ATIH 2012: System partition not recoverable
Environment:
System: Windows 7 SP1 x64
Board: ASUS P8P67
ATIH 2012: Build 6154
Suddenly a program lost a important function and using Windows restore points did not help to get that function back. So I thought using a backup from ATIH2012 is a good idea. My scenario is: On a running windows system a full backup with the system-reserved, the system and a user partition in one backup set - the first 3 partitions of the system drive - with validate. When using the recovery option of ATIH2012 on my running system I got the message: There is not a enough disk space (translation of "Der Speicherplatz am Recovery-Zielort ist nicht ausreichend:") I was wondering: half a year ago I had no problem with this approach.
So I decided to use the boot medium. But this did not work too. I got the scenario describe in entry 26771: the screen, where to specify the recovery option of the system partition I read below volume size (translation of "Volume-Größe"):
Freier Platz davor: 8.589.934.592 TB (free space in front of the partition)
Volume-Größe: 0 Byte (size of partition)
Freier Platz danach: 199,9 GB (free space after the partition)
Overlooking these values ended as described in entry 26771: the system partition was deleted and ATIH1012 bailed out. (Naturally I saw the entry AFTER losing the system partition.)
So I tried the backups of the last 4 months: Every time I got this error when trying to recover the system partition. Backups with the original build 6131 could be recovered. But these versions were very outdated und therefore not usable. The other two partitons did not have a problem.
So what to do to get a running system?
- Build 6131 was not able to recover the system partition
- Installing a fresh windows system and installing build 6154: no luck
The only way to get a running system back was do to a drive recovery with the boot medium! But this cleans the WHOLE disk! So I had to backup two more partitions with the boot medium. After the drive recovery I had my system back. Thereafter I had to restore the other two partions. After updating the system I did a fresh backup of the 3 partitions. And I got the SAME error when I started the recovery branch of ATIH2012 - again a defective backup of the system partition! There is NO difference between the Windows based oder Linux based backup!
That is definitely NOT the way I want to go in above described scenario when I use a program like ATIH2012!
My analysis of the problem is the following:
There is a defective pointer in the backup part of ATIH2012 when saving the partition data - shift of several bytes. Because the system partition is between the other two the data should read:
Freier Platz davor: 0 Byte (free space in front of the partition)
Volume-Größe: 199,9 GB (size of partition)
Freier Platz danach: 0 Byte (free space after the partition)
This is the display when trying to recover the system-reserved and user partition with the boot medium - other partition sizes of course.
Acronis please correct this problem as soon as possible so I could use ATIH2012 the way I did before.
In the meantime I recommend that every user of ATIH2012 build 6154 goes into the beginning of the recovery branch and verifies that each partition in a backup set is recoverable. Doing a validate is NOT sufficient!
Wolf
Hallo Grover,
thank you for the hints. I shall use them next time when I have the same problem. But it is not the straight way which I expect from a program like ATIH 2012.
I hope you agree that a backup created AND validated should be recovered smoothly without any detours by the same version.
Wolf
AcroBS,
When you restore the 2 system partitions, make sure you don't restore the MBR+Track0. If you restore one partition at a time, you should be fine.
Pat L,
I tried many ways but was unable to restore the windows partition. As described only a drive restore works. But that is a complex approach.
I suppose it is the incredible partition size which the recovery branch reads from the backup set.
Wolf
Pat L,
I tried many ways but was unable to restore the windows partition. As described only a drive restore works. But that is a complex approach.
I suppose it is the incredible partition size which the recovery branch of ATIH 2012 reads from the backup set.
Wolf
Grover,
to be prepared for the next time I tried the solution "Restore a TIH2012 Backup to a Windows Drive C partition".
The method failed because I could not change the partition size as you proposed (figure 14). The field is grey and does not accept any input.
Wolf
AcroBS:
Being unable to change the partition size might be a clue that you have either a bad sector on the disk or NTFS file corruption. Normally, TI will not allow a partition's size to be changed if it detects either of these issues or if it is unable to recognize the filesystem in use. I would try running chkdsk /r on each of the partitions that did not behave as expected.
AcroBS:
The restoring of drive C only relates to a restore overtop the existing drive C. It is not possible to expand the existing drive C but would be possible to make the partitions smaller during a drive C only.
"This type restore is normally used to refresh an existing installation with a recent backup of the same partition."
If restoring a drive C only to a new disk, use the other guide showing how to restore a backup to a smaller or larger disk.
Mark,
you hit the nail: CHKDSK C: showed errors in the MFT. So I scheduled CHKDSK C: /F. Thereafter CHKDSK reported no more errors in the filesystem.
Then I did a backup as described in entry #1. A recover check showed that all partitions could be recovered.
So my problem is solved.
Thank you very much.
GroverH,
Mark gave the final advice to solve the problem.
Thank you for your support.
AcroBS:
Good! Glad to hear that you are back in business. Being unable to resize the partition was a strong clue that filesystem corruption was the cause of your issue.