Problem Deleting Old Backups in TIH2014
I run a Core i7-3770 desktop PC with Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit, 2 internal HDDs (partitioned into 5 drives but not RAIDEed), Norton Internet Security, and some USB 2 and 3 external HDDs. I schedule backups of the C drive and my main data drive daily and the other internal data drives weekly or monthly (depending on what they contain and how volatile the data is).
I have used TIH for this for the past several years, starting with 2007, then 2011, 2013 and now 2014 (Build 6673). Each drive has a separate task, and I use a full backup as a baseline and then differential backups. Managing the deletion of older backups (to free up HDD space) has become a nightmare in TIH2014, as it does not always work as advertised.
I now need to delete some old backups to free external HDD space. The advertised process (in the Backup and recovery tab click the gearwheel, then click Recover files, select a version from the timeline, then Right Click and click Delete version) worked for 2 of the drives (1 on each internal HDD). However, this did not work for the other 3 drives as the timelines did not show all of the backups. For example, for my main data drive Windows Explorer shows a 1 full backup and 46 differentials, but the TIH timeline shows only 14 differentials in April but not the 7 in March or a further 14 in April or the 12 in May (all differentials from the March baseline). Similarly, for another data drive TIH shows only the last full backup , but Windows Explorer also shows the subsequent 9 differentials. Using the Backup and recovery tab, Browse, Add backup Auto-search, or Search now do not add any to the timeline.
I have spent some time looking at the forum and tried various suggestions, but am no further forward. Do you have any ideas, please, other than doing an uninstall, deleting all the associated data, and reinstalling the application? I have a vague recollection that when I had a similar situation a few months ago I found an article which covered deleting the backup files via Windows Explorer and then amending a .xml file to remove details of the removed backups so that TIH does not continue to look for them. Any ideas, please, as this would be easier than a complete uninstall and reinstall?
Grover,
Many thanks for your comprehensive response. I'm going through a very busy period at the moment (partly the reason for the high number of differential backups), but I plan to work through it in detail in the next day or 3. In the meantime, all the backup tasks use the Differential scheme, and I have never used consolidation.
Thanks. A reply at your convenience is fine. You indicate using Differeential scheme. As mentioned in post #1 above, consider starting a new task and use Custom/Differential as per my illustation in post #1.