"Recovered" file not visible
Newbie here. I'm not very computer (or Acronis) literate, so maybe I'm missing something here.
In keeping with my philosophy that the best time to find a hole in your lifeboat is BEFORE you hit the iceberg, I've been trying to run a little test to see if I coiuld actually recover a backup (I've been burned before. Backed up religiously but when I needed it, it failed me). I don't actually want to try and recover my one and only full backup (brand new computer) at this time. If it didn't work I would be hosed. I just want to test to see if it can be done.
Long story short, I've been trying to follow the proceedure in an article called "Making sure your rescue media can be used when needed". The idea is that if you can recover a file from a backup, you can probably recover the backup.
I booted from the rescue CD, selected ATI 2016 ("Acronis Loader" doesn't work for some reason, but that's a topic for another day), accessed the Data Recovery and Backup Management window, drilled down to and selected the backup (a somewhat convoluted and confusing process, but I figured it out) on my external hard disk. I selected a "New Location" on my internal hard drive as the destination for the recovery. I drilled down into the backup on my external drive to find a single file, clicked the check box next to the file name, and clicked Next.
The comuter did it's thing and a window popped up that said "Recover Operation Succeeded". I exited ATI and allowed the computer to boot normally. I went to the location on the internal drive that I had specified during the recovery, and the file... was not there. I searched the entire internal drive, the file is nowhere to be found. I've tried this proceedure several times, both with the "Recover Absolute Path" (Whatever THAT is) box selected and de-selected, same results. The "Recovered" file is MIA. Even the log file says that the recovery was successful (although I could not read the entire From/To string in the log file, it was truncated).
This is NOT giving me the kind of warm fuzzy feeling I had been hoping for. I REALLY need to be confident that I can restore from my one and only backup before I try to clone my internal drive (I don't think I am ever going to be really happy until I know I can do a hardware swap and not miss a beat). Fortunately there are no icebergs on the horizon (that I know of).
Don't know if it matters, but the computer is a Dell Inspiron 5558 laptop running Windows 10.
Where did that file go?
gd
OK, that worked (sort of). I couldn't right-click copy and paste, but I could drag it from the external to the internal (yet another mystery).
But that still does not address the underlying question. Why did ATI say "Recover Operation Succeeded" when I can't see the file? It won't do me any good to recover everything if everything I recover is invisible.
Actually, I'm not overly concerned about recovering files (there are multiple ways to do that), I'm just doing that as a test. What I would like to be confident about is whether or not I can recover the operating system and installed software. I have two partitions on my internal HD, one (C:) for the operating system and installed software and one (E:) for my documents, music, data, etc (D: is the DVD burner). I'm not worried about E:, but I would like to be confident that I can do a full recovery of C: from a rescue CD and external drive if and when the excrement hits the ventilator. And I would like to gain that confidence without actually doing a test recovery of C:. I would like to be able to find any holes in the life boat without actually throwing it into the water, if you will.
I had a bad experience on my old computer about 8 months ago. Despite the best efforts of the Acronis support team, I could not recover from a "Blue Screen of Death". I had done Acronis backups on a regular basis but, when the iceberg hit, the life boat had a hole in it. After many concientious, timely and friendly (but horribly technical), e-mails back and forth between myself and Acronis tech support (using a different computer) I gave up. Ironically, I had also backed up that computer using the Windows backup thing in Windows 7. It automatically ran some sort of Check Disk thing that discovered a bad sector, fixed it, and restored the computer. That's the only time in my life that Microsoft worked better than a third-party product. The Acronis software apparently didn't check for bad sectors. Imagine my surprise (and delight) when Microsoft worked. Needless to say, I don't want that to happen again, hence my desire to clone.
I guess the fact that the rescue disk sees the external hard drive is a good sign, and the fact that I can drill down to a backup file and a destination folder are good things, so I'm reasonably confident that I could restore from the rescue disk and external if needed. I guess I will go ahead and take the plunge and make the clone. It would just be nice if Acronis had some sort of app that would give a newbie more confidence that it actually works. Some sort of user-friendly "lifeboat drill", as it were. The one I tried didn't work, at least not for me.
Still want to know where that file went, though.
-geode
Geode,
Try another recovery to a new / empty folder. Is the file there after it says successful or still blank? If it is still blank, open command an elevated command prompt. Let's assume the new folder is on the root of the C: drive and called RecoverTEST
attrib -h -s "C:\RecoverTEST"
The command above removes the System and Hidden Attributes of all files within the specified folder. I have never had to do this with an Acronis recovery, but have with other tools like Windows built in robocopy script.
If the recovery actually worked, but the files somehow ended up "hidden" this will allow you to see them again.
Bobbo,
I think maybe it has to do with whether I am trying to look at an "incremental" file or a "full" file.
I went back just now and, using Windows explorer, was able to find, right click, copy and paste a file from a"full" file (..._full_b3_s1_v1.tib). Couldn't do it from an incremental file (... _inc_b2_s9_v1.tib). Something about "Locate the Volume with the Number "6".
That's OK, though. As long as I can do it from a full file I feel confident.
I successfully did a full restore from from my external drive to a blank internal drive using the rescue CD. Everything went smoothly and looks OK. Lifeboat drill #1 successful.
I later did a clone of the internal drive (using an external USB enclosure) to a blank drive installed inside the laptop using the rescue CD. Everything went fine and I can swap the two drives manually at will. Just what I want. Lifeboat drill #2 successful.
So everything is good. I now have two backups, one on the external drive and one on the spare internal drive that I can swap as needed. I'll use the external drive for routine incremental backups, and re-clone the spare internal maybe once per quarter and keep it off-site.
Thanks for your help,
Geode
Glad it's working for you. Sounds like your full is good, but something happened with the incremental. That message usually means one of the incrementals before the one you clicked on is not there (or corrupt). You won't be able to just move one incremental and open it up - they all need to be in the same folder with the original names. If this was happening in the original folder, one of the incrementals may have gotten corrupted. Fulls are usually more reliable - I will take an offline full at least one a week and hold onto it "just in case"