How to restore my drive and how to exclude folders from backups
I have the following three partitions on the drive that was backed up:
Partition, Capacity, File System,Type, Status
*, 128MB, Other, GPT(Reserved Partition), None
*, 100MB, FAT32, GPT(EFI System Partition), Active & System
C:, 931.29GB, NTFS, GPT(Data Partition), Boot
The 128MB partition is “hidden” and does not appear in Windows Disk Management. It appears when using partition management software.
I have a full disk backup of the above drive made by ATI 2019 (using the bootable media version), that contains the following partitions.
(Disk 1)
Partition, Flag, Capacity, Used Space, Type
NTFS(Unlabeled), Pri, 931.36GB, 68.56GB, NTFS
Track 0,,,,Track 0
EFI System Partition, Pri, 100MB, 12.81MB, FAT32
Here are my questions:
1. When restoring the drive from the backup, if I select “Disk 1,” it selects all 3 partitions including “Track 0” If I want to restore the entire disk, should I select “Disk 1” and then just let it restore including all three partitions including Track 0?
2. When I created the backup, I specified several folders to exclude. In the exclusions (in options) I included the paths of the folders I wanted to exclude in the following form:
C:\ExcludeThisFolder&Subfolders\*.*
But it did not work. The folders and their subfolders were included in the backup. To be sure this is true and they were actually there, I restored a few of the files in those folders and they did restore. So I know they were not excluded.
How can I exclude folders and subfolders from these backups?
Thank you!
I believe that navigating to the folder is the best method too. Any sub folders or files in it should be excluded by default
If you type in a path, it needs to be exact... Down to the letter capitalization (or not).
Thank you Steve and Bobbo!
I made the backup running ATI from bootable media. Is there a navigation control for selecting folders to exclude on that version? I was looking for it, but didn't see one, so I put the paths in manually and I could see that they were added to the exclusion list.
Okay, so I don't need the *.* in order for subfolders to be included in the exclusion. Good to know.
How does ATI distinguish between excluding subfolders and not excluding subfolders? Is it whether or not there is a "\" at the end of the path?
I don't think there are any bad sectors on the disk (at least not unmarked ones) and I did not use sector-by-sector mode. I'm pretty sure I wrote the paths correctly, but of course I don't know if the "C" in "C:\" is case sensitive or not (I used upper case). Other than that, and the fact that I put the *.* at the end when it apparently is not needed, I don't think I got them wrong.
Didn't see a navigator in the exclusion dialog. Maybe I missed it?
Ryan, sorry my comments were based on backups created by the Windows ATI GUI application where it does offer the methods suggested.
For the rescue media, everything is 100% manual in terms of configuring exclusions, so you will need to use the same path format as shown by selecting those folders in the Windows GUI, i.e. give the path as shown for the drive letter where the OS is located in the rescue media environment, which may not be drive C:..!
There is a warning with all rescue media that drive letters may be different to those shown when booted into Windows, so take care to get the correct drive letter for your exclusions.
Thank you Steve. Sorry, but I am confused.
When I see the backup step called "Partitions to backup," it shows me the following:
Disk 1
NTFS Unlabeled (C:)
EFEI System Partition
Disk 2
NTFS Unlabeled (D:)
Disk 3
FAT32 ACRONIS_MED (E:)
So Disk 1 is the disk that will be backed up into the .tib file (the source). Disk 2 is where the .tib file will be stored (the target), and Disk 3 is the disk from which ATI is running.
Suppose I want to exclude the folder "myfolder" , which is a folder that appears in the file system on Disk 1, and also exclude all of its subfolders, from the backup.
Exactly what is path should I put in the exclusion list?
Should it be C:\myfolder\
Should it be D:\myfolder\
Should it be something else?
Where in the backup process do I see which drive letter to use for the exclusion path?
Ryan, if your OS drive shows as drive C: when booted in the rescue media environment, then any exclusions should be in the form of C:\myfolder\
If you use the MVP Custom ATIPE version of the rescue media then you have a lot more features than provided in the standard Acronis media, including a File manager, web browser, etc which I find very useful to verify that I am picking the correct drive letters. I also give all my drives / partitions obvious labels to make them easy to recognise.
"MVP ATIPEBuilder is essentially a batch script tool designed by MVP's: Bobbo_3C0X1 and Mustang, with collaboration from Steve Smith and Enchantech and testing by other MVP's. "
Impressive!
Thank you Steve.
It appears that I got the drive designation correct when I made the full backup. The only thing I did differently is that I specified C:\myfolder\*.* instead of C:\myfolder\
So I can only assume that the addition of the *.* in the path is the reason that folder and its subfolders was NOT excluded as I had expected.
Ryan, I only rarely do offline backups using the rescue media and then it is normally a full disk backup with no exclusions with the exception of just 3 specific files (pagefile.sys, hiberfil.sys and swapfile.sys). So have not played with excluding folders other than in the Windows ATI GUI backups.
Same for me. I haven't really tested exclusions of disks/partition backups with offline rescue media. However, my guess, is that you just want to use the folder, a direct file name, or a file extension. And since you want to exclude a folder, it probably should be just that folder path (but may still be case sensitive). The plus sign info below won't relate here, but based on this note, it looks like it should just be that folder path - if it's similar in the rescue media too.
https://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2019/#3488.html
- To exclude a folder from a disk-level backup, click the plus sign, click the ellipsis button, go to the directory tree and select the folder you want to exclude, and then click OK.
Thank you Bobbo. It's a little frustrating that the manual doesn't give even a little more information about excluding folders. Not much is needed. Maybe just one sentence to clarify.
For example it shows the folder exclusions in the format "C:\folder1\folder2"
But I don't see where it mentions if that excludes subfolders. So if you specify C:\folder1, is folder2 also excluded? I would guess so, but that's just a guess.
And does it make any difference if the there is a backslash at the end such as C:\folder1\folder2\ ? Does that do anything different or work at all?
Is there some way to specify if you want or don't want the subfolders to be excluded for each entry. I don't think so but In some cases you might not want subfolders excluded.
Guess I'm just going to have to use some trial and error.
Ryan, looking back at the user guides for older versions of ATI I have found the following more complete explanation of how exclusions work!
Excluding items from backup
If you want to exclude unnecessary files from a backup, specify the appropriate file types in the File Exclusion window.
To exclude files, click What to exclude in the Disk Backup, File Backup or Nonstop Backup window.
You can exclude hidden and system files from a backup by selecting the corresponding check boxes.
In addition, you can exclude files meeting the criteria you specify. To do this, select the Files matching the following criteria check box, enter the exclusion criterion, and then click Add.
By default, the program excludes from backups files with the following extensions: .~, .tmp, and .tib.
You can enter explicit file names for exclusion from the backup:
file.ext - all such files will be excluded from the backup.
C:\file.ext- the file.ext file on the C: disk will be excluded.
You can also use wildcards:
*.ext - all files with a .ext extension will be excluded.
C:\*.ext - files located in the root of partition C with a .ext extension will be excluded.
f_name.* - files named f_name with any extension will be excluded.
??name.ext - all files with a .ext extension, having six letters in their names (starting with any two symbols (??) and ending with name), will be excluded.
To delete a criterion, for example, added by mistake, click the Delete icon to the right of the criterion.
To cancel changes in the items to be excluded, click Cancel.
After you make changes in the items to be excluded, click OK to confirm the changes and exit from the File Exclusion window.
In an even earlier guide for ATI 2010guide for ATI 2010
9.3.5 Selecting what to exclude
This step will be present only for the Disk and Partition Backup and My Data backup types. It enables you to exclude unnecessary files from your backup in case you just want to exclude certain file types without creating custom categories.You can exclude hidden or system files and folders, as well as files matching the criteria you specify. You can add your own criteria by clicking Add. While adding criteria, you can use the common Windows wildcard characters and type several criteria in the same line separating them by semicolons.
For example, to exclude all files with .gif and .bmp extensions, you may type *.gif;*.bmp.
One more thing – if, for example, you want to exclude all the files with the name of test regardless of their extension, you should specify exclusion criteria such as test.*, otherwise those files will not be excluded.
You can also specify the path to a folder to be excluded, for example,
C:\Program Files\Common Files\.
Note that the path must end with the "\" symbol, otherwise the folder will not be excluded.9.4.1.1 What to exclude
By default, the program excludes files with the following extensions from backups: .~, .tmp, and .tib.
You can also set other default filters for file exclusion, for example, you may want hidden and system files and folders not to be stored in the backup archives as well.In addition, you can apply your own filters using the common Windows wildcard characters. For
example, to exclude all files with extension .exe, add *.exe mask. My???.exe will exclude all .exe files with names consisting of five symbols and starting with "my".
The standalone / offline rescue media uses a much older ATI interface, hence the above information should pertain to that environment.
Thank you for taking the time to research this Steve.
Unfortunately, what you came across makes things even more ambiguous.
From the information you posted from guide for ATI 2010guide for ATI 2010.
You can also specify the path to a folder to be excluded, for example,
C:\Program Files\Common Files\.
Note that the path must end with the "\" symbol, otherwise the folder will not be excluded.
But if you look at the screenshot showing excluded files in ATI2019_userguide_en-US it shows a screenshot that does NOT include the "\" symbol at the end of the excluded folder path.
ATI2019 User Guide Excluded Folders
So the instructions in the 2010 user guide does not appear consistent with the examples in the 2019 user guide.
I think the only way I will find an answer to this is trial and error.
Thank you for taking the time to research this Steve.
Unfortunately, what you came across makes things even more ambiguous.
From the information you posted from guide for ATI 2010guide for ATI 2010.
You can also specify the path to a folder to be excluded, for example,
C:\Program Files\Common Files\.
Note that the path must end with the "\" symbol, otherwise the folder will not be excluded.
But if you look at the screenshot showing excluded files in ATI2019_userguide_en-US it shows a screenshot that does NOT include the "\" symbol at the end of the excluded folder path.
ATI2019 User Guide Excluded Folders
So the instructions in the 2010 user guide does not appear consistent with the examples in the 2019 user guide.
I think the only way I will find an answer to this is trial and error.
Yeah, the exclusions could use a bit updating to be clearer.
I've just been using the exclusions in Windows and they seem to be registering. In the Windows app, you don't need to have any slashes at the end. It does look like any subfolders will be excluded by default too. And if you want to exclude a range of folders you can still use an asterisk. For example, this is in my current settings, and works for all local profiles with the wildcard where other names would normally be listed if you actually navigated to the path.
C:\Users\profilename\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\*\OfflineCache
I'm not sure if it likes or allows *.*