How do I remove (i.e. delete) an archive?

Things have changed quite a bit with 2015. You cannot delete a specific archive file from the UI. You have to:
- delete manually the file,
- choose recovery from the UI. Acronis will complain it is missing a version. Choose to ignore that version. Cancel the restore. Run your task anew and validate your backup task.

alternatively, delete the backup task entirely and create new one. You can still move manually the TIB files you want to keep to another directory for safekeeping before deleting the task.

Deletion is possible via two methods. Whether the deletion should be done could be another issue. A screen capture of what is to be deleted may help showing its relationship to other backups created by the same task.

1. From inside the task, click operations and choose delete.
What will be deleted will be ALL tib backups created by that specific task.

2. Or, open Windows explorer into the tib storage folder.
RIGHT click on the file(s) to be deleted and choose the Windows delete option.
After deletion, manually VALIDATE the backup and respond IGNORE (perhaps multiple times) the missing files.

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General:
Full backups are standalone files.
Incremental: Only the most recent (not the oldest) incremental can be deleted.
Differential: Oldest or newest can be deleted.
Validation must follow any deletion.

Thanks for your suggestions Pat and GH.

Grover, the validation of missing archives kind of makes sense as a way of getting ATI 2015 to come to terms with its deleted archive. When you say "Only the most recent (not the oldest) incremental can be deleted" I'm not sure how in practice this works when I want to remove the entire archive. Do I need to keep some of it for ATI to validate? Does validation only work if there's still a .tib file?

I'll post a screen shot from windows explorer since the ATI interface won't tell us much.

Points to note in this situation.
-- I am attempting to keep two Entire PC backups (incremental, up to 6) always at about the same stage. I'm using two 1TB drives. They're not quite capacious enough now I realise but that's life. I have been in this routine for a bit over a week trying to do daily backups though I miss some.
-- For that double backup I will try "make reserve copy" option soon since it worked on a smaller folder backup, the one with +++ in its name.
-- I have manually assigned the 1TB drives letters G: and H: because I found that ATI is pedantic, it can't recognise the path to yesterday's backup if windows assigns a new drive letter.
-- Recently my system did a wobbly and I restored just the OS and settings on C: from the previous day. I would have preferred to use System Restore but the problem included no System Restore available.
-- Perhaps as a result of that restore ATI has lost track of how many incremental archives to keep, my G: drive archive is up to "s7" though I set 6 as tops.

One other question, more windows-related: do you know how I can stop Win 7 from shutting down occasionally in the wee hours? I guess it's to do with installing updates and I could google it. Whatever the reason, it kills the backup in progress.

Note the Backup option/Advanced/"Backup Reserve copy" is a totally manual management.
..Each backup is a full backup and the user manually deletes the backups which become unwanted.
..Each new reserve backup will be an addition. User deleted the unwanted reserve backups.
...None of my comments in this thread or any of my guides relates to the use of that option.

It is possible to use one task and create the managed task in one storage disk or folder; and then perform the FULL "Backup reserve copy" with all manual controls into another disk or foldler.

All of my guides and instructions relate only to use of one task per single disk. Reason being that TI tracks the Disk ID of both the disk being backed up as well as the target disk. The task will only back up to the disk which is attached at time of task creation as the target.

I would STRONGLY urge that you use a different name for each task you create as well as a different target/folder name (or sub-folder inside another folder) so there are NO duplication of task names nor folder (sub-folder) names. You want the name of the task (tib) to be unique for each task can be easily identified.

---------------------------------

The link below might be one method of controlling the sleep problem.

9. Grover's How to prevent Win7 computers from going to sleep during backups - PDF download
     For those having trouble with shutdowns or validations, this is a practical workaround.

Have used Acronis True Image for some time and currently have 2015 (full version) installed. Build 6055. Also using Windows 7 Pro on a 64 bit machine.

Lately I have had difficulty getting it to do what I prefer. That is I want to make Backup ONLY when I want them, not on any schedule, not when the machine is started or shut down.

When I shut down or do a restart. I frequently get the warning “The action can’t be completed because the folder is open in True Image Home Service”

I have set the options to do NO scheduled back.

Also have “unchecked” all choices from within “Advanced Settings” and saved my choice. Do these need to be saved? If I reenter Advanced Settings choices I have unselected are selected again.

If I attempt to “remove” a folder/file from within Acronis the folder may reappear at a later time.

Much material is omitted or impossible to fine in the manual which is poorly indexed.

I hope someone there will find it worth while answering these and other questions I have been having. It may be time for me to look for a different application.

ecdkrimmer@cs.com
330 677-0109

Edward,

Unfortunately, It is not possible to set the option to option permanently to "do not schedule".

Instead, you must SAVE each task as Non-scheduled on a "individual task basis."

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/71342

You might want to consider re-installing 2015 to see that helps with the errors.
You can restart the install program and a repair option will be offered.

Most of the advanced settings will save as "default settings" and carry over into future new tasks but you really need to test a few to see which do carry over. The scheduler "do not schedule" must be reset and saved for each task if a non-scheduled task is wanted.

Thanks, I'll remember your advice on how the reserve backup works.
I'd still use it because many sources recommend having two backups minimum, keeping them off site if possible, etc.
That is my ultimate aim with these two drives. Seems easier than fully backing up twice which is what I began doing.

Regarding using a different name for each task, please let me know how.
All my backups were christened by ATI 2015.
I'd love to give them different names but I can't find where to assign the name I want.
Once I can name them I'd keep it simple like "Entire PC BAK on G" and "Entire PC BAK on H".
But I'd aim to keep that kind of name for re-running over and over again.

Regarding the importance of avoiding duplicate folder names: again, ATI 2015 always names the folder for me "Acronis Backups".
So every Entire PC backup for me gets the same name and the same folder name on every drive I use. But you indicate that this is a problem.

Regarding validation: Out of curiosity I tried to validate a backup today. I found the "Validate" option by a right-click in the left pane on the backup name. Not much seemed to happen but a second right click shows only the option "Stop" so I guessed that a validation was running in the background. I left it for about five hours and did not see a sign of anything except the "Stop" option was still there by right-click so I hit "Stop". Then I found "Validate" if I click in the "Operations" rectangle and tried it again. Now I have a progress display. So I should avoid that other validate option.

As far as storing the same backup Task to multiple destinations without using the Reserve Copy feature, as far as I know ATI does not support this. A workaround would be to call a .bat script in your Task's post command that will mirror your Task destination folder to a secondary destination folder.

In Windows there is a command line program called RoboCopy that lets you do this.
Information on how to use RoboCopy is here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc733145.aspx
with examples here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1073.robocop…

The script that I have put together for this looks like this:

robocopy C:\SourceFolder D:\DestinationFolder /mir /z /mt:8

The nice thing about this is that if you have the Automatic Cleanup options set up in your backup task, RoboCopy, when using the "/mir" option in your script, will only keep the files in the secondary destination folder that are also present in the primary destination folder. You won't have to manually clean up your second destination folder yourself when True Image deletes a version chain.

The main draw back to this, however, is when the script is run, the command prompt window shows up in the middle of the screen. To me it's not a big deal. If any one knows how to prevent the command prompt window from appearing, it would be nice to the script run as more of a silent operation.

Nicholas,

As for folder names, using different names is my recommendation but not required by user manual. Past postings have indicated mixups which I try to avoid. Folder names can be created in advance or when during task creation. Try choosing your own folder or create your own folder as it does work. When choosing the destination, use the "browse" option for destination and choose your own folder or create your own folder.

73586: How To Stamp Date & Time in Backup File Name
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/73586#comment-244088

https://forum.acronis.com/forum/69428#comment-218714
Task Rename

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Both Validation methods should have worked. There is also a 3rd method which is from inside the TIB storage folder, you can RIGHT click on the selected tib name and click the TrueImage option name and then select the Validation option.

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Ryan,

Thanks for advising of the robocopy option. I will add that to my listing of methods.
To me, a 2nd task offers more options than 1 task plus the "reserve backup copy". You can automate the maintenance of a 2nd task which cannot be done with the reserve--except maybe now with robocopy. Grover

Ryan, thanks for the tip.

Would I enter a script like the one above into the post command field? Or does it have to be a path to a .bat file elsewhere? I'd have to research how that should look!

When you say Automatic Cleanup do you simply mean the delete that occurs after a new backup after the maximum number of incremental (or differential) backups is reached?

Grover,

regarding your sleep PDF, my problem is different. Win 7 seems to reboot at night for some update installations. It can happen a few times a week though it only started happening this year. With Win XP it was different. It seemed to wait until there was activity then repeatedly inform me that it wanted to reboot to complete updates.

Grover,

The main thing I don't like about using a second BU Task for the purpose of storing to a second location is that True Image can only do one thing at a time. I've got two HDDs with around 400-500GB on them, which sometimes takes almost two hours each to run a full backup on. Using a second task to store to a second location means it will take around 4 hours to do, basically, one full backup task. Also the reason I don't really like using the Reserve Copy option because it's always a full backup. Running a robocopy script allows for the copying of backups to additional locations and frees up TI to move on to the next task for an entirely different backup. That's my take on it anyways! :)

Nicholas,

Automatic Cleanup, in this example (see backupscheme.png attachment): Once TI completes the first full backup for the 8th version chain, it will delete the 1rst version chain. No less than 7 version chains will exist at a time. TI will start a new version chain after the 23rd inc/diff version has been created for the current version chain.

Now, -- In spite of all my talk about using robocopy, I am having trouble getting TI to actually run the script successfully during the post command. If I go in and edit the post command and hit the "Test Command" button, it sometimes works, sometimes it doesn't. I has yet to work however, when the task is actually run. The second attachment is my post command. I have tried the script as a .bat file, a .cmd and I've even tried a .vbs version of the script. All of these scripts work when ran separately from TI, but not when called from the post command. Not sure what I might be doing wrong. ...??

Nicholas,
Regarding update. Look at your update options. Perhaps you would prefer that you initiate or control the updates. I do. I start the updates when I am ready.

When you say Automatic Cleanup do you simply mean the delete that occurs after a new backup after the maximum number of incremental (or differential) backups is reached?

Yes, it is automatic deletion after the quota (Store x number of recent chains) is exceeded. So if chain length is 6 (full plus 5 inc) and you only store/keep 1 chain, then deletion is performed after backup #7 (
Or, if you are storing several chains such as Store 4 recent verson chains, then deletion does not occur until after the quota of of 24 backups has been exceeded.

Ryan,
Regarding your backup scheme post #12. Just to confirm what you can expect in automatic cleanup.
Chain length is 24 (Full plus 23 diff)
Store 7 chains is keeping 7 x 24=168 tib backups.
Quota will be exceeded after the B8 Full (backup #169) at which time B1 chains (24 files) will be deleted.
Deletion will occur thereafter each new full from B8 forward.

Note also that the using of the Reserve Backup option is also after the first backup has finsihed. It is not simutaneous . One backup only at a time.

On the post command.
1. Do a search for Robocopy.exe. There are multiple copies scattered around my system and I have never used it.
..A. Check the file properties and make sure the copy you are using is not security blocked..
..B. You may need to increase permissions.

2. If you used Notepad to construct the bat/cmd/vbs file
a. Reopen Notepad via an elevated prompt
Start/all programs/accessories/
Right click on Notepad and choose "Run as administrator"
Resave the file using Notepad in its elevated security and retry.

3. If you wish to give me a copy of the vbs, I can try it on my Win 7 system.

BTW
I found a likely fix to Win 7 automatically restarting for updates:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/6042-windows-update-enable-disable…

Nicholas,
Thank you for the update fix.

Brian,
Robocopy works as you describe. I put Robo inside a 2015 cmd file in the TI Post command and it works every time as you describe.
I'll post more details tomorrow night if possible.
Grover

Grover,
It works every time as I describe - as in, it isn't working for you either, or as in, it IS working in the way I describe that it should be working in theory?
I tried your suggestions and nothing seams to work. I even tried an even simpler script.

@echo off
@echo HI MEEEE!!!!!
pause

Even this did not work in the post command. It made no difference if ran as a .bat a .cmd, or in a .vbs version.
The interesting thing is that using Windows Task Scheduler to run the script is not working either. In fact, none of these scripts are working in Task Scheduler either. Task Scheduler is still triggering my hourly backup task as it should be though. (I was able to set that up thanks to one of your How To's! Thank You Grover! :) )

I have to say I'm at a loss on this one. I think the next thing I will try is to create a new User account on my machine and test it in the new account. I will post my results.