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"The backup location was not found on the destination drive"

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Every time I am trying to do an incremental back-up of my PC to the according USB HD, I get the error message "Der Backup-Speicherort konnte auf dem Ziellaufwerk nicht gefunden werden" ie "The backup location was not found on the destination drive". The path, the intial full back-up and all previous incremental back-ups are all there and actually are accessible/available. I can even open the path w/o any problem within ATI clicking on "Open destination path" in the according Back-up Task sub-menu. So ALL is there but the back-up task comes back with the error message mentioned above. I can heal that only when I click on "user defined target" icon and browse to and choose the EXACT same destination path again. So at the end the path is exact the same as the one which did not work before but after "re-choosing" it the incremental back-up is fully working as intended. I always have to do this actually redundant extra step to remove the error. I hope I could make myself clear on this extremely annoying issue and it is clear that all advice on the Acronis website concerning tackling this error is completely irrelevant because the path and the files are actually there AND are indeed available/accessible. Any helpful hints how I can remove this error in a program which is supposed to be mature and major failure free after having paid a decent price for a 5 Computer license? Thanks so much for any help. pw

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PW, the problem you have described has been seen previously in these forums and can have various causes.

When using USB HDD drives, it is possible that the drive does not always get the same drive letter as was configured for the backup task when it was created - this is often caused when another USB device such as a memory stick takes the original drive letter and your HDD then is given the next available letter.

For the drive letter problem, you can get Windows to pre-allocate a letter from higher in the alphabet using Disk Management so that the drive will always be given that same letter every time.  You will still need to edit your task destination to reflect the drive letter change.

Another cause can be changes in the Acronis Database files which track where your backup files are stored - problems can be caused by deleting backup files using Windows Explorer instead of using the automatic cleanup rules within the ATIH application.

To resolve database issues, I would recommend doing a Validation of your backup task and answering any error messages that are shown according to whether files have been deleted or are now found in a different location or drive letter.

An alternative approach to using Validation would be to take the option to Clone task settings for the backup task giving the error message - this will create a new task with the same name but prefixed by (1)

Delete the original task before attempting to run the Cloned task - this will remove the entries from the Database.  You do not need to delete the backup files, just the task settings.

You can then rename the cloned task as needed and verify the source / target selections.  Ideally, I would recommend pointing this new cloned task to a different folder and starting a new backup version chain there, plus using a unique task name for the task.

Thank you very much for your fast reply, Steve.

  • I am using ATI since a decade and I never had this problem before with any other version than ATI 2016.
  • When I mentioned about the exact same path, this included also the drive letter. It has not changed at all and I am using exclusively always the same USB HD with the same drive letter correctly allocated (E:). 
  • I never manually deleted any backup files as until now I have had always enough HD space with a 5TB external USB HD.
  • Actually each of the 3 extra tasks - Validation, Clone Task Setting and the already by me mentioned re-assignment of the back-up path - are resolving the problem. However, this extra effort everytime I want to do an incremental back-up, is not intended and is not speaking highly to a professional mature software. I wonder why there is this unprecedented bug in the 2016 version and if there is any possibility to avoid it.

Thanks a lot, pw

PW, although this problem has been reported in the forums previously, I have not seen any report of it recently, so I would not expect you to have to go through these steps each time you run your backup to create an incremental backup.

If this does keep repeating, then I would recommend doing a clean install of ATIH 2016 latest build #6581.  You can save a copy of your current tasks by saving a copy of the C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Scripts folder contents (to restore back after doing the clean install).

To do a clean install, first uninstall the current Acronis software via the Control Panel.

Next, download the Acronis Cleanup Tool (link in my signature); run this as Administrator then restart to complete the action.

Finally reinstall ATIH 2016 - download a fresh copy of the installer from your Acronis account if needed.

Thanks a lot, Steve! This is very helpful. I will do as you suggest and trust this should resolve the issue as I have a standard WIN10 environment and other users do not have this repeated problem. pw