Recovery
Naive me I have been dutifully backing up my hard drive for almost 5 years now with Acronis True Image 2014 Premium thinking I would need it someday. Well, the other night something happened after I left the backup going and when I tried to boot up the ole ASUS D550 next morning it would not boot. That launched me off into a never ending cycle of Windows saying essentially "We are going to fix your problem" and it taking forever to go from one step to the next and my finally realizing Windows was not going to do anything but run me around in circles.
Then I looked at my backups. I use differential. I had a full one a month ago on the last day of July and a differential one on August 20, 2019 and then apparently a corrupted one on 8/26/19 since it looked pretty small. That was the 5th one and then there should have been a full one but it looks like the full was done before the last differential or the dates and times are not consistent. Both of these occurred at the end of the process before the next morning of corruption. In any event the last two do not seem legit so that leaves me with a full and a differential about a week ago.
I would settle for recovering those but I get this strange message when I try to add the differential to the the backup list from my 1.8 TB backup drive. It says Failed to add the backup to the backup list. The backup may be locked or corrupted. Also make sure the folder contains the last volume of the backup, and does not contain a renamed copy of the same backup.
Gee, if this differential is corrupted then everyone I have ever made for the last 5 years has been.
I guess rather than depending upon backups with Acronis I will just rely on someone trying to recover the files from the hard drive when one fails because it appears Acronis just makes one feel secure until it is needed.
And I am not certain what the headphone symbol is on the contact support. It also got some other strange indications when I created an account but I do not have time to get into that.
M. Johnson
P.S.: I am having to use my wife's laptop so it is a little hard to get anything over to upload and I am trying to restore to an identical ASUS D550.
Yes, I am using ATI 2014 which says on the box PC Backup and Recovery. This is the only backup and recovery product I have ever had. I did not find any other forum to post on.
In trying to get into the forum I had to use my wife's PC and email address. Since I do not have any of my passwords or past history unbeknownst to me my main email was in the system and it would not let me do anything when I tried to use it. Then my serial number is in there too so that stalled me out trying to get any help. Then there was some message that said support had expired and it referenced the cloud which I have no idea what that was. It has been quite a challenge to get this far.
I was using an ASUS D550 and Windows 8.1. I was backing up to a Western Digital WD Elements 1.8TB drive. I have been doing the same thing for years and it appeared to have been working. I had the number of diffs before a full set to 5 and that seemed to work. I had been thinking, since I had another relatively new D550 I should recover to it and make certain things worked. I SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT!
Something happened on the evening of August 27, 2019 after I had left the backup running, as I usually have done. The next morning my PC would not boot. I do not know which came first - the backup process did something to the hard drive or the hard drive went down in the midst of backup. I got two strange files. One was a much small diff file than I expected, and it was maxed out at number ID 5, which is the number I had set to start another full, and one was a very small full which appeared to be the next full after 5 diffs.
Neither one look correct in size. My full runs about 217 GB and this set of diffs has been running at 13 GB. The full nor what looks like the last correct the diff, which is number 4, show up in the recovery list and when I try to bring the full in ATI gives the message I showed in my first post.
Failed to add the backup to the backup list. The backup may be locked or corrupted. Also make sure the folder contains the last volume of the backup, and does not contain a renamed copy of the same backup.
I have booted from a backup DVD I created years ago and tried to recover with its options and I get the same error message. I have copied the full and the diff to another Hitachi desktop drive to see if there was something about the WD ATI did not like. Same problem. I had read a post one time that said that might help. I may to a chkdsk /r and see if that helps. However, I can see the files.
I am not certain what UEFI is but I saw that in the bios when I changed for the PC to boot from the DVD.
One of the very annoying things I have noticed is when I actually can see all the files by opening the full is every time I try to copy something I get a popup which wants me to enter the file name. That appears to happen for every file I try to copy even when I am copying an entire folder. It really is insane looking. If I want to copy a large folder with 100s of files I would have to select the full backup every time. The window shows all the backup files and it already has the full selected so I have to just hit enter. I have copied a few single files but doing a host would be insane.
I can see all the folders but it would take a lifetime to copy them over.
I have another, identical ASUS 550 that I am trying to install the recovery files to and as I said I am using the boot DVD although at the point I am at it really makes no difference since I get the same message when I try to add the full to the recovery list.
I wish I had paid more attention to what was happening before all this happened.
If the issue is that neither Acronis running on Windows, or Acronis running from the recovery boot media can find a valid backup to restore (whether your last full or a combination of your last full and last valid differential), you are out of luck for a system restore.
The good thing is that you can open the backup, presumably with Windows Explorer? That would indicate the backup is not (utterly) corrupted.
You say it is a mess to copy the files out back using Windows Explorer because it asks you for file name for every file.
Did you try mounting the backup as a disk?
No, I have not tried the mounting business. I saw something about that but will have to read as to how to do it. The last full backup was back on the end of July and I have 4 diffs since then so I guess all of them have been corrupted, maybe for 5 years.
I am going to take my HD to some expert to see if they can extract something from it.
Pretty disappointing.
Several questions in addition to the points that Pat has made in his reply above.
Does your second 'identical' ASUS 550 have a working Windows 8.1 (or other version) operating system on it?
If yes, then please make a backup of that working computer before doing any further recovery attempts! Also, determine exactly how that copy of Windows boots from the BIOS settings, i.e. does it use a Legacy boot, or is it using UEFI?
See webpage: BIOS Mode - See if Windows Boot in UEFI or Legacy Mode
This is important and directs how the Acronis DVD or other rescue media needs to be booted using the same mode.
Next, how many backup chains from the failing ASUS 550 system do you have? A backup chain is a Full plus 5 x Differential backup files all using the same _b?_ identifier?
The pop-up prompts for locating files is normally given because Acronis is looking for files which are not present, i.e. you only have the Full plus 1 Differential when it is expecting to see 5 diffs.
You can try doing a Validation for the backup chain to see if that will be successful.
If you recover the backup from Asus 550 #1 system to Asus 550 #2 system, then you may also need to use Acronis Universal Restore given you are using an older version of Windows - this is because some of the components in the second Asus may be different to those in the original.
With regards to the failure on the old Asus, you should try to check if the disk drive has failed and if an option, change out that disk drive and replace by a new one of a similar size.
Ok. I will have to absorb all of this. First, I have ATI 2014 running on W10. That is what is on the new D550. The full and 5 diffs, the last one looks like it did not finish, were run using ATI 2014 running on W8.1. It almost looks like the backup restarted because the 5th diff is not large enough and the next one was a small full.
Here is what I am confused by. I thought I could recover with the full or the full with any of the what appear to be 4 good diffs. It confuses me why a full needs a diff and why it could not be recovered by itself. I have a 4th diff that was made about a week ago and it looks about the right size. However, without the full nothing works.
Also, when trying to mount the full backup I get a corrupted error and there is no such thing in the menu for booting from the backup DVD I made years ago.
I guess I will try to find an old W8.1 disk and see if I can put it on the D550 and then install ATI 2014. Maybe there is some problem with having made a backup with W8.1 and then running 2014 on W10. However, I would have thought the backup DVD would have worked.
The original Western Digital 1.8 TB disk used for the backups shows in the W10 disk manager to be an NTFS and healthy.
Does one have to have all 5 diffs to recover from one full if one is satisfied with the state of the machine at the time of full backup?
I think I am a cooked goose unless a miracle happens. Wish I knew then what I know now!
A few things to build on Steve's comment. A differential is always linked to a specific full as part of a chain. If the full is corrupted or missing, the differential will fail validation and recovery.
If a chain is corrupted, it could be the full or the differential or both that are corrupted. A differential is correctly linked to a full, you should be able to open it with Windows explorer and browse it. If you can't, but you can open the full, you know the differential is corrupted. If you can open the differential it is a good sign you can extract files despite the validation failing.
Same situation if you try to restore the full or the differential from ATI running in windows and that fails. If you cannot restore either the full or the differential (linked to the full), then the next step is to try to recover from the recovery media. If that fails also, you can try to move the backup files to another disk and recover from that other disk. If that fails again, you won't be able to recover. Then the alternatives are either extracting the files from Windows explorer, or mounting the backup files. Trying the full, then the differential.
If none of this works, you are out of options.
Here is what I am confused by. I thought I could recover with the full or the full with any of the what appear to be 4 good diffs. It confuses me why a full needs a diff and why it could not be recovered by itself. I have a 4th diff that was made about a week ago and it looks about the right size. However, without the full nothing works.
You should be able to recover your system using any full backup or from a differential backup along with the matching full backup it was based on.
When you are working with ATI in Windows, then Acronis can start trying to find other files that belong to the same backup chain (_b?_ value in the file names) but this should not prevent you from doing a recovery when using the bootable Rescue Media.
A differential backup file without a matching full backup that was used as a base is of no value and cannot be used.
First, I have ATI 2014 running on W10. That is what is on the new D550.
The combination of ATI 2014 running on Windows 10 is untested by Acronis as W10 did not exist when 2014 was released. The earliest test version of ATI with W10 was 2015. That is not to say it doesn't work as I had the same combination some years back on my mum's PC.
Also, when trying to mount the full backup I get a corrupted error and there is no such thing in the menu for booting from the backup DVD I made years ago
Not sure what you mean by the backup DVD in this context? If this is the Acronis Rescue DVD then you have to boot this via the BIOS boot menu options, and this in turn needs to match how your Windows OS boots.
I guess I will try to find an old W8.1 disk and see if I can put it on the D550 and then install ATI 2014. Maybe there is some problem with having made a backup with W8.1 and then running 2014 on W10. However, I would have thought the backup DVD would have worked.
The Windows OS used when creating a backup image file doesn't matter here. The ATI rescue DVD or USB stick contains its own OS for booting from - with ATI 2014 this is a small Linux OS on the DVD.
Does one have to have all 5 diffs to recover from one full if one is satisfied with the state of the machine at the time of full backup?
You should only need a pair of matching Full and Differential files with the same _b?_ identifier.
Ok. Here is what I have. The original ATI 2014 CD installation disk which is bootable but does not have the make a backup pib into a mountable image file. An homemade, what I thought was bootable CD which I made but may not have made it bootable. I can see files on it but nothing that looks executable.
The installed 2014 does not like the full backup. With that backup I have 2, 3, 4, and what appears to be a corrupted 5. I put 4 and the full on a PC hard drive by themselves and 2014 still does not like the full.
2014 on W10 does not like the full when I try to make an image.
So, like I said I am going to try to find a W8.1 and get back to that configuration and see what 2014 says about the full and making an image file.
When I set the bios to let the 2014 CD boot first, and I was calling that a DVD but it is a CD, then it says it is UEFI or refers to that terminology.
When I try to mount an image using 2014 in W10 I get a message that says
Cannot initialize Backup Archive Explorer, Please reinstall True Image. Please contact Acronis support ......Clicking Details puts the details on the clipboard. I doubt if there is anything useful there. If I ignore the message and I am using the full that I wanted to use it says it is corrupted. If I pick a backup that is in the acceptable list then I get Cannot assign a drive letter to a partition from a backup archive.
So, as I said I am going to try to get W8.1 on the D550 and install 2014 and try everything again. And I am going to try to get some useful info off the drive. And I can get some files ones at a time off the backup.
Bye
If you are able to sign in to your Acronis account on the main acronis.com webpage, you can download an ISO image of the default Linux Rescue Media that you can burn to a new CD or DVD then try using that media to boot into the recovery environment.
Hopefully the rescue media gives you a better option for recovery once you grab it from your online account! If you have an original full backup (and it's not actually corrupted), the rescue media should at least allow you to restore the full since it has no dependencies and, if you can do that, then you can go back and try a differential after that to try and get a more current restore.
Now for the bad news - and it's not to shame you or anything like, but to point out something that may have prevented this and allowed for better restoration. We see these scenarios in the forums more than I'd like too and it needs to be a reminder to others who are probably doing the same thing.
#01
Although it appears that you were able to install True Image 2014 on Windows 10, and although it appears to be capable of running (seemingly OK all this time), it is not supported. True Image 2014 is supported only up to Windows 8.1
https://kb.acronis.com/content/44112
Unfortunately, Windows 10 came out after 2014 and Windows 10 keeps going through major iterations that have drastically changed the features, security and services in the background. Every major update of Windows 10 is another chance for something to break with older software that is heavily tied to the supporting files and background services of the OS. Seeing as how backups are usually for important data, making sure they are compatible with the current OS is something that shouldn't be taken likely... even if it seems like it's working, but especially if you've never tried to restore from it to verify before a major issues creeps up.
#02
Never wait for an emergency to test a recovery. That's the worst time to find out something isn't working. I would recommend that you test recoveries to a different / old (or new) test disk from time to time. This will help verify that the backup is not only good, but that you can also successfully restore it. By using a different disk, other than the original, you can just remove the original, replace it with the test disk and restore to it and see if the restore boots up. Then, you can return the original back and boot it like nothing happened. Using this approach, not only truly validates your backup and ability to successfully recover, but it keeps the original disk out of the equation so that you don't accidentally compromise a currently working disk with the original data.
#03
No software is full proof - not Windows OS, not backup software, not anything. It's software and it interacts with other software (some of it could be malware, bad OS patches, who knows). Or, it could be impacted by failing hardware (sudden shutdown or a failing/failed disk) that corrupts the data on it. A recommended (and IT industry standard) is the golden rule of 3-2-1. If the data is worth backing up in the first place, it should be worth having some different recovery options too. A single disk with backups on it, is just as likely to fail as a disk with the original data... especially if they are in the same system, or connected together. (What if a power outage takes your original disk and your backup disk out at the same time, or a fire, flood, theft, etc.)?
I understand. My plan was never to use W10 but was forced into it because something caused my W8.1 ASUS D550 to go south during a backup in the middle of the night.
The machine I had for a backup was another D550 with W10. So I am going to try to go back to W8.1 on it and see if my full from a month ago and my diff from a week ago will get me going again.
If not, whatever has caused the bad full file message happened a month ago on the W8.1 machine. I was never using 2014 for backups with W10. All the fulls and diffs were made with W8.1.
So, if I ever get any semblance of recovery I will have learned my lesson and the thought did cross my mind only a few days ago I needed to use the backup files and try to get the W10 machine identical to the W8.1 machine. But, I never got around to it.