ati 2012 corrupted MFT

Hi Pierre,
Can you answer a few questions please.

How many BU images do you have? Just one?
Is it a full disk image back up?
I know you have moved it around some NAS and USB disk (this is fine)
Does the image validate?
Are you able to mount and browse it?
Can you retrieve files from it?

Regarding your restore process
Are you trying to perform a disk image restore?
All partitions at once?
Have you tried one at a time?
Are any successful?

Anything about your existing hardware or new drive you think relevant to mention?

I've escalated your post. It should get some attention.
In the mean time, have you performed a chkdsk /r on the new drive to confirm cursory health?

shadowsports wrote:

Hi Pierre,
Can you answer a few questions please.

How many BU images do you have? Just one?
Is it a full disk image back up?
I know you have moved it around some NAS and USB disk (this is fine)
Does the image validate?
Are you able to mount and browse it?
Can you retrieve files from it?

Regarding your restore process
Are you trying to perform a disk image restore?
All partitions at once?
Have you tried one at a time?
Are any successful?

Anything about your existing hardware or new drive you think relevant to mention?

I've escalated your post. It should get some attention.
In the mean time, have you performed a chkdsk /r on the new drive to confirm cursory health?

See answers below:

shadowsports wrote:

Hi Pierre,
Can you answer a few questions please.

How many BU images do you have? Just one?
*** two. Incremential backups. One with 4 "sub-BU" and the most recent with 1 "Sub-BU". Same issue with both, even with the "base" of the incremential BU.
Is it a full disk image back up?
*** yes
I know you have moved it around some NAS and USB disk (this is fine)
*** Following some clues from similar problems on the forum, I booted with Ubuntu and created a NTFS partition where I copied the BU to hold it "locally" . I had the same results.
Does the image validate?
*** yes it does. That's the first thing I tried.
Are you able to mount and browse it?
*** haven't tried
Can you retrieve files from it?
*** haven't tried. I will tomorrow (have to go to work now...)

Regarding your restore process
Are you trying to perform a disk image restore?
All partitions at once?
Have you tried one at a time?
Are any successful?
*** I've tried both. Same result. The drive is divided into 2 main partitions: one for system and software, and the other one for data. The "system" backup contains 2 partitions. One 100Mb "hidden" system partition and a 430Gb OS partition (with 73Gb used - per Acronis information). The "Data" backup contains one single 430Gb partition.
From the system backup, The 100Mb restores, but not the 430Gb "OS" one.
From the Data backup, the partition restores.

The old drive gave "hard drive failure imminent" which prompted the replacement, so it was still operating. I tried to make a clone disk, but had the same error. Now that one is completely dead.

Anything about your existing hardware or new drive you think relevant to mention?
Old drive: Samsung HD103SJ 1Tb.
New drive: Seagate barracuda 1Tb.
PC Hp Pavilion P7 1047C. Basic, no hardware added.
Originally W7 upgraded to Vista Home Premium when it came out.

I've escalated your post. It should get some attention.
In the mean time, have you performed a chkdsk /r on the new drive to confirm cursory health?

*** The new drive is blank. To perform a chkdsk /r I would have to create a partition and format it. Is that any use?

Before proceeding for a restore, you get the information for the partition with information like (for the Data one)
Free Space Before: 1Mb (blank un formatted partition)
Partition size: 450Gb
Free Space After: 385Gb. ( not exact numbers - from failing human memory...)

When I try to restore the system partition, I get those numbers (just remember, it's a 1TB drive)
Free Space Before: 8,589,934,592 TB (???? the drive is blank as every other times - all partition(s) deleted)
Partition size: 0Mb (???)
Free Space After: 931.5Gb
In my humble opinion, it tries to create a 0Mb partition (out of a what... 8TB TB drive???) and then tries to restore it... Of course the MFT will be bad, it doesn't exist.
Either the DVD drive / USB Xternal-drive are plugged or not, I get those numbers (Tried ATI from a CD and a USB stick - prefers the USB stick...).

When I try to restore from the USB external drive, I'm pretty sure the xternal drive isn't even accessed when the error occurs (e.g. the archive is not read) as the activity led on the drive stays idle, suggesting that ATI haven't read the archive yet.
Can it be some compatibility issues between the different drives? From the BU point of view?

Thanks for your help.
Pierre.

Drivers are not involved during restore. What may help is mount the backup in read-write mode, optionally running chkdsk on the mounded volume, and attempt to restore from the newly created incremental.

I'm sorry, Fedor, I don't understand what you want me to do.
How do you mount the backup in read-write mode?
Which newly created incremential? The original drive is dead. All I have left is the backup.

I tried to restore it from the folder/file perspective, by creating a partition first.
If I select the whole directory tree, ATI just sits there. After half an hour, it was just at the "Recovering Backup Archive 1 of 1", no time estimate and absolutely nothing on the progression bar.
I tried to select the last 10 directories (Which includes Windows) and restore those. ATI estimated the time as 7 hours (!!!). I then went to work. Since I came back home in the middle of the night, I didn't check on the progress, but this morning (so some 16 hours later) the progress bar is at 50% and the estimated time left ws 2 days.....
I cancelled it and asked for just the Windows directory. It's in progress right now and the time estimates is at 3 hours (Still !!!!!)

Pierre.

Mount it in a live windows system with True Image installed, 'read-only' and 'read-write' are available mount options. After backup is unmounted TI will create a new incremental backup next to the full. Then you can try restoring it from the media again.

Pierre,
Fedor is referring to Back Up Explorer. You can right-click on images located under the Disks and Partitions Tab. Mount these images. Refer to pages 26-27 of the user guide.

Hello Shadowsport and Fedor.
Sorry for the delay, I'm currently working out of town and come back a few days here and there...
I tried to mount the BU:
The 100Mb, (that restores), gets mounted and is accessible.
The main partition (OS and Softwares) gives an error that it can't assign a letter for it. So I couldn't do the chkdsk you suggested.

Does that means that I'm screwed and the backup is lost?

Best regards,
Pierre.

Some builds of 2012 had problems mounting images due to compatibility issues with certain AV software. If you have AV installed, try temporarily disabling it and then try to remount the image again.

Sorry for the late repyl, I'm working my bu** off (new mill startup) and I spend the summer on camping (seasonal) going home only about once a week.

Disabling the AV software (AVG) allowed me to mount the drive. I can access it. Great tip, Shadowsport!
However, Win7 doesn't want to do a checkdisk on it unless it is... un-mounted... Doh! Kind of silly, but it's Windows after all.
Come to think of it, I haven't tried to do a checkdisk from the command prompt, only from the Windows Drive Utility (check for errors).

I know a little bit of Unix/Linux and have a version of Ubuntu on a flash drive (I plan to try it). I believe ATI is unix based. Do you know if I can mount the backup from Ubuntu and if there's some kind of chkdsk within Linux that can do the trick?

Any suggestions?

Best regards.
Pierre.

Pierre,
I'm glad that tip worked for you. ATI is Linux based.

Perform chkdsk from the command prompt. If prompted to un-mount select "Y". Then windows will tell you all handles to this disk will be un-mounted. The check should start automatically after this.

One of the team members also suggested a repair install. Or uninstall, run clean up utility and reinstall. I'm not sure how effective this would be as I don't think your install is necessarily corrupt.

I do have another suggestion. Download a free trial of 2014. You can test recovery in your environment and verify compatibility.

Thanks for all your help.
I will try the chkdsk from the command prompt Monday or Tuesday...

About the repair/install, remember that I'm trying to restore the backup to a BLANK hard drive. I'm doing all those checks from another pc (I have a 3 licenses version).
It's the backup that seems to be corrupted, not ATI's installation.
What bugs me the most is that at no time, not even when I did a "verify", did ATI told me that the BU was corrupted in any way. It sees it just fine, until it tries to restore it.

Speaking of "licenses", it's not related to this post at all but, when I go to "My products and download" all I see is the 2010 single version. When I upgraded to 2012, I switched for a 3-licences and it doesn't show there. No big deal, unless that info is needed to get a "special" on a 2014 3-licences version.
I bought the single license then called to see if that could be changed for a 3-licences. The nice lady I talked to cancelled the single version and gave me a number for a 3 licenses (plus a nice invoice ;-) ) Maybe that's why it doesn't show it.

Best regards,
Pierre.

Pierre,

You can go to your account and register the serial number for the 2012 Upgrade.

Thanks all for your help.
I was able to do the chkdsk. Nothing special found.
I tried to restore the BU but had the same error "Unable to restore".

What puzzles me the most is this weird info, I mentionned in the first few posts:

"When I try to restore the system partition, I get those numbers (just remember, it's a 1TB drive)
Free Space Before: 8,589,934,592 TB (???? the drive is blank as every other times - all partition(s) deleted)
Partition size: 0Mb (???)
Free Space After: 931.5Gb"

Why is it seeing a 8 TB-TB drive out a 1 TB drive??? If the BU is corrupted, why is it bugzy at seeing the real free space of the new drive? Could this be hardware related? some kind of incompatibility between the MotherBoard and the Drive?
Note that when I try to restore the other partition, everything is fine.

I will download ATI 2014 and see what happens.

Pierre.

Hi folks.
Sorry for the late reply.
I had a chance to try to boot from a rescue stick from ATI2014. Guess what, it worked. I was able to restore the partition.

My little theory consipracy tells me that, somehow, there is some "driver" for the newest hard drive and ATI2012 didn't had them.
Remember that the 2012 rescue disk said that the free space was some 8 tera-tera bytes, when the drive was a 1Tb.
ATi2014 showed the right values all along and the restore went succesfully.

I guess I will have to update to 2014 otherwise I will be unable to restore any future drive failure. I would have like it to be just a small update for the rescue disk, but, well.

Thanks all for your help. Greatly appreciated.
Problem fixed.
Pierre.