re:- MaxBlast software.
Hello,
My apologies if I am posting in the incorrect forum. My question refers to problems creating back ups with Maxtor MaxBlast which I believe is a pared down version of Acronis.
I have posted on the Maxtor forums but I suspect they are not very busy so am not holding my breath...
I have two Maxtor hard drives in my Dell Dimension 9150, these show up as the C drive and the F drive, C being the main drive. I recently installed the F drive with the intention of using it to make regular back ups.
Device Manager lists the drives as follows:-
C drive Maxtor 7L250S0
F drive Maxtor 6L300S0
I formatted the F drive and have made a few back ups but am not convinced that they are OK.
Approximately 19 Gb of my C drive is used and when I make back ups they appear to be ~10Gb, I understand that the back ups are compressed so presumably the sizes are OK.
My concern is that I made one back up on the 26th October which is ~236 Gb in size, it has a .tib suffix and is marked as a Maxtor MaxBlast BackUp Archive.
On the 31st October I backed up and the back up file is correctly called a .tib - but is ~10 Gb in size....
I have also made a couple of other back ups which appear to be of the correct size BUT are not shown as .tib files - merely as files.
I've no recollection of changing any settings, so which back(s) is correct - and why the different kinds ?
Whilst Explorer sees all the supposed backups on the F drive MaxBlast only sees the .tib files. so the back ups which it created (reported as succesfully) are presumably not useable...
Anyone with any ideas please?
Thanks,
John
Yes the validation function is present.
The software doesn't 'see' the files that have no .tib suffix - although at the time it told me that it had backed up succesfully...
SO, I now have two .tib files and they both verify or validate correctly BUT one is ~10Gb in size whilst the other is ~225Gb in size.
The version of MaxBlast is 5 (build 8,145) and yes I am backing (well attempting to!) from the C to the F drive.
Thank You for your input.
The files without a tib extension aren't usable files, you can delete those. The giant 236gb is a backup but it can't be right if the source is only 19gb.
Try to mount or explorer the giant one using windows explorer, right click it and slectd mount or if that doesn't work, just double click it and it should open up like a read only dirve. Then you can see what the heck is in it. I think you can probably delete it.
Probalby a wonck inthe ati database or one tf the enteries it makes in the windows registry.
Try delete the task and recreating it and a run a backup and see if that clears things up. f you want ot keep the good, normal sized tibs, copy them to another direcftory before you delete the tasks.
Both .tib files 'appear' to have the same contents, maybe the small one has just data whilst the big one is essentially a full copy of the disc - space included - that would account for the size...
I'm intrigued as to why I suddenly can't make .tib copies of my C drive although the software tells me I've succesfully copied the C to the F. MaxBlast is not very configurable, lots of the options being greyed out and I've no recollection of changing anything - I just accept the offered settings.
Not too sure I understand your last para. I may uninstall MaxBlast and reinstall and see if that makes any difference.
Appreciate your time and assistance.
Tried to make a back up again this morning. This time it didn't ask me to name the file but called it 'my image.tib' and proceeded to make what appears to be a good back up.
I've changed nothing but now it seems to work...
My intention is to manually make a back up about once a week, deleting old ones. I may purchase a copy of Acronis once I'm convinced this works reliably, that should enable me to make automatic back ups and just back up changes.
You can edit the name when setting up the backup. Sounds like the giant backup might have been sector by sector.
Let us know how things progress.
Just a quick follow up.
I deleted the big file.
This morning I made 2 back ups. One appears ok being listed as a Backup Archive whilst the second one merely showed up in Explorer as a file. MaxBlast 'always' says that a succesful back up has been created, this can give a false sense of security - it's obviously important to check that the back up is actually a .tib file.
I'm concerned that this software behaves like this for no 'apparent' reason. It will sometimes offer a name for the backup archive whilst at other times it expects the user to offer a name. I'll keep an eye on it and if anything obvious appears I'll post. Meanwhile thanks for all your help.
Incidentally I'm running a Dell Dimension 9150 with MS XP Pro with all the updates.
John
If you're going to a Backup Location from within a task, I recall that it wants to impose a name when you set up the task; afterwards running the task will use that same name; otherwise, you can name whatever you want, within normal ntfs file naming conventions. This is one of the benefits of the newer database method.
There is a temproary file created while a backup is being made but it's supposed to get deleted when the backup finishes. alsthoughI'd expect the temp files to be located elsewhere. I don't have direct experience with the maxblast version. Anyway, those non tib files being left behind are not normal behavior. Maybe one of the other MVPs can jump in here with some suggestions.
If you try to install again, do you get a choice to do a repair install? if so, that might be worth a try.
Well MaxBlast has been behaving itself for the last couple of days...
The only thing that I've done is to stop running a registry cleaner and unticked Acronis True Image in CCleaner.
Will keep an eye on things and report back in a few days.
John
ATI does use registry entries to operate and some of those entries might have empty values when the program is not running, which would make some reg cleaners flag them for deletion as unused.
Registry cleaners, at least some of them, can be total disasters just waiting to happen. There are a lot of software products, including Mickeysoft's own, that rely on registry key entries that some registry cleaners and "optimizers" tend to classify as broken and/or unconnected to CLSIDs. That's especially true for relatively new software installs prior to extended usage.
Quite often, the reg keys that programs leave empty are keys that they, if deleted, the programs will simply recreate when they run. But that's not always the case and that's where reg cleaning can get messy.
As a rule, imo, the simpler reg cleaners are the best from this standpoint. I've used ccleaner (a free reg cleaner), set at the default settings, for years and never had a problem with it related to ati or anything else for that matter. Some other cleaners will be much more aggressive and it's the aggressiveness that tends to get one into trouble. E.g., I also use jv16, which can be set to be mild or terribly agressive and it'a handy for special purposes-- but for simple day-in day-out cut down on the muck-- I favor the simple cleaners.
Agreed. Seems like the more "automated" ones are the most likely to get overly enthusiastic in their "registry optimization" efforts. Haven't used one myself for years since experiencing a few such issues in the past; so can't really comment on specific current versions.