How to continue an incremental backup-chain from 2013 with 2018
I have seen that the backup-settings or -schemes are not compatible with 2013-version.... but i would have thought, that continuing a backup with one full and several incrementals would be possible. It is a file-backup, not a drive backup or image.
I have just tried to add another incremental and instead, it created a full-backup (visible per the backup size).
Any idea or help?
Thanks for the fast answer... that is essentially what i did. The backups where not known and not listed, i added it. I then can view the content, all the 7 different version are listed. And yes, i then have to choose again the drive from which i want to backup, and the incremental setting is already pre-selected. It seems as everything goes fine... it even adds a "LWG_inc_b1_s8_v1" as the eight file in the chain.
But the size is 150GB instead the expected 200MB.
There is only one small difference between what i did and what you propose: I did not select the last incremental file to add the backup-set, i did use the first file. But i do not think this makes the difference... as the system did understand that there are already 7 versions and incremental mode. What do you think?
Are we talking about the same thing when you speak of 7 versions? Do you mean you have 7 full version chains, i.e. 7 sets of files with a full backup and incremental files sharing the same _b?_ identifier? Or do you mean you have one version chain consisting of 7 files, i.e. 1 full plus 6 incremental files?
The reason for selecting the most recent incremental (or full) backup file, is to establish the end of the version chain. If you have selected the initial full backup then this could show a large amount of changes if there had been a large number of incrementals done following it.
I have one version chain consisting of 7 files, i.e. 1 full plus 6 incremental files.
I have selected the first ( the full) file in order to add the already exisiting backup to True Image. Nevertheless, after doing so, i was able to see within True Image the Backup, and when selecting "Recovery" it did show all 7 versions in the dropdown on the top right area of the screen, so True Image did discover that there are 6 incremental add-ons to the first full backup.
So that is why i think that selecting the last file (in this case) does not make the difference.
If it is important: I did also a "validate" before trying to add the new incremental file... also without sucess. Validation was ok, but incremental file was way to big.
If you say it is worth to test with selecting the last file... i will give it a try. It is a litte bit much work, as i am currently testing on a test-version, and after detecting this yesterday, i did restore an older image to my drive c in order to go back to the 2013 version.
I cannot say that it would be worth trying with selecting the last file if that means you having to go to a lot of work to put back the trial version of ATI 2018 and potentially restore back to having your 2013 version again.
The ATI 2018 upgrade recommendation would be to uninstall your 2013 version before doing the upgrade which potentially would lose your backup task configuration.
I suspect that the best way forward if you decide to go with ATI 2018 would be to configure a new backup task rather than trying to continue one that was created with the older version, but keeping the old backup version chain files until any new chain has been established.
Yes... that is also my impression.
Which then renders an upgrade useless, as i am having currently no problem with 2013 on my windows 10, i just wanted to avoid possible problems i maybe do not foresee.
The only issue i had once is that after an image restore my office was not running, giving a funny errormessage about "side-by-side configuration", which i never heard about... so i had to switch back to the image before that, which then worked without problem. That simply let me start thinking about an upgrade.
Ok, so what... i will stick with 2013 for now, and thanks for your help.
If ATI 2013 is doing what you want and working for you, then that is fine.
ATI 2013 is not officially supported by Acronis for use with Windows 10, the same for 2014 too but again is hardly an issue if all is OK.
Currently only users with ATI 2018 receive any support since a recent change by Acronis which now limits support to 1 year since the release date plus 2 months. This is still much better than their original 30-days from date of purchase for support that was in place when you got the 2013 version!
Ok, i had some time to test, so here are the results:
De-installed TrueImage 2013 via standard Windows 10 "Apps & Features" functionality, which went perfect.
Did test few areas (existing directories) per this information:
https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-true-image-2017-forum/how-unins…
All mentioned directories were gone, so i assume the de-install went fine.
After that i did install the test-version of 2018. I imported the backup set (File-Backup, one full and 6 incremental) by selecting the last incremental part of that set. Worked perfect.
I then did run a validate with success.
Then i did try to create a new incremental part. While doing that, i definitely did have different options as i had before, for example i did see an option which said "Do a full backup every 6 files", which i did de-select. So your tip, to first de-install the old version, is very very valid.
Nevertheless... the created backup was a full-backup, 350GB instead of 200MB i was expecting. Even bigger than before.
This is just for additional information, no help needed here. Just wanted to let you know what the results are. Again, thanks for the support.
Thanks for sharing your further tests and results, the feedback is appreciated.
Well.... the plan to switch to newest 2018 still does not leave my head, unfortunately ;-)
I really would like to keep my incrementals... i have just right now tested an incremental backup with 2013 and it did take less than one minute and created a ~300MB file.
Why do i want to keep the incrementals? I have moved files around, i have deleted old versions of files, but i still would like to be able to restore those older versions of files. A new full backup would take that option away.
Now, here is my idea:
What if i would install 2018, and then use a currently unused disk and the version 2018 to restore first full version of the 2013 file backup. Then backup that as full 2018-version under a new name.
Now i would restore first incremental version from the 2013 set, with the 2018 version of the software. Then... create the first incremental file-backup in the 2018 set.
The question is: Would a restore of this first incremental file-backup not only restore the new files, but also redo the deletions i had done before that incremental backup? If yes.... that would work and i would be able to transform the one full- and 6 incremental- backups into a newer 2018 version of one full- and 6 incremental- backups.
I would assume that your approach would work but would also be quite a lot of work to do.
The other approach is to simply keep your ATI 2013 backup version chains as they are and start afresh with ATI 2018 by creating a new version chain starting with a new Full backup.
You could still add the 2013 chain to the GUI as a dormant task so that you are able to recover any individual files from any of the recovery points in that chain, while also building the new chain for capturing further changes occurring on your system.
Last question: When i have first full version restored, and then, after a while, i restore the first incremental.... what will the system do? Will it simply restore the changes which were done between end of fullbackup and beginning of incremental backup... or will it redo the restore of the first backup and then add the changes?
Simply restoring the changes would mean not too much of time to spend... all incrementals would be very fast again.
When you restore an incremental backup, the whole backup to that point is restored after the drive is first cleared, so each time you restore a newer incremental, this will be repeated including wiping the drive each time too.
If you do test this using an used disk drive, then you may need to ensure that the disk signature is restored each time so that this remains the same value.
Currently running a test doing what i have stated above... without taking care about the disk signature, as your post came in after i did start already.
And yes, you are right, the incremental restore after the previous one includes a full restore of the first full-backup in that chain. I was hoping to get that faster done.
Will report back what the results are. Currently looking very promising as the new incremental backups are way faster then in 2013, and they are having similar size, so i assume the same job is done there.
Whatever... i am talking about file-backup, not partition or disk mode. And i am talking about files on a non-sys partition. So i am wondering how and where to activate disk signature restore, and for what reason.
Will have one full set of restore done by tomorrow and will let you know.
The disk signature is really more applicable to Disk & Partition backups rather than to Files & Folders, so hopefully won't come into play here.
Have some new findings.. but still not really the solution.
When restoring one incremental after the other to another harddisk, then i always have to clean the disk before starting. When applying a file-restore to a drive, the files already on the disk are not deleted. So when i am applying one incremental version after the other (in order to create 2018 incremental versions from each), and when i am not deleting the disk before each incremental restore, i end up with all files on the disk which i ever had.
But that is not a big issue, one simply has to know that a cleanup before the restore is the trick.
Whatever... creating an incremental set of filebackup on one physical harddrive, and then trying to create one additional incremental version from a different physical harddrive, that works perfect, as long as the drive letter is the same.
So i did swap the drive letters, did all the restores from 2013 version and the incremental backups with 2018 version, and when finished, i swapped driveletters again to have drive "G" point to a different physical harddrive, but with same content. Next incremental was perfect, fast and small.
However, creating incremental backup on one driveletter and then, if you decide to change the drive letter name, the next incremental version will be a full version. How do i overcome this problem? If there is a trick to do this then i am all set. I cannot believe that when one simply changes a drive letter, that the whole incremental backupchain cannot be continued?
I believe that ATI is probably working as intended with regards to changing the source drive letter when creating incremental backups. This is because the Acronis Database stores details of the source data including the drive letter and will consider the changed drive letter to be effectively a new drive, hence a full backup is made. I am not aware of any tricks to get around this design other than to keep the drive letter the same throughout the incremental backup.
You could open a Support Case with Acronis for this issue on the ATI 2018 version and see what answer they give you?
Do you think, that when using the Desaster Recovery Boot Media, all operations are done in same way as the standard installed SW? Then i could use that environment to restore old version of data and to backup it into 2018 versions backups.
Booting in that environment already changes drive letters to whatever any logic decides... so my drive letters are mixed up already. If there would be a possibility in that recovery environment to change drive letters, then this would be a perfect way to transform the old backups into a new set. Because in that environment no Microsoft service is involved, i could easily restore old versions of data and save them into 2018 format, without letting things like onedrive, onenote, and whatever online synch service get nuts while i am doing that.
Opening a support case at Acronis is currently not possible, as i am testing on the test version which still runs 20 days for me...
The key difference in using the Acronis Rescue Media is that it is totally standalone and does not care about or use the Acronis Database. It also does not provide any default Exclusions for such as the pagefile, swapfile and hiberfil etc, plus no scheduling is possible, and all logs are volatile, i.e. lost after a reboot unless saved while still in the Rescue Media environment.
See KB 2705: Technical support for trial versions which documents that you are eligible for support during the period of your trial product usage.
Hui... there are some tradeoffs i wasn't aware off... but thanks for the KB... will check with support.
You can still set Exclusions but have to do this manually each time you are using the Rescue Media.
The actual interface for the Rescue Media is more akin to that of the older versions of ATI and the logs are in the format used by older versions too.
Have now feedback from support... changing drive letter always forces a fullbackup, no incremental possible. Too bad.
I also had some trouble with generating a second set of backup of another drive... it automatically did give the backupfile a name as if it was continuing the first set of files. So i simply did rename the folder where the first backupset was stored. After that, and after letting Acronis 2018 know where the files are, it obiously started creating a new incremental based on the first full-backup-file. Somewhat strange. I do not have this behaviour with the 2013 version. So i think i am going to stick with the 2013-version.
Thanks for your help here !