Vista computer freezing on partition backups with latest True Image 2011
I've been using True Image for years, and I have always had occasional freezes in the middle of a backup. It was infrequent enough that I would just just restart it manually. It was irritating though, and I went as far as uninstalling True Image in favor of plain old Windows backup, but decided to give True Image another go with the 2011 version. It seemed to be working fine for a few weeks, but recently, I added a second hard drive to my PC, and moved a bunch of stuff to the second drive, so I wanted a fresh, full backup of both partitions. I have tried three times since yesterday, and it simply will not complete. The backup chugs along fine at first, but somewhere in the course of the backup, I look over at the computer and it is completely frozen. The mouse won't even move, and it requires a full power down to restart. Especially annoying, True Image can't recover; it shows the backup file at zero size.
I just downloaded an update to True Image yesterday (12/23/10). My computer is running Vista Business 32, SP 2. I have an Intel Quad core running at 2.66 GHz, and 4G of RAM. I have two Western Digital SATA drives (a 150G and a 300G), and am backing up to an external WD 1 TB USB drive. I might add that all my freezing issues started when I added the external drive, which is strictly for backups. I have had several over the course of a few years, and all have had this problem.
I am about to give up on this. It can't be good to have to hard reset the computer this way; at least once it lost the time settings, and I am afraid I am going to damage something important. If I can't resolve this, I'm going to have to look for another backup solution ... I already regret spending money on this version, and it's especially bitter since I was originally very happy with True Image and its performance.
This problem has existed for years (since True Image v. 8), I am simply re-reporting it since it seems to have gotten worse. The first time I was told (1) I needed new Acronis drives (which did not help) and (2) I had corrupt files (which I was never able to confirm). That was the first time I gave up on True Image. My hardware has completely changed since then and been replaced, and the issue remains. I doubt it is specific to this machine and this hardware. The common factor seems to be since I switched to an external USB drive, but I can by no means be certain of that. The other potential common factor is that I have always used SCSI hard drives.
If I had to venture a guess, I would say there is a timing issue in the file writes, and the combination of the computer doing other things in the background, latency on the USB and/or SCSI busses, and True Image doing its job sometimes result in a timeout from which True Image does not gracefully recover, but instead locks up the machine. All of my drivers are up-to-date, and though I haven't done a memtest86 run recently, I have done so in the past and my memory is good.
The problem does seem to be aggravated by background processes, and I was able to get the backup to finally complete by shutting off the screen saver and strictly leaving the PC alone. But the first lockup occurred during an overnight attempt, so only the screensaver or normal background processes could have interfered ... and I really don't find that acceptable. Other backup programs (which I freely admit, I do not like near as well as True Image for features or performance) do not have this problem. Which is exactly why I want a solution, so I don't have to go back to inferior products. But I do need a reliable backup that can run unattended and without me having to jump through hoops.