Acronis True Image Home 2011 - Backup/Restore to UNC Causes Mapped Drives to Disconnect
A little history - I have upgraded to Acronis True Image Home 2011 after using 2009 for several years. I am backing up a local set of folders and storing the backups on a shared folder on a Windows Server 2008 machine. The upgrade allowed the backups to continue to function but if I wanted to make any changes, when prompted for credentials they failed every time. I was finally able to resolve this issue by deleting all of my mapped drives and rebooting. I then specified the same credentials to Acronis that I use to map my network drives, this time they validated and I was able to add back my mapped drives (there are four mapped drives that have the same machine name as the destination for the backup files). I know from the past that you have to use the same credentials with accessing folders on the same machine ("server"). Windows 7 seems a little bit different but it is something I avoid. However, ATIH 2009 allowed me to use a different username and password (ATIH 2009 I don't believe could actually validate the username and password but it let me use it and it worked OK).
The issue - however, in the morning after the backup completes or if I restore files from a backup, the mapped network drives shows that they are disconnected. I use Directory Opus version 9 and it really has a difficult restoring them but if I run explorer, the drives show a big red X and if I click on them, the folder content is shown (near instantly, no hesitation), I repeat for all four drives and life is wonderful until the next morning (typically I don't perform any restores but the same thing occurs if I restore files).
It seems that when Acronis True Image Home 2011 runs, it connects with the provided credentials but seems to "log off" when the task is completed. I have two scheduled backups that run at night (separated by about 30 minutes) and then run OK. Anyone have any idea how to resolve this issue?
BTW - I have spent numerous hours searching the forum but no one has reported this particular problem. Thank you!
George,
You are not alone. I have the same problem. I even hooked the system up to a Linux server to check exactly why this is happening. Acronis TI issues a "disconnect" command for the mapping of ALL drives one it has finished. Why?
The only way, I have found to overcome this is to have a batch file on my Windows desktop which maps all the drives again. I have to run this after every backup operation.
I have tried to use the UNC name to avoid this disconnection, but for some reason, as soon as Acronis works out that the UNC refers to a mapped drive, it substitutes the target file with mapped drive reference and again, all the drives dissappear after the backup operation is completed.
In the past with earlier versions of Acronis TI, I had no problems in backing up to mapped drives and running "verify" as the drives remained mapped after the backup. Now all I get is "network path not found".
My only conclusion is that this product is not used much in a corporate environment (with multiple mapped drives), hence, nobody is reporting the problem.
This is the same problem I've been having, I think. I have no trouble scheduling the backup using my credentials but the next time I want something from my network/mapped drive I find I have to remap it, every time. Is there a way to make it stop doing that? It's not just disconnecting the Z drive where my backups go, it's also disconnecting X and Y. I assume the next backup would fail if I didn't remap afterwards.
When using ATI with a network drive, use a UNC path to to your NAS device for a backup destination, not a typical friendly "mapped" drive.
e.g.
\\192.168.2.25\My Backups\
I believe it may also be possible to use a UNC path that includes server name rather than IP, such as
\\server1\My Backups\