Skip to main content

Sector by Sector Backup Failure

Thread needs solution

I am running ATI 2021 build 39287. I have tried to a sector-by-sector backup of my C: drive, but I continue to get an error "file system is too large (32bit)". I have had to resort to the old Windows 7 Backup in order to make a disk image. Does anyone know how to get the sector backup to work. The drive I am trying to image is a WDC WD10EZEX-21WN4A0 1 terabyte SATA HDD

0 Users found this helpful

Dennis, welcome to these public User Forums.

A question: why do you want to make a sector-by-sector mode backup image?

Sector-by-sector is not normally needed or recommended unless you are dealing with a drive that is already failing due to bad sectors etc where a normal backup generates lots of error messages.

Windows 7 backup does not make a sector-by-sector backup image to my knowledge - if it did then the image should be of a very similar size to your 1TB source drive.

A normal Acronis backup will capture all used sectors on the source disk drive along with using a default compression of around 20% to keep the image size to a reasonable size, this includes excluding various system files that will be automatically created by Windows on boot.

I have been using ATI since version 2009. I am a retired IT professional with 25 years of experience. When my last C drive started to fail I booted with the emergency recovery disk I created and then did a full restore. After the restore I still had to reinstall all of my applications to get everything to work correctly. Windows 7 system image is an exact copy of the drive you are backing up, sector by sector. That image file is the same size as the drive you want to image, and you don't have the option to selectively pick files or folders to restore. With a sector-by-sector image you can have your PC up and running without having to do extra work. Not so with my experience doing a full backup using ATI. Image backups and regular ATI backups are like comparing an apple to an orange.

frestogaslorastaswastavewroviwroclolacorashibushurutraciwrubrishabenichikucrijorejenufrilomuwrigaslowrikejawrachosleratiswurelaseriprouobrunoviswosuthitribrepakotritopislivadrauibretisetewrapenuwrapi
Posts: 2
Comments: 1727

Hello Dennis.

Usually that can happen when you are executing the backup of the C drive and saving the backups on the same C drive. 

Please check the best practices for the disk backups: https://kb.acronis.com/content/69477

The troubleshooting of that kind of issues may require further investigation if everything is settled properly according to the KB.

If the issue persists, feel free to contact our support with a screenshot of the backup plan and the system report of the machine https://kb.acronis.com/content/69418

To contact our support, please follow this link: https://kb.acronis.com/content/8153

Hope this helps!