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back up using up all hard drive space

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Hi,

I have a 256 GB external hard drive. Since I changed my computer and re-installed Acronis ( True Image  Home 2009) to the new PC using vista, the back-up is taking up huge amounts of space i.e. approx 219 GB in 3 back- ups, 1 initial backup and 2 scheduled. Ongoing back ups having no space.

The first back-up was successful using 89,559,755 KB, after that scheduled back-ups soon used up the drive space and failed to open as either corrupt or deemed to be being used by amother process or mounted as a disk.

I have tried to compress the backups but that didn't work either. when on my old computer this drive held lots of my personal stuff and ongoing backups

Can anyone help please

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Irene,

What is your backup scheme? I guess it is the Version Chain scheme? If yes, ATI is doing a first full backup (90GB), then another one (now 180GB used), then start doing differential backups, and you run out of space pretty quickly...
First, make sure that the Vista System Protection is turned off for your backup disk (right click on My Computer, choose properties, System protection).
Second, delete your task and backups and create a new task:
- custom backup scheme,
- incremental backup
- do a new full after 4 incrementals (you will be able to adjust up and down depending on how often you backup and how big the incrementals are so that you always have plenty of space left for a new full backup)
- turn auto-cleaning on
- store no more than 1 most recent backup chain.

This way ATI will do the following:
- Backup (full)
- Backup2 (incremental)
- Backup3 (inc)
- Backup4 (inc)
- Backup5 (inc)
- Backup(1) (new full -> make sure there is enough space for this second backup, plus some as a margin). Then ATI deletes all the previous backups, and cotinues:
- Backup(1)2 (incremental)
- etc.

Thank you so much Pat for your reply, it is very much appreciated.

I did do a full backup initially and then incremental backups as you suggested, they didn't get to four before the drive was full.

I have now wiped it all clean and done a full backup and the incrementals are scheduled up to four, etc in the way you have suggested.The full backup is showing as completed and all ok on the external drive although the log is showing as failed (don'r understand that). The full backup has taken up 90GB, and I will see how it goes now with the incrementals.

The truth is in the log though. If the log says there is a problem, there is a problem. Does the backup validate completely?

ATI doesn't like to have its tasks edited. You are better off delete the existing task and creating a new one, rather than just adjusting the cleanup parameters.

The backup seems to be fine, as I am able to open many different folders, programs etc, which i did so for testing purposes.