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Acronis 2014 won't back up to external usb drives

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Hi Everyone:

I'm having problems backing up a disk image to my usb hard drives.  I've attached the screen shot for the error message I am getting.  I first got it a a 3 TB Western Digital Drive, so I figured it might be a Windows 7 issue, which supposedly limits system storage to 4 TB. (I have three WD drives: two !TB and one 2TB.  But I was able to do a image backup to a new 2TB WD drive last month. Now I'm getting the error: "The specified file does not exist ...."  in the attached screen shot.  I'm wondering if the install was somehow corrupted by Windows Update and the program needs to be uninstalled from within AT and a newer build reinstalled. I'm currently running build 6677, but I also have a copy of build 6688. 

Attachment Size
acronis_screen_shot.jpg 578.6 KB
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Christopher, have you checked that you do not have any automatic cleanup options selected in your backup configuration that could be responsible for files not being found?  The other possibility is that the connection to your drive has been lost or has changed.

If the drive is connected by USB please check that the drive has been given the same drive letter as that you have specified in your backup task, i.e. drive H: according to your image.

With regard to the ATIH 2014 version you have installed then the recommendation is to have the latest build that is available, i.e. 6688.

Hi Steve:

No automatic backups were selected.  The connections to the drives I've been using must still be good, since I can view files and folders in Windows Explorer and other file management programs.  My PC has two USB 3.0 ports.  I switched to another port and got one backup out of it, but then got the same error message as before. I've also switched out cables, with no luck.  These actions were all done after I used the ATI Cleanup Utility and installed the latest build.  What happens when I back up is it takes a long time for ATI to read the hard drive (4-5 minutes) and it starts the backup routine, but the estimated times are very long and after about 5-10 minutes I get the error message.  Luckily, I installed a 1 TB internal drive and was able to backup my hard drive, which has two partitions. For whatever reason, I just cannot backup to a USB external drive (I've been using Western Digital portable [Passport] drives.)

This has to be software-related, since they drives are recognized by my Win 7 Home Premium and the files and folders are accessible.  Do you think an upgrade to ATI 2016 is worth a shot? I'm just a little nervous about not being able to back up to an external drive.

I know some people like to "build" an external drive by buying an internal drive and an enclosure, but I don't have that kind of expertise and I'm not sure how you would power it.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks for your help!

 

Chris

 

Hello Chris,

Some thoughts on this one..

What happens if you try to copy a backup from your internal 1TB HDD to one of your external USB 3.0 WD drives?
Does this succeed or not?

What type of backup scheme are you using here?  Full backups only, Incremental backups or Differential backups?

Your original screen image shows a Full backup image as being reported as being not found.

When you see the same error today, can you open Windows Explorer to the drive location shown in the message and see the file that is reported as being not found?

Please can you post one of the log files from your C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Logs folder that shows one of your backup tasks encountering this error message.  You should be able to find it by the date / time of the task matching when the message was reported.

Do you have the possibility of testing with your WD drive connected to an USB 2.0 port to test whether it is related to how the USB 3.0 is handled?

Hi Steve:

I had thought of copying the backup file from the internal to the external drive, but I was afraid that I would not be able to do a restore from the USB drive. I'll give that a try when I can this week.

I was using a full backup scheme, using the disk image, not partition, option.

I was able to use Windows Explorer to find the folder and the partial backup file that was created.

I think I found the log file you need.  It was from the first backup session today.  It is attached. 

I will try doing a backup to the USB 2.0 port some time this week and let you know how it works.  My guess is it will, but much slower. 

Thanks for your help!

 

Chris

Attachment Size
356260-128761.log 18.27 KB

Hi Chris,

There may be a simpler test that you can try here.

Create Backup Archive From: Disk 3 To file:
H:\My PC Backups\May 8 2016 Disk Image C E WDC WD1002FAEX-00Z3A0\May 8 2016 Disk Image C E WDC WD1002FAEX-00Z3A0.tib

Can you try setting up a much shorter folder and target file name for this backup?

Example:

Create Backup Archive From: Disk 3 to file: H:\My PC Backups\May16\Disk3.tib

Looking at the log file, I am wondering if the file and folder name length is contributing to this problem?

message=The specified file does not exist:
\\?\H:\My PC Backups\May 8 2016 Disk Image C E WDC WD1002FAEX-00Z3A0\May 8 2016 Disk Image C E WDC WD1002FAEX-00Z3A0_full_b1_s1_v2.tib  (whole file/folder path length = 134 chars).