Delete?
In the online help for ATI16, I found the following:
To delete an entire backup: In the Backup section, right-click a backup in the backup list, and then click Delete. |
This will remove the scheme as well as all backups for that scheme. Suppose I simply want to remove the oldest backup chain for a particular scheme. According to the following . .
Acronis True Image stores information on the backups in a metadata information database. Therefore, deleting unneeded backup files in Windows Explorer will not delete information about these backups from the database. This will result in errors when the program tries to perform operations on the backups that no longer exist. |
. . . I should not use Windows explorer. So how do I simply remove the oldest backup file(s) so that the scheme is intact but ATI knows that the file is no longer available?
Thanks!


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Steve Smith wrote:Bill, the information that you quoted from the help is correct.
If you use the Delete option within the ATIH GUI, then this only gives 2 options, to delete just the task settings (leaving all the backup files intact), or to delete everything, task setting plus all associated backup files. There isn't an option in the GUI to just delete selected backup versions.
The recommended way to do this is to use the automatic cleanup rules within the backup task settings, i.e. to store not more than X recent version chains. Using automatic cleanup keeps the Acronis Database files reconciled with the actual backup files stored in your destination drive / folder.
It is possible to manually delete backup versions using Windows Explorer but if you do so you then need to run a Validation for the backup task in order to reconcile the database again.
Note: a backup version chain = 1 full backup plus all associated incremental or differential backup files, i.e. all backup files showing the same backup version number, _full_b1_... _inc_b1_... _diff_b1_...
I did have the automatic cleanup set for 7 cycles (chains), but at times it is convenient for me to delete older chains. When I do this, I guess I'll follow this with a validation.
Thanks (again) for the help Steve!
- Bill
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