TI2010.6053 Overwrites Full Backups When Configured Not To Overwrite!

ddk wrote:

Well as a simple workaround, I think rho's idea is great. A simple command to move the files from a temporary dir.

Thank you from me too, rho. I'm a newcomer to ATI (any imaging software, in fact) and the overwrite problem was a bit of a showstopper for me. I had tried a modified version of Grover's batch file to rename the archives, but wasn't completely happy with it. (No disrespect meant, Grover, I just found it confusing that though the .tibs renamed fine, the internal image file didn't.) rho's idea is simple and works beautifully for me.

@ Gary Pyatt and Fearless: do give it a try! All you need to do is create a temp folder, then edit your task to have ATI make the archive in there and then immediately move it, with the post command, to the folder where you really want to keep it. Next time you do a backup, the temp folder is empty, so there is nothing for ATI to overwrite.

I hope a fix will be coming out soon, but in the meantime this has solved the problem for me. Thanks again, rho.

I too have this problem of a Full-Backup being overwritten (both for scheduled and for unscheduled backups) with build 6053.

My new PC has never seen any other ATI version or ATI build.

It does not contribute to the reputation of ATI, when single things like that do not work.

Hopefully we will soon get the promised "Update 2"; and lets hope, that this Update will not introduce new errors.

Regarding chain2gen: I admire those who volonteered to make chain2gen available to all of us. But for me, it is out of question to implement on my PC something like chain2gen if it is not fully supported and documented by Acronis. When encountering problems, I will often not be able to understand and determine whether it is an ATI bug or a chain2gen bug; and when encountering problems, I will often not be able to understand the effects of chain2gen on the symptoms that I am seeing.

I too have this problem. I created a new post before I realised this on existed, see
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/7737

However, its not the only problem with the "Backup Methods", as I note in my posts. In addition when using Incremental backups and set the number of increments, before a new full bckup, to 7 (i.e. a week) I only get 5 increments!

Anyone else see this?

Thanks, Jim

Robert,
Each user wants changes to TrueImage--the forum wish list if full. Manipulation of backup via batch files goes back to prior than Version 9. Each new change brings new issues. If you want to maintain a series of backups, I would suggest that you re-consider and try using Chain2Gen.

oracledba's Chain2Gen serves one purpose and that is to be a helper program for TrueImage.

TrueImage creates the backups based on the frequency specified by the user. C2G assists by forcing TI to create a full image on the days specified by the user and to help maintain whatever number of backup archives the user has specified. C2G simply gives the user controls which are missing from TrueImage and these controls are available now without waiting for something which many never materialize from Acronis.

As for support, if you examine some of the forum postings, I believe you will have to agree that the support offered on this forum by Acronis is sparse and usually tardy. Any difficulty with C2G has had very prompt support. Many of the recent changes have been option improvements with only a rare bug--which have been promptly fixed.

This aging senior citizen finds C2G very easy to use and I think you will too.

James,
An easy alternative solution is the Chain2Gen helper program.

James Hunt wrote:

..... However, its not the only problem with the "Backup Methods", as I note in my posts. In addition when using Incremental backups and set the number of increments, before a new full bckup, to 7 (i.e. a week) I only get 5 increments!

Anyone else see this?

Thanks, Jim

Jim, previously I also encountered (and reported in this forum - I will need to find out in ewhich thread) similar problems.

Now, I do not encounter them anymore.

Unfortunately I do not understand why I encountered them and why I do not encounter them anymore.

It could perhaps be, that on my PC the problem happened
- because I had edited/changed the definitions of my backup task (I believe that I read, that ATI has problems when the user changes some of his definitions)
- or, because I had first cloned a task and then changed the definitions of the clone.

Sorry for not being of a better help. But I wanted at least let you know, that you are not the only-one encountering similar problems.

James
Thank You for Your Post and for your kind words. I will think about what you write. I have however the impression, that if ATI would work as described, without bugs, I would have nearly no use for Chain2Gen.

At this time, I am struggling with strange problems. Backups are just disappearing from the main "Recovery" Window of ATI Home 2010...but the Backup Files still exist.

This time too, I have the impression that the problem could be related to the cloning of Backup-Tasks.

This other aging citizen is currently exhausted and need to go to sleep.

Kind regards
Robert

Thanks for that Robert, it is comforting to know that something isn't only happening to oneself!

And I think you may havebeen more help than you thought. Now you come to mention it I have noticed "strange" things happening after I have edited a task, but I put them down to my mistake or at least something I had done wrong.

Know I know what I want the task to look like, via trail and error, I shall recreate the task from scratch to see if it rectifies the problem. Unfortunately we wont know for 7 days, but its worth investigating at least.

Thanks again for you comments.

Cheers, Jim

Acr5onis keeps a data base somewhere and if you delete a backup from explore or my computer then I do not believe it will be reflected in ATI. You need to go to recovery and delete within ATI. There may also be problems, my home screen and calendar do not reflect what is really there and what happened. You will find an earlier post of the batch file I run. I believe that is what causes my home screen problem with the calendar screwed up and doesn't really reflect what happened. I just ignore it and browse to the backup, look at size, look at log and once in awhile do a verify.

I posted this elsewhere:

I setup my backup setup so it would do a full backup on Monday and differential tuesday to thursday, then full backup on Friday.

It would regularly get confused on Tuesday and moan it couldn't find the Monday backup, which was clearly in the same directory. Then most times, the tuesday backup would overwrite the monday backup but would then do differential for the rest of the week fine. Some weeks it would run fine, but most of the time I had the above issues.

I've just put the latest patch on making it build 6,053. On a virtual machine in VMWare Workstation. Ran a full backup yesterday, then got it to do the differential of that full backup today. And low and behold, it STILL insists on overwriting the main full backup.

It seems like even the backup solution in Acronis is in a total mess.

So yeah, think I'll ditch Acronis now and go elsewhere. Shame as I liked the scheduler now options in the tasks and normally recommend this product to people. Not anymore. True Image 10 was nice, if only it worked on Windows 7 64 :(

It's also annoying you can't STILL export tasks that you setup.

Just a quick update...

I didn't recreate the Backup Job, for one reason or another, and have just let it run for the last 7 days. I now have 1 full backup and 7 increments. At the moment it seems as if the 1st set of backup and 5 increments was a blip. Tonight will be the proof of the pudding! If indeed it does work, then at least it has shown me that I to have a cyle of 1 week, then I need to set it, reasonably enough, to 6 increments and not seven.

Cheers, Jim

I think this forum needs a "delete" function for when a post is submitted unintentionally, as this one was and seems too easy to do!!!!

ddk wrote:

Edit: aha. looks like command line must be enclosed in quotes if paramaters line has quotes. Appears to affect Test button only as it actually worked either way when the job was run.
Thanks rho, this works nicely for me.

Sorry to ask such a dumb question: but I have unfortunately not the slightest understanding of cmd.exe, of what the "command line" is, of what the "parameters" are, and where the "quotes" are supposed to be.

In my particular case, I would like to move with cmd.exe the .tib file from
E:\Backups of Brack on IomT15\Current Tib
to
E:\Backups of Brack on IomT15

Could someone show me ***exactly*** what I must enter to make it work? With my lack of knoweledge, I tried half an hour... without any success.

Thanks a lot in advance

Robert
You need to edit your TI task/job:

1. select Backup Options, Pre/Post Commands.
2. select Use Custom Commands
3. look for the line After Backup Process. It should have an Edit button at the end of that line. If you can't see it, then maximize the window. Click the Edit button.
4. Fill the 3 textboxes listed here exactly (after colon on each line):
Command:"cmd.exe"
Working Dir:
Arguments:/c move "E:\Backups of Brack on IomT15\Current Tib\*.*" "E:\Backups of Brack on IomT15"
5. Tick "Do not perform operations etc"
6. Tick "Abort the operation etc"

If you have some files in your Current Tib dir, click on the Test button and you should see them get moved.
If they moved ok, its working, just click Ok then Proceed to save your changes (which will now take place at the end of that backup job each time it is run.
If they didn't move and/or you got a dialog stating an error, then check again that you have entered the commands exactly as I listed, quotes where I put them etc.

Cheers

ddk,

a GREAT Thank You! Thanks to your help, it now works also for me.

And of couse also a Thank You to Rho, for having posted a while ago the "work around".
-----

While testing the command within ATI by clicking on the "Test" button, I observed what seems to me (=a naive non-specialist) a quite undesirable behavior of ATI:
1) Some times the "move" command failed, but ATI nevertheless reported a successfull execution of the command. I guess (without being sure at all), that this could be perhaps a) because "Windows Explorer" was showing me in another Window the content of the "Current Tib" subfolder (this was the subfolder whose content I wanted to move) or b) because I had perhaps misspelled the folder name.

I understand, that in these (or in similar) situations the move can not complete because of a/my "user error". But it is normal, that ATI nevertheless reports a successfull command execution?

Do you believe that I shall report this to Acronis as a problem that should get fixed? Or, based on your technical understanding, do you think that a reasonably simple solution is not possible?

2) some other times, ATI reported to me, that the command failed. But I did not understand, where I could find a description of the reason of the failure.

Does it make sense that I report this to Acronis as a problem, that should get fixed? Or do you think that a reasonably simple solution is not possible?

In my concrete case (= a "Move"): where should I have looked for a description of the reason of the failure?

The combination of ATI Backup run and post Command is doing what it is supposed to do.

....But..... I was not able to use for a recovery the .tib file that has been moved by the "Post" command.

a) In the main "Recovery"/"Data Recovery and Backup Management" Window of ATI that lists all available backups, I am not able to find the backups that I moved with the Post Command.

b) Therefore, in the "Recovery"/"Data Recovery and Backup Management" Window, I used the "Browse for backup" function in order to direct ATI to look for the backup within the folder where the Post-Command moved it.

This too did not help. I was not able to direct ATI to find and then import into the list of available backups the .tib files that are still physically stored there within the Windows File system.

Did anybody observed something similar?

The disk used to store the two Backups (a File/Folder Backup and a System Image Backup) that i first created and then moved with a Post Command is an ***external*** USB2.0 disk.

----
Details about my environment:
I am using Windows 7, Ultimate, 64 bit, german language version (a clean install - W7 was ptre_installed on my new PC).

I am using ATI Home 2010, Build 6'053. My PC has never seen any other version/build of ATI.

-------
Its possible (I do not remember anymore sufficiently precisely), that after the creation of the two backup files, because originally the Main "Recovery" Window of ATI was not identifying correctly the location of the Backup files (thats normal, because I had moved them via Post Command!), I decided to remove/delete them.

But they still exist within the windows File System. I tought that with a "Browse for Backup" (see item b) above), ATI should really be able to find them and "import" them into its main "Recovery" Window...but this is not the case.

What can I do to be able to use for the purpose of a Recovery the two Backup .tib files that I haved been moved via the Post-Command support?

I tried to move them back "manually" (=with Windows Explorer) to their original subfolder . This did not help. Even by using "Brwose for Backup", I could not make ATI aware of them in its "Data Recovery and Backup Management" Window.

Also a reboot did not help.

I guess, that the Metadata pseudo-database of ATI is after all the bugs that I have encountered in poor shape.

Even if this requires that I redo the installation and customization of all Software that I installed on my new PC after the installation of ATI: I will restore my PC to the state prior to the ATI installation. And I will forget ATI for a while. ATI Home 2010 has just too many bugs and I can really not use ATI Home 2010 for "backing up in confidence".

This is a pitty, because I have invested in good faith an incredible amount of time in ATI Home 2010.

Hoping that others ATI users will be more lucky than me.

I'm one of those "users" that uses. I have been satisfied with all of the TI Utilities until ATI2010+.6053. Because of the delete/overwrite problem, which as of 2/27/2010 has NOT been fixed I have spent at least 3 days rebuilding the software on my computer simply because all of my previous backups are gone and the only one I have has the problem in it. I'm very surprised that if Acronis is aware of the problem that they haven't fixed it. I'm not a programmer and have no idea what is involved but it seems like the option to overwrite or not should be simple enough to fix. Since I can't help any of you guys with my knowledge (or lack thereof) perhaps Acronis will see this and step up the Support... which BTW, I haven't even been able to find out where to submit my problem. cj

After benefitting from this (and the Wilder's) forum for several versions, I thought I'd offer my two cents worth. I use Win 7 Ultimate, and share the overwrite problem. I hope my workaround doesn't insult the intelligence of the pro's out there, but here goes:

In my Image backup folder, I made 5 subfolders, labelled 1_First_Sunday, 2_Second_Sunday, ...... 5_Last_Sunday. Then I created/cloned five Full Imaging tasks to put images in these folders, scheduled to run on the first Sunday, second Sunday, etc. Since the Last Sunday is often the Fourth Sunday, I set it to run an hour differently than the others, to avoid conflicts. This hopefully will give me a month of rotating full images.

I used an identical strategy to run File backups weekly, one on Sunday, one on Monday, etc.

Anyone try this? Any tricks to improve it? I'll pass on my experience.

Hi Cat58,
Since you are new to this particular forum, the program Chain2Gen is a real gem and it will do what you want and more. You already have the task creation mostly completed. Check posting #54 above. MudCrab also has a program which will notify you when to attach your external drive--if you use externals for backup.

Robert Eckerlin,
One possibility. Go browsing again for your missing archive in the Recovery module but look really careful. There are columns hidden off to the right margin and you must scroll laterally to find them, it is quite easy to miss. Using the TI the Recovery browse function, if you can find the storage folder, you most likely can find the files. When viewing the columns, you may have make the header columns narrower by dragging the column separators. This is not to say they are usable but only to help you find the lost archives.

  Guys!
I'm pleased to announce that a new update is coming out in 1-2 weeks. The issue you mentioned will be fixed in that update.

Hi, & thanks for the feedback Grover,
Yes, I'm new to posting, but I've been watching and I'm aware of the well-done, helpful process in C2G. However, I was determined to make ATI 2010 do what I need by itself till (hopefully) Acronis gets around to fixing it. So far, my multi-task work-around (1 task & 1 folder) for each day of the week for files and each week of the month for images seems to be working, and all results show up in the catalog. I'll report any "gotcha's" if they happen.

Now if Acronis would only get around to backing up Wndows Live Mail - the new Windows 7 standard.

  Hello, Cat58.
 Supporting Windows Live Mail as well as MS Outlook 2010 is addressed to the forthcoming release of ATI Home 2011, and this is out of the discussed topic.

April 1 and update is finally available.

Did the 7046 build fix the overwrite problem?

Hello all,
I'm pleased to let you know the issue has been fixed in the current update that is availbale on our web site (build 7046)

I have been using 7046 for almost a week now and it seems to be fixed.

FYI, i'm using Windows Vista and I don't have a C:\Users\All Users\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Scripts nor do I have any "tib.tis" files.

The files will have a .tib.tis ending and are standard XML files. I suggest making copies of the files if you are going to manually alter anything.

So have I and it hasn't.

Yes you do have those folders and files. You're hiding protected operating system files, which is why you can't see them. Change your folder options to show hidden files, folders & drives, and show protected OS files.