so like you we are not responsible for the products sold by Acronis. Acronis staff occaisionally visit the forum but it is primiarily users helping other users.
Ian
Question:
Does anyone know: Can TIH 2014 TIB files be converted into VHD files by True Image Echo Workstation?
Never mind, answered my own question. I see the Acronis Backup Conversion tool in TIH - I can convert to a VHD and from there using a little utility turn that into a bootable virtual machine drive. I'm thinking once I finish this project this is my LAST PC on XP. I'm going to build the replacement Windows 10 box with one large drive that'll contain just my virtual host hard drives and this way I can mount my entire, bootable XP machine and access it from within my Windows 10 box, just in case I forget something during moving and/or have a program that won't run on W10. Gotta love virtual machines!
I also thank you for sharing this story.
In the last two weeks I have had two ancient HDDs tell me they were about to fail. One is regularly backed up with Acronis but the other is not. I have now installed active monitoring software on my critical systems so I can keep an eye on the health of my HDDs.
On my "work" machine it found that one of the 5 years + old drives in my raid 5 (WD VelociRaptor 600 GB) was failing (just out of warranty) and that the system disk (SSD) is starting to fail (3.75 years old and nearly a .75 years out of warranty).
Ian
Active monitoring software: Is it simply looking at SMART values?
I have/had that. It told me my drive was fine -- right up until it totally crashed.
Yes, primarily relies on monitoring SMART values. This will not pick up some potentially catosrophic problems - failure of the HDD PCB which SMART does not monitor, or an external shock such as a power surge (particularly if it is followed by a complete loss of power). I have two levels of protection against surge, UPS and surge filter/switchs on the mains supply for each power phase. But that does not overcome the faulty power supply issue, or a faulty intenal power cable. Molex connections can be particularly problematic.
Ian
Alex:
I've sent a PM to Acronis asking them to look at this thread.
I really do understand fully what you mean by power supply issues and molex connections, etc.
This is a SATA drive inside a case that's sitting static in the same clean shock and static free, cooled location it's been in for years. It receives absolutely no physical contact or shock of any kind. Fans blow across it to keep temps down. The UPS was up adn running during the power failure and the system stayed up, it put my OS into hibernation adn then executed an orderly shutdown. There were no surges or shocks or unexpected actions. This was literally the same as me clicking "Start/Shutdown" then later turning it back on to find "massive electrical and physical damage" done. It just makes no sense. Old age; I get it. Something that's been spinning at 7200 rpm for 3 years non-stop finally gets to stop and then has to restart and that's when it fails. OK, but, then, why on earth would it cause so much damage to itself? ARGH!
Boy - nothing is easy with this task! OK, so now I'm using TIH 2014 and ALL I'm trying to do is Validate the backup TIB.
I get the errror "Task with such ID not found." and that's it. Can't validate it (I want to see if the chkdsk "fixed" version will perhaps work).
Has anyone else notice that you never seem to get a match when using the Knowledge Base button an on error mesage?
I do not recall get a useful explanation - not that I have had that many instances where I needed to do a search on one (fortunately).
Ian
Alex,
I would agree that the error kb path is of little if any help. Question, where is the tib file located on your system? If possible to copy the file to a temp folder on say a data disk or even your OS disk to run the validation on it that may help here. The type error you are reporting often occurs when the tib database has corruption. Alternatively, you can use File Explorer to locate the tib file then left click on it, highlight Aconis True Image in the menu and you should see a Validate option there. You could try running it that way, should work.
Ooohhhh.... it just gets worse and worse...
Last night - DESPITE my having turned OFF the Scheduler (trust me, I knew better - TIH immediately begins to try to redo missed backups so I turned it off immediately. And I've been in and out of the program and have visually verified "Off" on Scheduler) - TIH decides to do a full backup on my new HD and then DELETES my prior backup - the one that I NEED. (just like it should, of course).
WTF!! I KNOW!!! the scheduler was off! Now - let's add to our wows shall we? The backup is on an external USB drive, sure it's USB 3 but that's still slow. So every time I want to try anything it's a few hours of copy time but there is a single bad sector in there so normal OS efforts aren't going to work. So, here was my plan.
Finish doing what I could with the new build, pull as much manually as I could from that backup. Then, when I don't think I could get much more, I was going to finally try the ChkDsk /r and see if reparing the bad sector would at least allow it to proceed with full recovery, hoping that at least if it was only an internal error that the "ignore" option would work, as opposed to know "Ignore"="Utterly Fail no matter what"
But that option is gone now. Undelete programs don't work as well on external drives for some reason (NTFS format, if it was FAT I would get in there with a sector editor and fix it myself!!)
So, thank you again Acronis for taking away even my final last chance at recovering this data - just because of one single bad sector (and how come that didn't get noticed during backup? eh? I'm sure when you write to a bad sector the OS throws an exception, did you just ignore it? wtf!)
I'm just so pissed right now - backup programs are useless if they can't restore in conditions beyond 100.00% perfect.
Alex, grab the schedule manager and see how many scheduled tasks are present and also verify if there are extra "ghost" tasks identified with it that don't match up with the scripts in your script folder (C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Scripts). Each script name that has a scheduled task should show up in schedule manager when you run "get list".
If you have any "ghost" jobs in schedule manager that don't have a matching script name, you should delete those as they may be the culprit.
I would run taskzap and clear our all of the scheduled tasks and then go in and set the schedule on just those jobs that still exist. Personally, with the trouble you're having, I'd probably start with new backup jobs altogether and use brand-new, unique names going forward (add a lettter or number to an existing name if you want to keep it nearly identical). It can't hurt, but may help.
In my own setup, I've noticed that if I have an existing backup job backing up to one location wiht a name, but also have an old backup on another drive with the same name, clicking on that old backup file, can sometimes do "weird" things because the names are the same. As a result, I've learned to make sure that if I have old backups with a certain name, to not use the same name for the new jobs that are being used in the Acronis GUI.
Thank you, I will. it's doing jobs from the year old backup I restored Despite the job shows the scheduler is off.
Well - just to put a bookend on this entire thing ... I've tried every single undelete utility I can find. Even though the backup file is there, marked as undeleted, and there has been zero further activity on the hard drive, I still can't undelete it. Yet again hitting a block that doesn't feel to me like it should be. I'm not sure what happened on this one. Weird...
But - let me add this bit more, just so we can all groan one more time. SO, feeling that the file is gone and that's that. I decided, well, can't trust this drive so I'm replacing it. WHILE waiting on the new drive I figured, what could it hurt, let's do a ChkDsk /r
Guess what - NO BAD SECTORS FOUND!
Sigh ... so, it appears that the Acronis software is reading an error on the drive that the OS itself doesn't find! MAN, this just continues to make me distrust TIH. I've already started looking for a replacement. And, one thing, I'll be looking for is a robust restore process with recovery of less than perfect backup files and 3rd party support for such backup files.
I am just so disappointed, I've been with Acronis from the very first copy a friend gave me, to a bootleg I used to evaluate a newer version to finally purchasing and upgrading 3 times. Not perfect but it worked well enough - this last episode though really taints the product to me. Bad bad taste in my mouth :(
Thank you to everyone who chimed in on this thread. I wish Acronis would do right by me in some way. This recovery process has set me back many days/hours (time=money) and stress.
Since the error message is "unable to read from backup sector" and the backup mounts successfully, the backup file is actually fine. The problem is that the disk you were backing up contained bad sectors which resulted in its failure. Acronis is having issues during the recovery process when it reaches the portion of the backup where the bad sector existed on the original disk. In older versions of True Image a backup could be mounted in read/write mode and chkdsk could be run on the mounted image. This process created an incremental file with the information for the repaired sector and usually allowed the recovery to complete successfully. Unfortunately the abilty to mount images in read/write mode was removed starting with the 2015 version.
Joey:
Good catch! I had forgotten about the former feature of mounting images in read/write mode.
Alex:
In your reply #20 you mentioned that you are using TI 2014, so this feature might have saved your backup. Sorry that I didn't think of that.
Don't take this comment as defensive, but no backup solution is foolproof. I am using two. If/when one of them fails I have the other to fall back on.
OOOOHHHH MAN! Had I known!!! I would not ever think that the TIB file was read/write capable. Seems dangerous. Don't you want your backups to be absolute and safe from, say, virus or malware contamination if that were why you were having to restore in the first place.
However - Darn It! had I know that could have been a great thing to try.
But I must add: That's just stupid, in a way. So, Acronis's backup detects a bad sector. Actually copies it as a bad sector then marrily continues without telling me (perhaps I clicked a setting for that, ok ok) but later when it's time to restore it itself FAILS on something IT created and knows about and understands. it knows. Hey, right here, I wrote a bad sector, I know because I did it. So now that I'm bak here detecting it, I'm going to put up this window that gives the "Ignore" option and when my user clicks "Ignore" I'll do that and CONTINUE with the rest of the backup. Nope, Acronis recovery thinks "Ignore" means, "completely fail the recovery process entirely" - STILL STUPID!!! Acronis, come on!! Why doesn't your own dialog box work?
" I would not ever think that the TIB file was read/write capable. Seems dangerous. Don't you want your backups to be absolute and safe from, say, virus or malware contamination if that were why you were having to restore in the first place. "
I believe that is one of the reasons behind why Acronis removed this feature in TI 2015 and later versions.
I had a buttload of old jobs in the list. So I did a Task Zap and will start the scheduler from scratch. Thank you!
Hope it helps! Post back with results when you've had time to see if it made any difference.