Intermittent problem with verifying using True Image Home 11
Friend has Acronis True Image Home 11 installed on a Vista computer, with two internal hard drives.
The main HD (C:) is 320GB’s with plenty of spare room, the target HD is a 1TB again with plenty of spare room, both HD are NTFS.
When doing a full system image backup the verify either freezes or is unable to verify the image, this an on-going, long term problem. However, if she cleans out the Recycle Bin – delete system restore points – and do a general clean up, the image backup and verify work perfectly.
I could understand if the two hard drives had little space left but both drives are less than a third full.
Any suggestions would be most welcome.
Thanks Pat,
I'll try out your suggestions this week, thank you.
I agree with Pat L's assessment. My guess is on a disk problem but I've been fooled before. Be sure you use the r option for chkdsk since it is the one that does a thorough check. It will take considerable time to run.
You might also look in the Windows Event Logger to see if any hardware issues are being reported.
Does it always fail in the same place? For example, it always fails after validating for five minutes.
Did you boot to the TI CD and see if the image validates successfully?
Are you using TI 11 (the version before 2009) or TI 2011 (the current version)?
Seekforever,
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check the Event Viewer to-day.
MudCrab,
To answer your questions;
1. As far as she can remember the problem happened at the end of the verify process.
2. No, but I will try this if it happens again after I've done CHKDSK r.
3.She is using the version 11 that came out before 2009.
Thanks to everyone that has helped with suggestions.
MudCrab,
I've been thinking about your reply to my plea for help and I have questions in regards your reply.
What significance is there about the period that the validation fails?
If the validation fails and a retest using the rescue CD validates the image okay what does this prove?
It's just something that helps with troubleshooting. If you try validate an image three times and it always fails at the same point (same time in, same percentage), you can figure that there's probably something wrong at that point in the file (bad sector, corruption, etc.). However, if the first time runs to 50%, the second runs to 25%, and the third runs to 75%, you know that there are other problems (data stream corruption, bad cable, bad drivers, bad drive, bad RAM, etc.) because it's not the same place that fails (plus some passes successfully validate areas that failed).
Using the TI CD to test can help if you need to find out if the problem is related to Windows. TI from the CD runs in Linux. You could also try validating the image using another computer.
Generally, if you can get the image to validate successfully using a certain method then you know that the image is actually good. You can then concentrate on further pinning down the problem area.
Hello MudCrab,
Thanks for the explanation, things are clearer now:-)
Just completed a chkdsk r on the C: drive and problems were found;
Cleaning up 21 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 21 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 21 unused security descriptors
And;
Free space verification is complete.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the master file table (MFT) bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.
Is it possible that the problems found could have caused the verify failed problem?
File system errors can cause some weird problems. You would probably need to run the computer for a while and see. Those errors are pretty standard. I don't really see why they would cause the problem.
Did you find any errors or warnings in the Event Log?
Have you run any diagnostics on the drives?
From you first post, what gets done in a general cleanup?
As the computer belongs to an elderly lady friend (situated at her home) my time on the computer is limited. However, I have downloaded Seagate Seatools both the Windows and DOS versions and intend running them tomorrow on both hard drives.
At this stage I haven't looked at the Event Log but will do so tomorrow depending on how long I have the computer (is there any special items that I should be looking for?)
She cleans the system restore points using CCleaner. She empties the Recycle Bin and deletes all files in the download folder, this is all the cleaning she does to get a problem free verify. I would add that every time the cleaning is done she always gets a good backup image verified.
I appreciate the time you have spent on our problem, thank you.
If you haven't run the chkdsk -r command on the external since it is the location that the data is read from to do the validate.
Another thing you can try, space permitting, is to create the image on the internal 320GB drive. Do this when the validation is failing so you have the problem condition established. TI will complain about making an image on a HD that is being backed up but it will do it, at least earlier versions would. Then validate that image and see if it works. Normally, internal HDs are less problematic than externals.
Have you tried plugging the USB drive in using a connector at the rear of the PC instead of a front-panel connector. The extra lead length in a noisy environment can make a difference sometimes.
If you are deleting the bad backups on the external, try leaving them in place, just in case they are now covering a marginal area on the disk.
I'm thinking of some kind of a data stream problem where just cutting out a bunch of files (data bits) corrects a very marginal problem.
I intend testing the target hard drive to-day (NZ time) and will also use the Seagate Seatools, depending on time.
The target drive is an internal drive not an external drive, so your suggestions regards USB drives don't apply in our case:-)
When the problem arises again I will try out your suggestions about leaving the faulty backup in place, I'll also try a backup onto the main C: drive as suggested, thank you.
Sometimes it takes more than one run of chkdsk to get things in order.
It may take some extra time but you might want to check both disks for errors again.
Chkdsk X: /R (x=ACTUAL DRIVE LETTER.)
Test results will be listed in the Events viewer, under application.
If she runs the backup on a regular basis, there is no need for the Windows System Restore which can be turned off via its options.
If you do decide to turn off the Windows System Restore, after checking the disk for error again, I would run defrag to fill up all the space left behind by the removal of the System Restore Points.
I've completed chkdsk on both the main and target drives and thing look okay. I've also ran Seagate Seatools on both drives and both drives passed. Checked event viewer and things look okay apart from a couple of items that doesn't appear to be a reason for the verify problem, however, I will check these out further.
I've decided to take over the running of backups for awhile and will see how things go. I have received fantastic support with my request for help, and now have a better idea on how to handle the problem if it does reappear (I've printed out all your suggestions for future use).
Again, thank you all for your kind help, it has been much appreciated.
Warm Regards,
John.