cannot find version 6(5,4,3,2,1)

How are you trying to recover your files, is it from within Windows or when using the bootable Rescue Media?

If it is from within Windows, then it is possible that the drive letter where your backups were created has changed - try running a Validation against the backup task that created the backup.

One of the reasons for this type of message is because the Acronis Database files hold information on the backup which is different to what is being presented for recovery.

Please try booting from the Rescue Media (on CD/DVD or USB stick) as this doesn't use the Acronis Database information at all and works directly with the backup files you select on your backup drive.

Sounds like perhaps you manually moved or deleted some of the backup files in Windows Explorer at some point after they were created in Acronis.  

If you did manually move them, when prompted, you are prompted to "locate" the files in which you'd navigate to the correct file to update Acronis so it knows that's where you moved it .  Or, if you manually deleted some of the backups, then you need to "ignore" those as you started to do, but will need to do that for every file it originally wrote and logged in the database when the backup was originally created.  Once you clear those out, then you should be able to restore whatever is left - assuming there are files in the original location still.  

As Steve mentioned, if the backup files do exist somewhere, a good test to see if you can recover is to use the bootable recovery media.  Then navigate to the backup file with it and restore to a new/different or test location and make sure it works.  If you get similar messages that versions are missing, then check to make sure that you moved all of them if you did manually do so outside of Acronis and through Windows Explorer. 

Long story short, don't manually move or delete backup files outside of Acronis if you want it to function correctly from within Windows.  The recovery media doesn't care where the files are stored as long as all of them are in the same folder and properly named since you just navigate to the one you want to use and it doesn't look for any database references like the Windows version of the application does. 

About backup chains and automatic cleanup...that I learned from an online chat session.

If you are trying to restore something and get the message "Cannot find version #.", then your backup files may be chained or linked to old backup files that no longer exist.  If you keep selecting "Ignore this version" enough times, then eventually Acronis (I'm using 2016) will find a file that does exist within the chain (i.e., more recent backup files that have been created). 

This happens most often when users manually delete older versions of backup files.  To "break" the backup chain, you must select Disk Backup Options > Backup Scheme > Turn on automatic cleanup.  While I could not find any good documentation on automatic cleanup, I was referred to the following: http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2017/index.html#1…

"Automatic cleanup" will delete your old backup files for you and break the chains, or links, to older backup files that no longer exist.

Hope this helps...it was driving me crazy.  It seems like an undocumented feature or glitch to me.

I have the same problem - discovered when I tried validation of the backups. Although it says "or ignore this message", the only way is to select cance, which means that the validation stops. So, that suggests that my backups are invalid. I have not manually moved or deleted any backup files, and have had automatic cleanup on all the time.

Any suggestions on if the backups are useable, and how to avoid this in future - i.e. having unuseable backups and not knowing about it?

Brian, welcome to these user forums.

If you are doing a validation of your backup task, then you should take the Ignore option for any missing file / version messages.  This type of issue can be caused by having actual missing files or by problems in the Acronis database files.

A listing of your backup drive contents showing all the backup files with their full names would help along with examples of the error message you are seeing, or the log file from the validation action.  

Download the Log File Viewer app from the link in my signature which will help you review the log files more easily.

Thanks for the response, Steve.

The error message says to ignore the problem - but does not have anywhere to select "ignore", just retry ot cancel.

I have identified an intermittent hard drive error on the backup drive. Intermittent,  because I ran chkdsk several times, and it found no problems, but then found and fixed errors just once. A h/w tool that I downloaded from Seagate (Seatools) found error(s) all the time. So I've replaced the drive, and think that will cure the problem - validate is running now.

Just as a general point, I find that the TI s/w is very good at failing when there are h/w errors that don't appear to affect the general operation of the system. I had a similar issue a few months ago where it turned out main memory had errors, but only TI was noticing, and producing invalid backups.

try{(function() {if (typeof(lpcurruser) == 'undefined') lpcurruser = ''; if (document.getElementById('lpcurruserelt') && document.getElementById('lpcurruserelt').value != '') { lpcurruser = document.getElementById('lpcurruserelt').value; document.getElementById('lpcurruserelt').value = ''; } if (typeof(lpcurrpass) == 'undefined') lpcurrpass=''; if (document.getElementById('lpcurrpasselt') && document.getElementById('lpcurrpasselt').value != '') { lpcurrpass = document.getElementById('lpcurrpasselt').value; document.getElementById('lpcurrpasselt').value = ''; } var lploc=1;var lponlyfill=1;var lpdontsubmit=1;lpcurruser = ''; lpcurrpass = '';})();}catch(e){}
try{(function() {if (typeof(lpcurruser) == 'undefined') lpcurruser = ''; if (document.getElementById('lpcurruserelt') && document.getElementById('lpcurruserelt').value != '') { lpcurruser = document.getElementById('lpcurruserelt').value; document.getElementById('lpcurruserelt').value = ''; } if (typeof(lpcurrpass) == 'undefined') lpcurrpass=''; if (document.getElementById('lpcurrpasselt') && document.getElementById('lpcurrpasselt').value != '') { lpcurrpass = document.getElementById('lpcurrpasselt').value; document.getElementById('lpcurrpasselt').value = ''; } var lploc=2;var lponlyfill=1;var lpdontsubmit=1;lpcurruser = ''; lpcurrpass = '';})();}catch(e){}

Brian, thanks for the update on this issue.

Intermittent hardware errors can be much harder to diagnose and detect, so tools like CHKDSK may not find them - this is especially so when you are backing up multiple partitions including hidden ones, as CHKDSK will only check those partitions with an assigned drive letter that you specify.

Tools like SEATOOLS run against the whole disk drive, ignoring any partitioning the drive may have, so will pick up problems regardless of where they are located.  

ATIH works in a similar way to the Seagate tool, in that it runs a a very low level in the OS and works at a sector level on the drive, so will encounter these hardware issues and trip over them if the error handling options do not allow the data to be accessed on retry.  It tends to be fairly memory intensive so will also expose any latent memory module issues that may not show under normal OS use.

Brian Whiteside wrote:

Thanks for the response, Steve.

The error message says to ignore the problem - but does not have anywhere to select "ignore", just retry ot cancel.

I have identified an intermittent hard drive error on the backup drive. Intermittent,  because I ran chkdsk several times, and it found no problems, but then found and fixed errors just once. A h/w tool that I downloaded from Seagate (Seatools) found error(s) all the time. So I've replaced the drive, and think that will cure the problem - validate is running now.

Just as a general point, I find that the TI s/w is very good at failing when there are h/w errors that don't appear to affect the general operation of the system. I had a similar issue a few months ago where it turned out main memory had errors, but only TI was noticing, and producing invalid backups.

In a sense, Acronis can be a "heads up" for failing hardware for these reasons.  Had you not seen the errors in Acronis, the disk may have chugged along for awhile, getting worse and worse and possibly corruping more and more data as it wore on.  If Seatools is throwing errors everytime, that's just confirmation of what Acronis is already telling you.  A failing disk can work for awhile, but for how long, who can say.  And as it gets worse, there's more likely to be data corruption, perhaps undetected by the OS as the corruption could be occurring in non OS locations.  Ultimately, just glad you found the issue and were able to confirm a problem with the disk in seatools as well.  If you have the disk still, you can run the free version of hard disk sentinel on it and it will give you an approximate "remaining life %" of the disk as well. 

Thanks for the input from both Steve and Bobbo. I will use hard disk sentinel.

I appreciate both comments. I guess my only concern about Acronis is that it didn't flag up the errors; it was only when I ran validate and that gave me an Acronis error message that I knew there was a problem of some kind, and then had to find out what it was. I guess I'll have to validate much more frequently.

try{(function() {if (typeof(lpcurruser) == 'undefined') lpcurruser = ''; if (document.getElementById('lpcurruserelt') && document.getElementById('lpcurruserelt').value != '') { lpcurruser = document.getElementById('lpcurruserelt').value; document.getElementById('lpcurruserelt').value = ''; } if (typeof(lpcurrpass) == 'undefined') lpcurrpass=''; if (document.getElementById('lpcurrpasselt') && document.getElementById('lpcurrpasselt').value != '') { lpcurrpass = document.getElementById('lpcurrpasselt').value; document.getElementById('lpcurrpasselt').value = ''; } var lploc=1;var lponlyfill=1;var lpdontsubmit=1;lpcurruser = ''; lpcurrpass = '';})();}catch(e){}
try{(function() {if (typeof(lpcurruser) == 'undefined') lpcurruser = ''; if (document.getElementById('lpcurruserelt') && document.getElementById('lpcurruserelt').value != '') { lpcurruser = document.getElementById('lpcurruserelt').value; document.getElementById('lpcurruserelt').value = ''; } if (typeof(lpcurrpass) == 'undefined') lpcurrpass=''; if (document.getElementById('lpcurrpasselt') && document.getElementById('lpcurrpasselt').value != '') { lpcurrpass = document.getElementById('lpcurrpasselt').value; document.getElementById('lpcurrpasselt').value = ''; } var lploc=2;var lponlyfill=1;var lpdontsubmit=1;lpcurruser = ''; lpcurrpass = '';})();}catch(e){}

Brian, Acronis (or other similar backup applications) will only find any errors with the drive or memory when actually doing the backup and thus touching lots of sectors across different partitions, and stressing memory components with the volume of data being transferred across the system bus, so it would be difficult to flag up these errors otherwise.

Glad to hear that you are going for hard disk sentinel which should give you more advanced warning of any potential serious issues on the drive(s).

Please be aware that validation does not touch any of the source data that was included in the backup image file - it is purely a mechanism for recalculating the checksum for the backup image file and comparing it with the value that is stored with the file - if all matches, then the image file passes validation, if not - then it suggests an error with the file.