"This is not the last volume of the backup archive" workaround

Executive summary:

- In my case using the Linux-based recovery media allowed me to circumvent the dreaded "This is not the last volume of the backup archive."

Greetings:

I reach out to you across the time and space that separate us not to ask for help, but to communicate a workaround that I discovered, in case future readers have the same problem I did.

My woes started when my laptop's M.2 SSD started to go bad. Acronis attempted to run the regularly scheduled backup jobs, but was crapping out and reporting that backup jobs were failing due to a bad sector. To troubleshoot this error, I ran chkdsk /r hoping that chkdsk would flag the sector as bad, and life would go on. In the course of doing this troubleshooting, I attempted several to run backup jobs, but they abended each time. The result of this activity was that Acronis' database became unsynchronized with the backup files, and the last few differential files were corrupt and / or incomplete.

Nevertheless, I was confident that the backups from before the degradation were fine.

Dell's SupportAssist diagnostic tool deemed the drive to be bad, and automatically initiated a warranty replacement. Very slick! However, as I would need more capacity in the future, I ordered a replacement M.2 SSD.

While Acronis and Dell were saying the drive was bad, the computer continued to function normally. While I was waiting for the new SSD to arrive, and while the PC was running normally, I diligently created the rescue media using tools > Rescue Media Builder > Simple.

When the new SSD arrived, I pulled the old SSD and installed the new SSD. The computer booted fine off the recovery media. I was able to connect to the network and locate my backups. However, when I attempted to select the restore point, I got the dreaded error "This is not the last volume of the backup archive." This perturbed me acutely, because the presence or absence of the last backup was irrelevant to my needs; I was content to restore from the last backup that was made prior to the drive's degradation.

I attempted to obtain assistance from chat support. However I could not complete the process with them, as I had another item on my calendar. They did proffer one potentially useful idea, which was to validate the backup on a working machine.

The workaround was actually quite simple. Using a working PC, I created a new recovery USB drive using the Linux-based media option. I booted up the Linux-based recovery environment, located my backups on the network, and, mercifully, the Linux recovery environment did not give me any pushback or commentary about the last volume of the archive. Using the Linux recovery media I was able to restore from my last known-good backup.

And now, some editorializing: Gradual hard drive failures are likely to create problems with backups. The main purpose of Acronis is to recover from hard drive failures. Therefore, it is unrealistic to require that every backup in the set - particularly the last ones - be pristine and uncorrupt. Why can't users just manually choose a differential or incremental backup from a time before their problems started?

Some other thoughts that may or may not be relevant to readers:

- Windows 10's File History backup feature is actually decent. To use it, you need a separate drive. If you use a laptop with a CF card slot, you can get a large capacity CF card, and use it as your repository.

- If you backup to an older NAS that does not support the latest SMB version, you may be able to back up your files but the recovery media may not permit connections to devices the older SMB versions.

- If you backup to a network location, e.g. a NAS, and, for whatever reason, you cannot access the NAS from the recovery environment, your backups can always be copied to another device, an external hard drive perhaps, and then restored from a local drive.

RB