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Backup to a USB disk using its volume name not drive letter

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I have 2 USB HDD backup disks I alternate in my computer. I'm using Win 10 Pro and Acronis true image 2017.
USB 1 drive Q
USB 2 drive x
Occasionally windows 10 will lose the drive name I set and use a default like E.
When this happens the Auto backup fails.
I downloaded the 2020 version but this feature doesn't appear to be there.
Does anyone have a simple solution?

thanks

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Nick, welcome to these public User Forums.

How many backup tasks are involved here?  ATI does not play nicely when rotating disks for a single backup task, so it is always recommended to have one task per disk.

If your drive letters are being lost, then that is outside of the control of ATI but it should be possible for ATI to handle a change in letter, i.e. from Q to E within a single task, as Acronis should be looking at the partition identifier on the drive to confirm the correct drive, rather than just looking at the drive letter.  My understanding is that this should be implemented in ATI 2020.

The other option to present the backup from running if the correct drive is not found, is to use a small Pre Command batch file to test for the correct drive letter, but this won't help if the drive is present but using a different drive letter.

See KB 62741: Acronis True Image: rotating backup destination disks requires separate backup plans per destination disk

Hi Steve,

Thank you for your quick response.

I have read some of your replies to other people asking the same type of question in the past. Thank you for that but it still isn't clear. Acronis 2020 doesn't appear to have this feature. 

I have 2 independent tasks and they both start at the same time each day. I know one task will always fail as the backup disk might not be in the computer as I alternate them. This usually works well except for windows occasionally changing my drive name back to default like E. I'm quite surprised Acronis, being a pro product doesn't have a box you can tick to use volume name instead of the drive letter.

I read that Acronis 2020 fixes this but I have given it a try and I get the same result. There isn't anywhere in the backup settings that point to this option.

Can you suggest any documentation on the 2020 partition identifier settings? 

Thanks.

Nick, I don't think that this is documented in the KB or user guides but see forum topic: Change of target drive has confused Acronis - where this has come up previously related to ATI 2019.

Quick question, have your backup tasks been brought forward from ATI 2017 to ATI 2020, as if so, they may not be taking advantage of the change here?

Try reselecting the Destination for the backup tasks in the ATI 2020 GUI.

Note: if you create new Disks & Partitions tasks in 2020, they will be using .tibx files, not .tib.

Hi Steve,

Thank you. I read the full topic you suggested. I will set up a new test backup with the trial Acronis 2020 onto a newly formatted USB HDD disk. When finished,  I'll change the drive letter,  attempt another backup and report back.

Thanks again for your prompt reply.

Really appreciate it. Nick

 

The tests I created worked. I changed the drive letter after every backup, to a random letter, and Acronis 2020 didn't miss a beat. All backups were created as planned.

Partition Identifier works fine.

When did this feature get introduced?    2018,  2019 or 2020?

Nick

Nick, I believe it was introduced in 2019 rather than earlier but great to see your testing was all successful!

Steve, I think it may have first appeared in one of the later builds of ATI 2018. As always, I could be confused about that.

Ian