Problems backing up to removeable media
We are having a horrible time backing up to our USB removable media. When we plug in our USB external drives they often connect with a different drive letter than when the backup routine was originally created. If we go to edit the backup routine it says it cannot find the drive and won't let us designate a new destination drive. When we choose 'Ignore' from the warning dialog and then choose the destination button, the menu is blank and we cannot select a new destination.
In the end, we have to delete the old backup on the external drive and create a new backup each time, directing it to the new drive. This has become extremely frustrating. For a variety of reasons removable drive letters for external drives will always be prone to change, depending on what is currently plugged into the system. The fact the program will not let us edit the destination, because it cannot connect at the old drive letter is either poor design or a bug. Please help us understand how to make these simple changes.
Thank you for the reply, tuttle. As a practice, we DO routinely name our partitions in addition to the assigned drive letter. However, the USB ports we are using do not show in Disk Manager, only when media is inserted, and cannot be reliably assigned a drive letter that sticks after removal. Moreover, with 25 USB ports or hubs, 10 card reader ports, 2 CD ROMS, 1 internal removable media bay, 1 external hard drive, and 2 internal hard drives, there are not enough letters to go around, even if everything could be assigned a letter. Not to mention, we need the freedom to plug these devices into any port that is available versus a dedicated port that doesn't maintain the assigned letter anyway.
As to the issue of 'Poor Design', we certainly take issue with that perspective. The inability to change the destination drive of a backup, when the drive letter has changed, or because the device is plugged into a different USB port, IS A POOR DESIGN. The fact the destination drive cannot be modified is not a Windows limitation, it is most likely an Acronis software problem. Furthermore, it is evident that Acronis intended the user be able to change the destination drive when editing an existing backup plan. Note the following indications that this operation is available to the user:
FIRST, when editing a backup plan, the destination option is available (not dimmed) and can be selected for editing or change. SECOND, the user is warned that the current assigned destination is unavailable, but allows the user to proceed with selecting a new destination after dismissing the information message. THIRD, there is never any warning message that the user cannot make a change because the existing destination was unavailable. FOURTH, the destination menu bar appears, but never populates with the options for selecting a destination. FIFTH, there is never a warning or error message indicating that the destination menu bar cannot be populated because of some issue. FINALLY, we are allowed to navigate the entire setup procedure, with no errors, but have no options on the menu bar (even though they exist) for selecting a new destination from our active drives. At very least, the user should be presented with an error message and prevented from continuing until the problem is resolved.
We have beta tested products for many mainstay software companies, for 25 years now, and this smells of a bug at worst and poor design at best. We have no end to the stories where software companies blame each other for a problem. Regardless, there is no excuse for our observations, except for poor design or the software's failure to detect a problem (poor error trapping). My bet is that, to Acronis' credit, they wanted to allow the user to change the destination drive if it was unavailable when removable media was plugged back in again, but that there is a glitch in the software under certain circumstances.
Just a point of information BlueMax ... assigning a drive letter should not be port dependent. Windows uses the disk signature to identity the drive, not the port it happens to be plugged into. I did a quick test while writing this, deleted all the partitions on a 16GB SanDisk Extreme USB3 flash drive and created a new partition which I assigned the drive letter M. This was done while attached to one of the USB3 ports on my system. I then ejected and removed the drive and plugged it into one of the USB2 ports ... Windows Explorer detected it and shows it as drive M.
Couple of thoughts regarding this ...
1) What version of Windows are you using (I am using 8.1 Pro 64bit)
2) How many different removable USB media devices are you using for Acronis backups?
3) If you were only to assign drive letters to the devices you are using for Acronis, would that strain the available pool that Windows can randomly assign for the spectacular array of other devices you have mentioned?
And a point of information for tuttle ... it's been my experience that you are better off picking a drive letter between M and R given that mapped networked drives will start at Z and work their way back. Doesn't take too long to hit V from that direction! Unfortunately, something like the software for a Seagate GoFlex Home NAS just automatically uses the highest available letters for it's folder maps as opposed to being able to choose a letter when mapping a drive manually from My Computer.
Daniel, you said:
"I did a quick test while writing this, deleted all the partitions on a 16GB SanDisk Extreme USB3 flash drive and created a new partition which I assigned the drive letter M."
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I have attempted to create partitions on flash drives, but have always understood from research that windows does not allow partitioning flash drives! Is there a procedure I haven't discovered yet? I carry a key chain attached 32GB flash drive for portability of data files and utilities, and run into an occasional issue that creating a couple of partitions could solve. Thanks for any clarification.
...Bob
At the time of my 1st post I was using Acronis Disk Director 12 to work on the flash drive. After reading your reply, I used Windows Disk Management to delete the partition and create 2 new partitions (8GB and 6GB). I formatted them NTFS with default allocation unit size and they work properly (copied an 850MB file to one partition and a 250MB file to the other)
Ejected the drive, plugged it into one of my USB2 ports and everything showed up just like I would expect.
How have you been attempting to create the partitions?
Just a point of information BlueMax ... assigning a drive letter should not be port dependent. Windows uses the disk signature to identity the drive, not the port it happens to be plugged into.
Correct. So, for the OP, there is no need to map "25 USB ports or hubs". One maps the drive, not the port.
And a point of information for tuttle ... it's been my experience that you are better off picking a drive letter between M and R given that mapped networked drives will start at Z and work their way back. Doesn't take too long to hit V from that direction!
Good point. I wasn't aware of that.
Just for information, when assigning drive letters to drives be they mapped network drives or not the user has the option to choose any available (unused) drive letter that remains in the letter scheme. If you use third party tools to map a network drive this may not hold true. In either case the static assignment of a drive letter will help to avoid most problems with the TI app.
Hello Daniel, thank you for your most helpful reply. We had not realized that the letter assignment was directly related to the signature of the removable drive and not port dependent. In dealing with our fixed hard drives, I guess this had never been an issue. Nevertheless, this raises a few questions for us as follows:
1. Assigning a drive letter to a removable disk does not create a permanent Windows letter reservation, correct? In other words, when the media is removed doesn't that drive letter once again become available on that computer? So what happens if the same drive letter is re-assigned and being used the next time the removable media is plugged back into the computer? Perhaps, this is one of the problems we have been experiencing, since I do believe our larger removable media drives were actually assigned a letter at one time.
2. In your testing, you repartitioned your removable media, but I assume we can assign a drive letter directly to the removable media in its default single-partition format, correct? No need to repartition to assign a drive letter for any reason?
3. We are assuming that the Windows letter assignment, associated with a disk signature, is saved in Windows and not on the actual removable disk, correct? So there should be no unexpected ramifications when the disk is inserted into another machine and, as such, we should be able to assign the same removable media either the same, or a different drive letter, on another machine, correct?
In regard to your questions:
1) We're running Windows 7 Professional (64-bit).
2) We're only using 4-6 different removable USB media disks for backup at this point.
3) No, we feel our number of actual devices would not exceed the Windows pool of drive letters. Our concern related mainly to all our ports and not necessarily the actual devices. Nonetheless, we have wondered what happens if the device partitions with letter assignments do exceed the pool?
Thank you again, Daniel, your thoughtful explanation really helped clarify our current situation and will help us assign letters and track our backup disks more effectively. Thank you for the assistance.
If you don't mind, Daniel, we're also interested in your opinion on a portion of our original question you didn't address. Why will Acronis True Image not allow us to change the destination drive for a backup plan? As explained in a reply to tuttle, every indication is that a user should be able to change the destination drive for an existing backup plan. In our case, we navigate the proper menus to make the change, with no error messages except one warning that the drive, currently assigned as the destination, is not available (logical since it is not), but cannot get a listing of the currently available drives to make the new drive assignment. Have you ever encountered a situation where you cannot access a list of destination drives for making a new selection when editing an existing plan?