Can ATI 2020 and Macrium Reflect co-exist?
Can Acronis TI 2020 and Macrium Reflect be used on the same windows machine?
I'm asking because last year I had an Acronis recovery fail and I'm looking to make some changes to my backup routine, including adding redundancy.
SOME BACKGROUND, for those who are interested…
After the Recovery failure, the Acronis support people traced the problem to a File System issue on the drive. For weeks the Acronis software had been creating and validating nightly disk image backups that would later not Recover.
It was only when I attempted to Recover one of those backups that the Acronis Recovery Media informed me with a popup, "Index Corrupted", followed by "Recovery operation failed". Worse, the Recovery Media only informed me of the index problem AFTER it had wiped my drive clean in preparation for the Restore operation. Holy Cow!
After weeks of back and forth with Acronis, an Acronis manager contacted me to apologize and say, "this was an unfortunate situation where the product failed to work." He also said that he had contacted the development team about my case.
For years I had trusted that if an Acronis backup Validated, it would also Recover. I've learned the hard way that it may not.
Luckily, this problem happened on a secondary computer that contained no vital data. But I learned a valuable lesson, and it is this: when Acronis says in the fine print that the only way to be certain that a backup will restore is to test it by restoring to a spare drive… believe it.
As I said earlier, after the Acronis recovery failure of last year I'm making some changes to my backup routine, including adding more redundancy.
That's why I'm asking…
Can Aronis TI 2020 and the free version of Macrium Reflect 7 be used on the same machine?
Thanks.
Steve, thanks for the reply.
You say, "The simple is answer is yes", both ATI 2020 and Macrium can be used on the same machine.
Is there a more detailed answer that involves a bunch of caveats and warnings?
BTW: you're what I was hoping to hear from - somebody who's actually done it. So I'm encouraged by your comment, and I plan to try them both together.
I still like Acronis. But boy oh boy, that failed Revovery last year really shook me. I didn't lose any data, as it was a secondary machine and I always backup up data separately. But like you, I've helped family members set up backup programs. I'd feel pretty badly if their data got lost due to an Acronis failure.
I, too, have used both ATI and Macrium Reflect Free (although not for over a year) and performed a recovery with each. If you had a File System error, though, there's no guarantee that Macrium would have done any better than ATI in handling the problem.
Patrick,
An interesting thing about those File System errors…
I played around with Acronis and made an interesting discovery. At least in the instance that I'm able to recreate, there is a significant difference in how the Installed version of Acronis and the Recovery Media version handle a backup that is non-recoverable due to an underlying File System error.
In the instance I'm able to recreate, neither version of Acronis could recover the backup, but... the Recovery Media version would do real damage before informing you there was a problem. It would wipe the drive clean THEN tell you, "Oh, by the way, the Index is Corrupted" and the backup can't be recovered. Ugh.
The Installed version, however, was much more helpful - and respectful of your data. It would apparently do some sort of quick check on the backup right off the bat, because it would IMMEDIATLEY inform you of the problem and abort the recovery attempt… BEFORE wiping your disk clean.
So a year ago, using ATI 2019, had I tried to recover my disk using the Installed version, no, I wouldn't have been able to recover - but the recovery would have quickly aborted and my disk would have remained intact. And I could have perhaps found and fixed the hidden File System error. (BTW: I was able to run chkdsk on the backup - the errors show up - at least in the instance I tried.)
I brought the issue up with support. I asked them basically, if the installed version is able to immediately test the backup at the start of the recovery and very quickly flag a problem before the recovery begins, why isn't that same test run on newly created backups (or when backup is validated). In that way, the "Index Corrupted" issue would be discovered by the user at the time the backup was created - not when the recovery is attempted.
I understand there is the issue of adding time to the backup process, etc. But in my view, I'd gladly wait a few more seconds/minutes for the backup to complete if it meant a truly recoverable backup. (Then again, the backups of my OS drive are relatively small compared to some of the nightly backups that are done.)
Anyway, back to the Acronis vs Macrium question, I thought that I would perhaps try each on that File System error situation I'm able to recreate, then see how each handles the backup & restore processes. Maybe one does a better of job of flagging/informing that the other.
You need to keep in mind that both Macrium and Acronis use a Pre-install environment (recovery media) for recovery purposes. This is akin to a command line equivalent so it only follows the commands issued.
Acronis documentation encourages validation be run prior to recovery of a backup. Did you attempt to run validation on your backup prior to the recovery attempt? Where you aware that validation can be run with the recovery media by a right click on the backup file and selecting the validate option? Validation will not guarantee that a backup is recoverable true however, I have had validation run from the recovery media flag a corrupted backup including index errors when run prior to the recovery attempt.
I doubt seriously that Macrium will fair any better than Acronis here but give it a shot. You'll never know unless you try. I for one will be watching for the outcome.
RAA wrote:I brought the issue up with support. I asked them basically, if the installed version is able to immediately test the backup at the start of the recovery and very quickly flag a problem before the recovery begins, why isn't that same test run on newly created backups (or when backup is validated). In that way, the "Index Corrupted" issue would be discovered by the user at the time the backup was created - not when the recovery is attempted.
I understand there is the issue of adding time to the backup process, etc. But in my view, I'd gladly wait a few more seconds/minutes for the backup to complete if it meant a truly recoverable backup. (Then again, the backups of my OS drive are relatively small compared to some of the nightly backups that are done.)
Dear RAA,
I've registered your feedback as a vote for the existing feature request TI-201473 Implement "Check file system before backup" option, so that the product management can consider future implementation. Yes, validation only checks the integrity of an archive, it won't alert you on the present errors in the file system etc.
Enchantech,
Thanks for your reply. You asked, "Did you attempt to run a validation on your backup prior to the recovery attempt?"
Yes, I did. And that is the problem. The backup validated, but it would not recover.
The backup validated when it was created, and it validated right before the recovery attempt. In fact, I still have that backup and I just checked it - even the newer ATI 2020 validates that backup…. but can't recover it. (Sigh.)
When I experienced the failed recovery I wanted to know what had gone wrong.
So I spent weeks going back and forth with Acronis, doing all they asked, including checking and changing hardware, submitting numerous Acronis System Reports under various recovery conditions they requested, etc.
And throughout the process, I kept asking Acronis the simple question, "Did the software create and validate a backup that could not be recovered?"
Well, as I mentioned elsewhere, eventually Acronis admitted that was the case.
I like Acronis, but I'm looking into other software solutions, such as Macrium, in the hope that they might warn of any File System problems at the time of creation and/or validation, not at the time of Recovery.
Ekaterina,
Thanks for "registering" my feedback with the development team. Unfortunately that was done a year ago, so it's disappointing to see that no changes have been made to correct the issue.
The most frustrating part of this File System situation is that, in the circumstances I am able to replicate, the installed verion of Acronis, very early in the Recovery process, detects the File System problem hidden inside the "validated" backup, and aborts the Recovery.
This causes me to wonder, as I did last year, "Why don't the Acronis creation and validation processes run that same quick check?" If they did, users such as myself might not end up with a month's worth of backups that "validate" but never had a chance at being recoverable.
For other users who might be reading this in the future, two things:
First, take it from a guy who has experienced the nightmare of a Recovery popup saying "Index Corrupted - backup not recoverable", make sure your system periodically runs CHKDSK as part of your maintenence routine. (Unfortunately, there are many average users who will not even know what that is and are relying on Acronis to take care of those types of things in the background.)
Second, take to heart the fineprint in the Acronis manual that suggests that if you want to know if your "validated" backup will actually recover, perform a test recovery on a spare drive. Acronis knows the capabilities and limitations of their software better than we do - they have put that warning in there for a reason.
BTW: I commend Acronis for keeping these forums up and running. These discussions provide non-professional users such as myself with valuable information. And they no doubt continue to help make Acronis a better product.
RAA,
Just to be clear, you did run validation using the recovery media to do so prior to the recovery attempt correct?
Enchantech,
Your question led to a SURPRISING DISCOVERY! And a RECOVERED BACKUP!
You asked if I had run validation using the recovery media prior to the recovery attempt. The short answer is YES, with the details being…
The orig disk image was created using ATI 2017. Using both ATI 2017 & ATI 2019 (Installed and Media versions), all validations of the disk image succeed, but all recovery attempts fail - with the added disappointment that the Recovery Media of both years wipes the disk.
But your question prompted me to run that old non-recoverable disk image thru ATI 2020, which I'm now using in trial. (My evaluation of 2020 is what prompted the original question in the thread, which is "Can ATI 2020 and Macrium run on the same machine.")
Anyway, I was shocked to find that the ATI 2020 Recovery Media (linux-based) was able to do what installed and Media versions of 2017 & 2019 could not - it recovered the disk image. (I've repeated the tests numerous times just to be sure - with all three: 2017, 2019 and 2020. And I smile every time 2020 succeeds.)
Those who have followed this thread know that there was no valuable data on that orig disk image, so this is kind of a moral victory. But it's an interesting discovery nonetheless. This suggests that Acronis may have made some change in the recovery process that allows ATI 2020 to recovery what 2017 & 2019 could not - at least for this one disk image.
Last year Acronis and I went back and forth for weeks trying different things, until Acronis finally concluded the application had, to use the Aronis supervisors word, "failed".
Well, maybe we just gave up too soon. Maybe we should have kept at it until ATI 2020 was released. :)
Perhaps others will see this post in the future and pull out a "non-recoverable" disk image to try under a newer version of Acronis. And maybe some who try that will get lucky and be able to recover a disk that was "lost" forever. (To any who may try this, to repeat, it was the linux-based Media version of 2020 that succeed - I didn't try other Media.)
One final note: the recovered image still contains those same File System errors that made their way into the orig backup, and which caused that backup to be non-recoverable under 2017 (image creator) & 2019. So to any who are successful in recovering a disk image under similar circumstances - you may consider running CHKDSK on the recovered disk in order to find and fix the errors. I did and it worked.
What an unexpected turn of events.
And all thanks goes to Enchantech, who's question serendipitously led to the discovery.
To quote Artie Johnson... "very interesting".
I'd be interested to know if the WinPE recovery media can produce the same results. Will you be experimenting with that?
RAA,
Thank you and glad to hear of your success. Things have changed in the 2020 version indeed.
BrunoC,
I can confirm that the WinPE version behaves in a like manner. I recently had a backup I created of a system disk on a clients machine which I tried to recover to a new SSD. That failed with an non-bootable disk. Because the disk was an MBR disk and the backup was actually done by TI 2020 installed I decided to have a look at the backup in explorer. What I found was something I had never seen before. In the recovery partition I found what was reported as a WinRE partition marker.
So I decided I would backup the disk using the WinPE TI 2020 media and then attempt recovery to the SSD. Before the recovery began I ran a validation, it showed the image had an index error and suggested using disk tools to correct the issue after recovery. So I ran recovery to the SSD and this time it succeeded! Shutdown of the machine, removal of the source drive, and attach the new SSD resulted in Windows 10 finding the error prior to Windows start, chkdsk ran, fixed the error and the disk booted no problem. That was a good 3 months ago and the client has been a happy camper since.
I had a good idea that the same would work here as well. I'm glad that in this instance the Linux version was used so now I know how I might expect that to work.
BrunoC,
Sorry, but it'll be a while until I'm able to access that computer. So I'll defer to Enchantech, who says she's tried the WinPE version and it behaves in like manner.
RAA,
I had the identical problem and spent weeks like you generally being asked to repeat the same steps by supposedly more responsible technicians. I also raised the issue that ATI should not report a valid backup file when attempting a restore immediately reports that the backup is not useable. Luckily I didn't lose the disk as I cloned it and put the original aside.
My original disk must have had the issue for a long time as backups over a month old had the same problem.
As far as I know ATI happily reports backups as valid when they are useless and Acronis staff are taking weeks to look at identical problems from at least two users and then apologizing, as though it were a newly identified problem, and not making any change.
Why does it never show up as a known issue on Update releases.
Two attempted restores, the one like yours and one where I discovered that differential backups must all be present for a restore. And no restores.
Which is why I am considering the same as you.
Richard